Each week Liberty Nation straps on its Personal Protective Equipment and dives into the TwitterZone to bring you the biggest news, the most outlandish arguments, and the real Zeitgeist of what is taking place in the internet’s wildest frontier.
Tulsi Gabbard
Senator Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), once thought to be a rising star in the Democratic Party, has been repeatedly shunned for her populist, anti-war, and pro-reality convictions that no longer align with her progressive comrades. More recently, Gabbard has been attacked relentlessly by leftists on Twitter for daring to protect women’s sports in the transgender athlete debate.
Many sports, including track, cycling, martial arts, and wrestling, have started to see total domination by transwomen allowed to compete against biological females. So Gabbard proposed a bill, the Protect Women’s Sports Act, to grant Title IX protections for female athletes based on biological sex, not gender. Of course, Gabbard’s legislation has been tarred as transphobic, despite its lack of enforcement, aside from the threat of pulling federal funding for schools ignoring the specificity of Title IX. The leftist Twitter horde dogpiled on Gabbard, decrying her supposed transphobia for trying to protect the integrity of women’s sports.
As the black sheep of the modern Democratic Party, Gabbard has mostly stood on her own, supported by only a few of her Republican colleagues who understand the problems that transgender athletes pose. Many Americans who want young women to be allowed to compete on an even playing field with their peers support this bill. Title IX acknowledges the physical advantages biological males have over women, and individual states across the county have already taken cautionary steps to address the dominance of transgender athletes in women’s sports. Gabbard’s bill is not the only legislation on this topic being proposed.
The backlash on Twitter to Gabbard’s attempt represents the changing dynamic of a Democratic Party that supposedly prides itself on supporting feminism. But it has become clear that transwomen’s rights coming at the expense of those of biological women cannot be critiqued or debated. They must be celebrated and welcomed, no matter what many consider a blatantly unfair situation. Leftists continue to point at the Olympics’ policy of accepting transgender athletes for the last few decades to show how biological sex means nothing in competitive sports. The reality is much simpler: Over time, transgender athletes start to see their biological advantages fade. But the ones dominating young women’s sports today are almost always young, recently transitioning, and not under specific restrictions on hormone levels required in the Olympics.
As more evidence of advantages for transgender athletes in sports becomes apparent, leftists have begun to advocate for a couple of defenses. First, they may claim that no advantages exist, which is untrue. A more nuanced argument is that sports should categorize athletes by weight, athletic ability, and other physical indicators rather than by biological sex or gender. Recently, some moderate Democrats have begun pushing for the latter option as a compromise. No end in sight for this raging debate, as radicals continue to erode the meaning of biological sex.
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Read more from Jose Backer.
