One of the more puzzling aspects of the Social Justice Warrior long march through the Democratic Party is how laughably absurd assertions that no sane person would have entertained 20 years ago have now become the latest (and therefore most sacred) belief of the victimhood identity politics left.
As a case in point, take the suddenly widespread, irrational and unscientific notion that “sex is a social construct” or that “gender is fluid.” Both of these are lies. The sex of an individual human being, as with all other primates, is determined genetically before birth. If you have XX chromosomes, you’re female, and if you have XY chromosomes you’re male, the only exceptions being an exceptionally tiny handful of odd genetic corner cases that make up a vanishingly small fraction of the human population. All a “sex change” operation does is change a person’s outer appearance, it does not change their genetically-determined sex.
Enter the Democratic Party, which is all in on the radical transsexual agenda.
The Democratically controlled House of Representatives voted Friday 236-173 in favor of the Equality Act, which would require schools to include male athletes who identify as transgender girls on female sports teams.
Eight Republicans crossed party lines to vote for the bill, which had unanimous Democratic support.
The bill amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to make “sexual orientation and gender identity” protected characteristics under federal anti-discrimination law.
Among other things, that would force public schools to expand female athletic teams to include biological males who identify as transgender girls.
Republican Florida Rep. Greg Steube introduced a last-minute amendment to the bill that would have preserved Title IX’s protections of female athletic teams, but Democrats rejected it.
Every House Democrat but one co-sponsored the legislation. The only Democrat who wasn’t a co-sponsor, Illinois Rep. Dan Lipinski, announced his support for the bill following pressure from left-wing activists.
“People need to wake up. This radical bill is going to totally eliminate women’s and girls sports,” Republican Arizona Rep. Debbie Lesko warned in an op-ed Thursday.
Republican Missouri Rep. Vicky Hartzler and a half-dozen other House Republicans held a press conference Thursday in opposition to what Hartzler dubbed the “Inequality Act.”
“Congress enacted Title IX to provide equal opportunities for women in education and sports. All this is erased under H.R. 5,” Hartzler said at the press conference.
It’s not just women’s sports. Hartzler fears that it could also affect “domestic-violence shelters and other ‘safe spaces’ that have traditionally barred men.”
Republicans who voted for the bill include representatives Susan W. Brooks (IN), Mario Diaz-Balart (FL), Brian Fitzpatrick (PN), John Katko (NY), Will Hurd (TX), Tom Reed (NY), Elise Stefanik (NY) and and Greg Walden (OR). I know he’s a moderate in a swing district, but Hurd’s vote is especially disappointing, as I don’t see Hispanics in south and west Texas crying out for transsexual rights.
Using the case of Caster Semenya (one of those genetic corner cases disqualified from competing due to excess testosterone as a jumping-off point), as a jumping off point, Andrew Sullivan spells out some of the vast physical difference between men and women:
A bevy of arguments against the compromise have been provided. The first is that testosterone is no big deal when it comes to athletic ability. Men and women both have testosterone after all, and some in each sex have naturally higher levels than others. So why force someone to take meds — with side effects — when they are merely above average in one particular characteristic among the many that ultimately affect athletic performance? This appears to be the driving point behind a recent New York Times op-ed, “The Myth of Testosterone.” The authors — both professors who adhere to social-justice ideology — make some decent points. They usefully complicate the impact of testosterone on performance in differing sports, note that its effects are far more varied and subtle than mere physical strength. They then argue that “the International Association of Athletics Federations’ own analysis of testosterone and performance, involving more than 1,100 women competing in track and field events, shows that for six of the 11 running events, women with lower testosterone actually did better than those with higher levels.” Then this: “In other words, for most sports, testosterone levels do not correlate with superior performance.”
To put it mildly, this is bonkers. Women have a range of 0.3–2.4 npl, and we know that Semenya must have more than 5 npl, or the regulations would not apply to her. Men, in contrast, have a range from 10–38 npl. There’s not even an overlap. The range among women is tiny compared with the difference between men and women. Of course testosterone correlates with superior performance! That’s the entire reason we have separate contests for the two sexes. And the entire reason we forbid doping. How the New York Times could publish this deeply misleading sentence (to be polite) is beyond me.
Current testosterone levels per se also don’t account for the effect of the hormone throughout a man’s life. Doriane Coleman, Duke law professor and former 800-meter running champion, notes how profound the effects are:
Compared to females, males have greater lean body mass (more skeletal muscle and less fat), larger hearts (both in absolute terms and scaled to lean body mass), higher cardiac outputs, larger hemoglobin mass, larger VO2 max (i.e. a person’s ability to take in oxygen), greater glycogen utilization, and higher anaerobic capacity.
A physician who ignored these differences would lose her license. Gender studies professors apparently make careers out of denying it. So take the top female runners in the world right now: Literally thousands of boys and men would beat them. Coleman elaborates: “In the single year 2017, Olympic and World Champion Allyson Felix’s lifetime best in the 400 meters of 49.26 seconds was surpassed over 15,000 times by boys and by men.” Remove the distinction between male and female testosterone levels, and no women will be in any major athletic contest for the foreseeable future.
Reality is not optional, and I sincerely doubt that the vast majority of American voters are willing to accept the “sex is a social construct” canard peddled by the Social Justice Warrior left. This isn’t an issue that divides Democrats from Republicans, it’s an issue that divides lunatics from normal Americans. If the radical tranny agenda is the hill Democrats want to die on, the President Donald Trump and Republicans should make them die on it in 2020.
Tags: Andrew Sullivan, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, transexual, Will Hurd
Will Hurd’s a head-scratcher. I was in a few computer science classes with him at A&M; he’s a likeable guy. I’m sure there are reasons for why he does what he does, and this … I can’t say.
I speculate there’s some mutual back-scratching promised behind the scenes, and something he cares about will get a little extra support from some entity or other.
To the point, though:
I’m all in favor of this idea, but … I don’t see any real backlash against Democrats and SJWs for what they’ve been supporting. Sure, people I tend to agree with all point out the lunacy, but Slate? Salon? Huffing(and puffing)ton Post? Any other left rags?
Call me crazy, but if the only pushback comes from conservatives, republicans, libertarians, and normal people (as opposed to liberals, progressives, and democrats), then I don’t see this hurting the D’s. After all, their voters are pretty well locked in, no matter how bat-guano kooky they get.
Most normal people aren’t outraged because they’re not paying attention, as the MSM deliberately hides the most radical parts of it from public view. The more attention we draw to it, the more likely normals, moderates, and even non-crazy Democrats (look at how well Biden is polling) will oppose it and vo9te against Democrats come 2020.
Slate, Salon, HuffPuff, and “woke” twitter are all a tiny fraction of the overall electorate. Once this lunacy escapes the far-left echo chamber, Democrats will pay a price for supporting it.