Of the millions of quotable lines from The Princess Bride, my family took Westley’s famous “life is pain” quote and modified it into a family motto of, “Nothing in life is fair.” That motto popped into mind while I read an op-ed by Rachel McKinnon about dominating women’s cycling competitions, breaking world records, and winning championships, all while being thrust into a larger spotlight due to the controversy surrounding a biological male competing against females.
You can’t help but be sympathetic to the situation McKinnon is in. She writes in the New York Times:
Unfortunately for McKinnon, that’s now how life works. It doesn’t matter what documents or governments or organizations may purport: A man cannot become a woman and equalize the physical and physiological differences between the sexes.
In the op-ed, McKinnon delves into the myriad differences between competitors, physical, sociological, etc. But the fact remains, men’s and women’s sports are separate for good reason; men are on the whole stronger and faster than women. People are upset with McKinnon’s victories because they know that they represent not just a singular case of unfairness, but one that will only get worse for female athletes.
The situation for transgender athletes put McKinnon in a difficult position — unable to compete with men, but derided for competing against women. This is an injustice all of society has perpetrated: a lie that a man can become a woman simply by virtue of feeling like one, and similarly for a woman becoming a man. It’s not just society perpetuating this lie, but governments and sporting organizations as well.
Feeling like a woman and declaring oneself as one does not, and cannot, erase the biological differences and innate advantages of the sexes. I will never be as fast of a runner as most men, but no man can ever give birth to or nurse a baby.
In the conclusion of the op-ed, McKinnon asserts, “It is a human right to be able to compete.” This is absolutely ludicrous. One does not have a “right” to compete in a sport, especially in a division one is unqualified to participate in. McKinnon is concerned with just McKinnon, without any understanding of how it must feel for competitors to be defeated by someone with a clear and undeniable biological advantage.
McKinnon may not care about the women in masters cycling or any other sport, but we should, before any other women’s sporting event is similarly dominated unfairly by biological men.
Bethany Mandel (@bethanyshondark) is a stay-at-home and homeschooling mother of four and a freelance writer. She is an editor at Ricochet.com, a columnist at the Forward, and a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog.
