Men in Women's Sports: Viewed From the Right.
Sometimes I agree with liberals for all the wrong reasons. This is one of those times.
"Keep men out of women's sports" is a very common and safe GOP / Conservative talking point, upheld by the likes of U.S. Representative Nancy Mace. Recently, Mace posted on X, "We're not going to let anyone in this country forget what a woman is." (May 7, 2025). And "I'll never stop holding the line -- for our girls, their sports, and their spaces." (May 8, 2025). Mace is an interesting, perhaps odd character for this particular battle. Mace herself is a proud graduate of The Citadel, a military academy in South Carolina, which, from its founding in 1842, until 1996, when Federal and Supreme Court judges ruled women must be allowed to enroll after a series of lawsuits. (Faulkner v. Jones et al., 1994 and United States v. Virginia, 1996) Shortly after, Mace and three other women enrolled. Mace became the first female to graduate the Corps of Cadets program in 1999; she subsequently wrote a book titled "In the Company of Men: A Woman at The Citadel," chronicling her experience. Two of the four women dropped out of the program, alleging harassment; the other graduated in 2000.
Women like Mace were all too happy to fight to be included in male-only spaces and have been doing so my entire life. The feminist of yesterday are the nominal conservatives of today; their protests seem to be minute hair-splitting about space and society. Men-only spaces were never sacred to them, and they firmly believe they are capable of doing anything men can do, admittedly, where they see some difference to what they have done, to what transsexuals are doing now, is entirely lost on me.
And now, for the grand entrance of my "hot take" on the subject:
I am elated that men (male-to-female transsexuals) are in women's sports.
Growing up in the 90s, there was a monumental push for "gender equality." I was bombarded with it in school and the media. A horrid Mia Hamm Gatorade commercial with Michael Jordan (1997), which said, "Anything you can do, I can do better," about women's empowerment in sports, became a rallying cry. I heard that line repeated in gym class a thousand times.
In school, feminist teachers and girls always talked about how they could be just as strong as the boys, as fast, and as tough, if not more. Also in the 90s, restrictions on women in the military were lifted, allowing them to fly combat missions and other jobs previously only for men. I was in fight sports as a kid, and I would have to hear how "tough" some of the girls were, despite having sparred with them, and knowing that even the women had no chance to win an honest fight against a teenage boy. It was all so insufferable.
Much of what I am describing culminated in the 2002 film Enough, starring Jennifer Lopez. The film was sloppy and predictable. A caricature of a wealthy, abusive man demeaning the former waitress when their relationship devolves into an "if I can't have you, nobody can" situation. Lopez's character learns the Jewish "self-defense style" Krav Maga (more on this another time, perhaps in my memoirs), and eventually beats her abusive husband to death bare-handed in what the police ultimately deem a self-defense situation. This film had a huge press run, making both women and Krav Maga acolytes increasingly bombastic for the remainder of the decade.
So years go by, I'm an adult now, and women finally get their chance to PROVE once and for all, they are just as strong, tough, athletic as men, and what happens? They got their brains smashed in, and frankly, they deserve it. Decades of pretending to be equal or better than men, blatantly denying basic biology, only to find that professional female athletes are not even at the level of high school boys, was a poetic end to the debate. (Lesbian Redditors still seething.)
I'm glad men are in women's sports because it teaches them a valuable lesson they must have forgotten. Of course, the biological man in a wig is never going to be a woman. But I don't care, it's funny to see the type of women who used to boast about how strong they are being beaten every single time in every last event by an average dude pumping himself full of estrogen. And with zero humility, no apology for their egotistical insolence came from anywhere. Now they want men out of sports, after they fought tooth and nail to "prove" they were just as good. The embarrassing and arrogance-fueled campaign came to a bloody end when deranged men finally decided to test their feminist theory of equality on stage, and I'm here for it.
Post Script:
This is not to say I do not find it both bizarre and dangerous that men, often seemingly predatory ones, are in women's bathrooms and other potentially vulnerable situations. These people are, by nature, profoundly mentally ill, and their condition was categorized as such until recent political winds have been moving the condition from an illness, to a disorder, and now, to a mere dysphoria per the latest Text Revision of the DSM. They are sometimes unhinged and quick to aggression towards those they perceive have slighted them somehow. I have personally experienced this with my parents trying to navigate presented identities to "fluid" or transitioning individuals. I would not want them in the bathroom or around my children or parents.
However, for the women who want to boast about their athletic prowess and if they genuinely believe in biological equality, I am glad they have the opportunity after all of these years to compare their silly fantasy to very real biological realities.
CBS Sports. "FC Dallas under-15 boys squad beat the U.S. Women's National Team in a scrimmage." April 4, 2017. https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/a-dallas-fc-under-15-boys-squad-beat-the-u-s-womens-national-team-in-a-scrimmage/
Sports Illustrated. "Carli Lloyd Confirms USWNT Once Lost to Team of 15-Year-Old Boys." November 10, 2023. https://www.si.com/soccer/2023/11/10/carli-lloyd-confirms-uswnt-once-lost-team-15-year-old-boys
“This is not to say I do not find it both bizarre and dangerous that men, often seemingly predatory ones, are in women's bathrooms and other potentially vulnerable situations.”
How about combat sports? You good with Fallon Fox breaking a woman’s skull? Or a volleyball player getting concussed by a dude’s spike? Schadenfreude is nice until a woman you care about gets hurt.
I remember at the 1998 Australian Open, Venus and Serena Williams boldly claimed they could beat any male player outside the ATP top 200. So a German guy ranked 203 stepped up. After warming up with a round of golf a few cigarettes, he beat Serena 6–1 and then Venus 6–2 in quick succession.