The coverage of the deal that the University of Pennsylvania reached with the federal government has been so stilted and confusing that many people are unclear about the controversy. William “Lia” Thomas is a man who believes he’s a woman. His being permitted to join the women’s swim team at UPenn was a disservice to those women and to the sport. Yet, if you were unfamiliar with the story and were reading about it in a leftist rag, you might come away puzzled.
As National Review’s Becket Adams points out, woke journalists continue to use Thomas’s preferred pronouns. Becket gave an example from Axios, which stated, “UPenn will strip a trans swimmer, Lia Thomas, of her [sic] records and ban trans athletes in women’s sports.” This persistence in virtue signaling and adhering to arbitrary pronouns made up by mentally unstable individuals confuses the issue. Thomas is a man who stole valor from women athletes. He was aided and abetted by a woke school administration and feckless coaches. UPenn violated Title IX and had to apologize for it because of its handling of Thomas.
Adams’s premise is that the media is more interested in forwarding a narrative than in reporting the truth. He is exactly right. There were two other recent stories that perfectly illustrated this doublespeak.
First, there was the lack of coverage regarding the duplicity inflicted upon female bikers. Wisconsin recently hosted the 2025 USA Cycling Masters & Junior Road National Championships. According to the USA Cycling website, “Nearly 940 athletes from across the country descended on Milwaukee from June 28-July 2 to compete for national titles in the criterium, road race, and time trial.” Women traveled from all over the nation, taking time out of their jobs and lives to come and compete. When they arrived, though, they found out that a gender-confused man was going to be one of their competitors in the Masters Women 55-59 Road Race event. To no one’s shock or surprise, he — “Katheryn” Phillips — won the gold. Julie Cutts Peterson, the real winner of the race, and fellow female competitor Debbie Milne, who placed seventh, allege that Phillips’s entry into the event was not disclosed to the women.
Both women state that had they known, they would not have participated in the race at all. They understandably have no interest in racing against men who have an unfair physical advantage. No legacy news sources covered the story.
Second, Germany had a very interesting controversy during a chess competition for those under 18. A young, gender-confused boy won in the girls’ category. Chess, unlike other sports competitions, is an intellectually intense game. Germany’s Chess Federation argues that because it’s a non-physical competition, it should be trans-inclusive. However, like with sports, chess exposes a difference between men and women.
In chess, there are not very many individuals who reach the level of grandmaster (the most elite level of chess player). There were only 37 women grandmasters in 2019, whereas 1,643 men reached that level of play. The top-ranked women’s chess player, Yifan Hou, is only ranked 96th when pitted against her male counterparts. It’s not that men are more intelligent than women; it’s just that their way of thinking and processing information is different, and they are better suited to excel at chess as a result. At the end of the day, though, gender-confused men should compete against other men because they are not women. Lying to them and letting them lie to themselves is not kindness; it’s complicity in delusion.
The Advocate, or “the queer paper of record,” chose to cover the story as follows:
A teenage girl has found herself at the center of Germany’s latest front in the debate over transgender women’s inclusion in sports.
Nora Heidemann, 17, a trans girl from North Rhine-Westphalia, made history this month by winning Germany’s under-18 girls’ chess championship, scoring 7.5 out of nine points and outperforming 27 rivals. Her victory, reported by Apollo News, a German political news outlet, and later detailed in The Times of London, has triggered a fierce conversation over who belongs in women’s competitions — even in pursuits where brainpower, not physical power, rules the day.
Much like the coverage of “Lia” Thomas, this gender-confused boy was given the title of “girl” and made to look like the victim of bigotry. It’s all for The Narrative™.
In case that point needed more clarity, The Washington Post ran a story on Saturday proclaiming that banning men from competing against women in sports is about “political points, not fairness.”
The Leftmedia is still trying to control the narrative on transgenderism. They are playing defense for the indefensible. The emperor is wearing no clothes, and the majority of the country can see through their antics. Most Americans aren’t willing to play along, even if most trans activists aren’t willing to admit defeat.
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