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.

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Ray McGinnis

During the trial numbers of RCMP officers conceded that the Coutts Three were helpful in their interactions with the law. As well, there didn’t seem to be any truth to the suggestion that Van Huigenbos, Van Herk and Janzen were leaders of the protest.

Twelve jurors have found the Coutts Three guilty of mischief over $5,000 at a courthouse in Lethbridge, Alberta. Marco Van Huigenbois, Alex Van Herk and George Janzen will appear again in court on July 22 for sentencing.

Van Huigenbois, Van Herk and Janzen were each protesting at the Coutts Blockade in 2022. A blockade of Alberta Highway 4 began on January 29, 2022, blocking traffic, on and off, on Alberta Highway 4 near the Coutts-Sweetgrass Canada-USA border crossing. The protests were in support of the Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa.

Protests began due to the vaccine mandates for truckers entering Canada, and lockdowns that bankrupted 120,000 small businesses. Government edicts were purportedly for “public health” to stop the spread of the C-19 virus. Yet the CDC’s Dr. Rachel Wallensky admitted on CNN in August 2021 the vaccine did not prevent infection or stop transmission.

By February 2022, a US court forced Pfizer to release its “Cumulative Analysis of Post-Authorization Adverse Event Reports” revealing the company knew by the end of February, 2021, that 1,223 people  had a “case outcome” of “fatal” as a result of taking the companies’ vaccine.

On the day of February 14, 2022, the three men spoke to Coutts protesters after a cache of weapons had been displayed by the RCMP. These were in connection with the arrest of the Coutts Four. Van Huigenbos and others persuaded the protesters to leave Coutts, which they did by February 15, 2022.

During the trial numbers of RCMP officers conceded that the Coutts Three were helpful in their interactions with the law. As well, there didn’t seem to be any truth to the suggestion that Van Huigenbos, Van Herk and Janzen were leaders of the protest.

RCMP officer Greg Tulloch testified that there were a number of “factions” within the larger protest group. These factions had strong disagreements about how to proceed with the protest. The Crown contended the Coutts Three were the leaders of the protest.

During his testimony, Tulloch recalled how Van Huigenbos and Janzen assisted him in getting past the “vehicle blockade to enter Coutts at a time during the protest when access to Coutts from the north via the AB-4 highway was blocked.” Tulloch also testified that Janzen and Van Huigenbos helped with handling RCMP negotiations with the protesters. Tulloch gave credit to these two “being able to help move vehicles at times to open lanes on the AB-4 highway to facilitate the flow of traffic in both directions.”

During cross examination by George Janzen’s lawyer, Alan Honner, Tulloch stated that he noticed two of the defendants assisting RCMP with reopening the highway in both directions. Honner said in summary, “[Marco Van Huigenbos and George Janzen] didn’t close the road, they opened it.”

Mark Wielgosz, an RCMP officer for over twenty years, worked as a liaison between law enforcement and protesters at the Coutts blockade. Taking the stand, he concurred that there was sharp disagreement among the Coutts protesters and the path forward with their demonstration. Rebel News video clips “submitted by both the Crown and defence teams captured these disagreements as demonstrators congregated in the Smuggler’s Saloon, a location where many of the protesters met to discuss and debate their demonstration.” Wielgosz made several attempts to name the leaders of the protest in his role as a RCMP liaison with the protesters, but was unsuccessful.”

However, the Crown maintained that the protest unlawfully obstructed people’s access to property on Highway 4.

Canada’s Criminal Code defines mischief as follows in Section 430:

Every one commits mischief who willfully

(a)  destroys or damages property;

(b)  renders property dangerous, useless, inoperative or ineffective;

(c)   obstructs, interrupts or interferes with the lawful use, enjoyment or operation of property; or

(d)  obstructs, interrupts or interferes with any person in the lawful use, enjoyment or operation of property.

Robert Kraychik reported that “RCMP Superintendent Gordon Corbett…cried (no comment on the sincerity of this emoting) while testifying about a female RCMP officer that was startled by the movement of a tractor with a large blade during the Coutts blockade/protest.” This was the climax of the trial. A tractor moving some distance away from an officer in rural Alberta, with blades. The shock of it all.

No evidence was presented in the trial that Van Huigenbos, Van Herk and Janzen destroyed or damaged property. Officers testified they couldn’t identify who the protest leaders were. They testified the defendants assisted with opening traffic lanes, and winding down the protest.

By volunteering to liaise with the RCMP, the Crown depicted the Coutts Three as the protest leaders. Who will choose to volunteer at any future peaceful, non-violent, protest to act as a liaison with the policing authorities? Knowing of the verdict handed down on April 16, 2024, in Lethbridge?

Ray McGinnis is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. His forthcoming book is Unjustified: The Emergencies Act and the Inquiry that Got It Wrong.