Category: Sport

It is not unreasonable to maintain that there is no God and that nature alone exists. But suppose you take it a step further and deny nature as well. Then you are in the precincts of 'woke' lunacy.  Call it the Double Denial.

One way to deny nature is by denying that the biotic underpins the social and that as a consequence the difference between men and women is a matter of social construction and not a matter of biology.  But any sane person will grasp instantly that one cannot change one's sex by merely thinking of oneself as belonging to the opposite sex. It is also obvious that sartorial and cosmetic modifications will not turn the trick.

Less obvious, but equally true, is that chemical and surgical alteration of one's body cannot change one's sex even if the surgical alteration is of a deeply structural sort:  reduction of muscle mass, heart and lung volume,  bone density, size of hands, and length of limbs even unto the removal of portions of bones to make the altered person shorter.

But of course the 'transgendered' biological men who compete in, and win, women's sporting events do not and would not submit to the modern-day equivalent of the Bed of Procrustes: they are not about to be modified in the drastic ways just mentioned.  And yet such men are allowed to pass themselves off as women.  To add insult to injury, some of these impostors are then awarded 'woman of the year' titles.

What is going on here? It is one thing to condemn the injustice to women and overall idiocy of this, quite another to understand how it could arise and be taken seriously by otherwise sane people.

One thing that needs explaining is how leftists, who are supposedly for women and against their oppression by men and 'the patriarchy,' could embrace something so antifeminist as the allowance of male interference with women's sports. I suggest that what we are witnessing here is a collision of motifs on the Left. One such is the oppressor-oppressed motif. Another is the hyper-constructivist denial-of-reality motif. These motifs are in tension with each other. If men oppress women, then women need their 'safe spaces' where they can feel secure against real or merely perceived micro- and macro-aggression. Accordingly, there is obvious need for  sexual segregation in certain areas such as sports competitions, locker rooms, restrooms, prisons, etc.  But if everything is a matter of social construction, as per the second motif, then so are sexual differences in which case they are not innate and immutable, but malleable. A man can 're-identify' as a woman with or without chemical and surgical alteration. Add in a third motif that of expressive individualism and for good measure throw in the 'my truth' meme.  If 'my truth' is that I am a woman, then I am a woman and can compete against women. (There is little or no chance that any woman will 're-identify' as a man so as to compete against them.)

The conflict of leftist motifs explains the utter absurdity of wokesters who tolerate the grotesquely unjust penetration of biological males into female spaces.