From LifeSiteNews

By Jonathon Van Maren

If female athletes came together and demanded, with one voice, that female sports be protected, they would be pushing at an open door.

What happens when obvious truths about the differences between the sexes are denied by the elites at the behest of the transgender movement? And what happens when female athletes discover that their rights mean less than the newly invented “rights” of trans-identifying men to invade their spaces?  

We’ve seen the answer to that play out over the past few years. This month alone, a trans-identifying male beat his female competitors at an Oregon track meet by a full six seconds, with the video of him zipping across the finish line sparking outrage; a trans-identifying marathon runner announced that he will be competing in the full set of six marathon majors in Boston in the male, female and “non-binary” categories; and courts in West Virginia and Ohio ruled that trans-identifying males can compete on female sports teams. 

In the meantime, U.K. culture secretary Lucy Frazer called for a ban on males in female sports after meeting with representatives of a number of female sports leagues, writing: 

In competitive sport, biology matters. And where male strength, size and body shape gives athletes an indisputable edge, this should not be ignored. By protecting the female category, they can keep women’s competitive sport safe and fair and keep the dream alive for the young girls who dream of one day being elite sportswomen.

She concluded, “We must get back to giving women a level playing field to compete. We need to give women a sporting chance.” Refreshingly, she called on sporting bodies to take an “unambiguous position” on the matter. 

That, of course, is common sense. What makes Frazer’s statements significant is that she does not, like most politicians trying to thread the needle by accepting transgender ideology but rejecting the inevitable conclusions thereof, make multiple references to “transgender women.” She instead refers to keeping male bodies out of female sports, much to the outrage of trans activists, who insist that males who identify as females are females, and thus have female bodies, because they said so.  

Over the past several years, it has fallen largely to the few female sportswomen who dared to risk the opprobrium of the LGBT movement to speak for the majority and point out the unfairness of allowing males to invade their sporting domains; now, an increasing number are willing to speak out. A recent study conducted by Manchester Metropolitan and Swansea universities, published April 17 in the Journal of Sports Sciences, indicates that the majority of female athletes want women’s sports to be categorized by sex rather than “gender identity.” 

Fifty-eight percent of respondents in the study of elite female athletes wanted categorization by biological sex; that rose to 77 percent among those classified as “world-class athletes” who had competed in Olympic or world championship finals. Researchers surveyed 175 “national, elite and world class female athletes – current and retired – from a range of sports and countries” and included “26 world champions, 22 Olympians and six Paralympians,” making it the largest study of its kind conducted thus far. A BBC Sports study last month found that over 100 elite U.K. female athletes “would be uncomfortable” with trans-identifying males competing in the female categories of their sports. 

According to the study, there is one exception to the rule: the “majority of athletes competing in non-Olympic sports believe changing category should be allowed, with the highest rate of 74% among those in ‘precision’ sports such as archery.”  

In short, the higher female athletes climb, the more likely they are to object to trans-identifying males competing in their categories. Most of these athletes, of course, remain unnamed. Imagine if they came out together and demanded, with one voice, that female sports be protected. It would constitute a cultural sea change – and I suspect the moment is right for them to do so. If they pushed, they would be pushing at an open door. 

Jonathon Van Maren is a public speaker, writer, and pro-life activist. His commentary has been translated into more than eight languages and published widely online as well as print newspapers such as the Jewish Independent, the National Post, the Hamilton Spectator and others. He has received an award for combating anti-Semitism in print from the Jewish organization B’nai Brith. His commentary has been featured on CTV Primetime, Global News, EWTN, and the CBC as well as dozens of radio stations and news outlets in Canada and the United States.

He speaks on a wide variety of cultural topics across North America at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions. Some of these topics include abortion, pornography, the Sexual Revolution, and euthanasia. Jonathon holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in history from Simon Fraser University, and is the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

Jonathon’s first book, The Culture War, was released in 2016.

The Caitlin Clark numbers that the TV networks were focussed on in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Final on Sunday were not her statistics in the Iowa loss to South Carolina.  (For those counting such things they were under 32.5 Points (-110), Under 9.5 Assists (+100), Under 5.5 3PM (+105). )

No, the numbers the influencers were looking for were the TV rating she and her Iowa teammates chalked up in the 87-75 defeat to the Gamecocks. The Iowa vs LSU Elite Eight game became the “most-watched college basketball game ever on ESPN platforms” with 12.3 million viewers, That was followed by last Thursday’s semifinal win over UConn that smashed the previous record with a 14.1 rating. What would Sunday deliver?

For programmers who’ve searched for a star to sell women’s hoops to a broader market, Clark seems a Godsend. She scored more points this season (1,234) than Iowa football scored during her time as a Hawkeye (1,028). Leading to this from LeBron James: “@KingJames If you don’t rock with Caitlin Clark game you’re just a FLAT OUT HATER!!!!! Stay far away from them people!! PLEASE.”

But there was also the humble Caitlin Clark from the minutes after losing on Sunday: “People will probably remember our two Final Fours and things like that. But people aren’t gonna remember every single win or every single loss. I think they’re just gonna remember the moments that they shared at one of our games. Or watching on TV. Or how excited their young daughter or son got about watching women’s basketball. I think that’s pretty cool. Those are the things that mean the most to me.”

The satirical site @TheBabylonBee cheekily summed it up. “Caitlin Clark Canonized As Saint After Performing Miracle Of Making Women’s Basketball Watchable.” Indeed there are some who believe that it’s Clark, not the moon, causing the eclipse on Monday.

But there is truth to the claim to Clark as a saviour. As we have written on multiple occasions, women’s sports has been in search of a marketable messiah to change it from ESPN liberal hype to mainstream. For too many in the audience— including women— the image of these sports has become too political. As the gender revolt took hold, fans were turned off by the strident lesbian soccer player  Megan Rapinoe and WNBA star Britney Griner who turned every game into a referendum on the latest #LGBTQ talking points.

There was a resistance to their defiance and the craven submission of corporate voices infatuated by DEI praise. To some, players on opposing hockey teams marrying each other was jarring. But Clark seems to be breaking the mold. The advertising world will beat a path to her door despite the second consecutive defeat in the Women’s Final. She’ll be honoured with woman athlete of the year and more. When she’s drafted into the WNBA there will be editorials suggesting the future has arrived.

The most interesting reaction may come from the women already in the WNBA. The intrusion of a white, conservative, straight Christian woman in their midst won’t sit well in a league where women of that description have been made to feel unwelcome in many dressing rooms. She’ll need a tough hide to survive the resentment of other players who see themselves as the stars and Clark as a product of white privilege.

Although his challenge is not quite as daunting as Clark’s, Canadian Zach Edey faces a similar challenge as he moves past Monday night’s mens’ final where he and his Purdue teammates go up against the mighty UConn Huskies. The 7-foot-4 product of Leaside High School in Toronto has won the NCAA mens player of the year in consecutive seasons as the Boilermakers’ top scorer and rebounder.

Edey is the tallest player in NCAA history and combined with his stunning statistics you’d think the imposing product of a Chinese mother and a white father might be going Top 3 in the NBA draft in June. His ball handling and footwork are remarkable for a man that large. His defensive impact is off the charts.

Yet Edey is being talked down by the scouts who insist that his skill set will not fit in the modern run-n-gun NBA. Where once a presence like Edey in the low post would be a huge asset, teams today want even their big men to shoot threes and perform away from the basket. The assets he possesses are seen as drawbacks causing him to fall into the second round of the draft— or further.

Edey will also face the cultural challenge of the NBA with its overbearing politics and racial emphasis. While there are many successful white stars from Europe, an Asian/ Canadian whose toughness is questioned will have a lonely existence till he proves himself against the LeBrons, Currys and Antetokounmpos. But, like Clark, he could use this summer’s Olympics as a springboard if Canada chooses him to wear the maple leaf in Paris.

They’ve been twinned in triumph at the collegiate level. Let’s see where they go next.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.