It seems they've made their choice.
A couple weeks ago I wrote about how, in my humble estimation, the future of women's sports – at least at the collegiate level, but likely beyond – was hanging in the balance. After a male athlete named Will Thomas switched his name to Lia, then switched from the University of Pennsylvania's men's swim team to the women's team, he has shattered a number of school and conference records.
And now, the officials, university presidents, and academics who lead the NCAA have permitted him to do the same at the NCAA championships this last week. It was every bit the travesty of justice critics promised it would be.
To those even peripherally familiar with competitive swimming, that short clip does more than reveal the emotions of a frustrated crowd that refused to applaud until the 2nd and 3rd place finishers touched – a reality that was awkwardly exacerbated at the award ceremony for the 500 meter race.
Besides the crowd reaction, go and watch that full first clip, and notice there is a lot more power there for this male swimmer. The standard burst of energy that swimmers reserve for their final split is not visibly present for Thomas at all. A closer examination at his split times shows an abnormal consistency in all phases of his race, signifying a swimmer that is on cruise control.
Everyone knows this isn't fair, it isn't legitimate, and it isn't moral. The swimmers themselves know it:
It's a fair question why, if they all feel this way, there haven't been petitions and boycotts with the exception of the one anonymous letter from Thomas's teammates to Ivy League officials. But the answer seems more obvious than we want to admit, doesn't it? These college kids have no confidence that the adults in charge will do the right thing. Why would they?
It's the adults in charge that have allowed this charade to get to this point in the first place. It's the adults in charge that pretended they could flirt with madness, defy science in deference to feelings, assail the dignity, uniqueness, and distinct agency of women, without inviting tragically unjust consequences. It's the adults in charge that have brought us to the point where fairness demands we regard second place as the real first place.
Young people victimized by this farce would reasonably have no confidence that their petitions and remonstrances would be heard or heeded. And when they were rejected, that would leave them – the victims of the entire sham – vulnerable themselves to a censure-obsessed media mob, only costing them more opportunities than they are already missing out on.
Afraid of being cancelled, of being dubbed insensitive and "transphobic," they have silently suffered this unjust treatment and the larger disservice towards biological females continues unabated.
And, as it is apt to do, the cancer is spreading beyond the swimming pool. Columnist Rod Dreher commented on the same phenomenon elsewhere:
In my understanding of what is happening in NCAA swimming right now, I concur with Dreher's conclusion here. Assuming this isn't some elaborate hoax, and that Will "Lia" Thomas is truly experiencing a gender dysphoria that convinces him he belongs in a women's locker room, I don't blame him for his own confusion.
But for those appeasing an anti-science minority in the false name of inclusion, fairness, and equity, they do bear responsibility. This despicable injustice being perpetrated against female athletes rests solely at the feet of the academics and university officials that allow it to persist. They – our betters, our elites – have invited this fecal show into our civilization and now murmur the immortalized words of Orwell's 1984:
"Reject the evidence of your eyes and ears…it [is our] final, most essential command."
