A Cultural Moment Unfolding…
“ATLANTA -- Lia Thomas is a national champion.
Thomas, who is a transgender woman, touched the wall in 4 minutes, 33.24 seconds in the 500-yard freestyle on Thursday night to become the first known transgender athlete to win a Division I national championship in any sport.”
Or so ESPN says…
But not everyone is celebrating this supposed achievement…
A quick google search of “Lia Thomas” will bring you headlines such as…
“Feminists protesting Lia Thomas say they are Politically homeless…” (Fox News)
“Feminists against Lia Thomas in NCAA feel Politically homeless…” (Newsweek)
Lia Thomas ties for 5th in the 200m Freestyle, is ignored by competitors as She exits the pool.” (Fox)
“I am Lia”: The Trans swimmer dividing America tells Her story.” (Sports Illustrated)
The ESPN article is a bit of a spectacle really…a parade of insanity. Author, Katie Barns, writes as if Thomas is an actual female, using feminine language, seemingly just assuming the man is worthy of honest recognition as as woman. In a comically sad paragraph, the article quotes the swimmer saying…
“Thomas, who declined to attend the NCAA-required post-race news conference, told Beisel she has been trying to tune out the distractions. "I try to ignore it as much as I can," Thomas said. "I try to focus on my swimming, what I need to do to get ready for my races. And just try to block out everything else."
Do you see the insanity?
We’re just supposed to understand that the man in the women’s pool is all normal. The man in the women’s locker room is normal. The man wearing a woman’s swimsuit is normal. And all this hype and attention and hurt feelings are just unnecessary noises. Thomas is just trying to “focus on swimming.” Pay no attention to the fact that he is a man. This is all normal.
Except that isn’t. It's the most abnormal thing.
And that’s the problem. This isn’t normal. We all know it. We all see it.
And for the moment, the cultural powers pushing the narrative of transgenderism have found a wall…finally! But how long will the wall stand? Not too long, most likely. The NCAA has shown itself to be all-in when it comes to the sexual revolution.
They seemed content to crown the male, Will Thomas, as this year’s “female” NCAA swim champion.
But the other swimmers, the actual women…they were anything but content. Their families were not content. And rightly so. The photo above tells the story. A man pretending to be a woman, dominating and oppressing real women, while the women stand together off to the side.
How is a man pretending to be a woman in order to beat women at sport much different from a man who physically beats a woman because “he loves her”?
Will Thomas is guilty of abusing women. We should identify it for what it is.
National Review captures the moment with gripping clarity…
“In a tolerant and reasonable society that values fairness — fairness for women, which understandably has been an animating issue for progressives and was the motivation for the first bill Barack Obama signed as president — the jarring image of Thomas towering over the defeated women at the 500-yard freestyle yesterday is unassailable evidence of how wrong this charade [transgenderism] is.”
The culture is trying to have two things at once. They want to push the transgender revolution while also maintaining the dignity of every person. But they can’t have it both ways. The transgender revolution is no respecter of reality; no respecter of women, primarily. The personhood of women is at stake…
A cultural moment is unfolding right in front of us and Christians must stay the course.
We must hold the line.
We must stand for truth.
We must stand for the dignity of women.
We must not go silently into the night.