Pretty much every decent, right-thinking person in the world agrees that it would be very mean to (a) create a special division for female athletes to compete against each other, and then (b) force women in those divisions to compete against men. It would be a cruel trick to play on women who have invested considerable time and talent into an athletic career.
But of course that's what we're doing now. And to their credit, a growing number of women are speaking out against this—including, most lately, skateboarder Taylor Silverman:
I am a female athlete. I have been skateboarding for eleven years and competing for several years. I have been in three different contests with trans women, two of which I placed second. At the last contest series I did for Redbull, I placed second.
The trans competitor who won took $1000 dollars in qualifiers, $3000 in finals, and $1000 in best trick. This totaled to $5000 of the prize money meant for the female athletes.
I took $1000 in qualifiers and $1750 for second place, so $2750 in total. The girl who took third received $750. The girl who deserved $1000 for best trick took nothing along with whoever would have placed third.
I deserve to place first, be acknowledged for my win, and get paid. I reached out to Redbull and was ignored. I am sick of being bullied into silence.
That's the truth, folks!
Naturally, you'd expect a huge outpouring of support for a woman speaking up so bravely in today's increasingly anti-woman political environment. Unfortunately, the vast majority of responses to Silverman's call-out have instead attempted to convince her that the problem isn't the man she was competing against—the problem was rather her.
This is what women have to put up with now when they speak out against being forced to compete against men—an army of online trolls—people who probably call themselves "feminists" with no trace of irony whatsoever—telling these athletes they're bigoted, stupid, sub-par competitors.
The transgender zeitgeist has made hateful monsters out of so many people. Let's hope it passes soon.
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