I mentioned earlier that Donald Trump, on the first day of his second presidency, declared that the US government no longer recognised "gender ideology". As part of that, he also made good on his pledge to "get men the hell out of women's sport".
Surely the most absurd and outrageous aspect of "gender ideology" is the bizarre concept of "transgender women" - that is, men who pretend to be women - being allowed to compete in women's sport! That defies all logic and common sense, and I'm utterly baffled as to how any supposedly rational human being can possibly think otherwise!
In the UK, the current government has taken the cowardly way out, and said that it's up to the governing bodies of individual sports to decide their own rules. Naturally, it must be up to sporting governing bodies to decide the rules for international competitions - but it beggars belief that anyone actually thinks there is anything to decide!
7.1. Stating the obvious
So let's start by stating the blindingly obvious. There are obvious and logical reasons why, prior to the last few years, men and women have always competed separately in sports. It's a simple fact that men are, on average, significantly bigger and physically stronger than women. They can run faster, jump longer or higher, throw things further, and so on. Of course there is some overlap - the top few percent of women are stronger than the bottom few percent of men - but on average, it's indisputable. No amount of political correctness or wokery can change the fundamental facts of biology!
A few sports, such as tennis, do of course have mixed doubles matches, with men and women playing together - but that's always a man and a woman against a man and a woman, so they are still playing on equal terms. The only sports in which men and women compete singly against each other on equal terms are those which don't depend on human physical ability - motorsports and equestrian sports.
But in recent years, we have seen the bizarre phenomenon of men who "identify as women" being allowed to compete "as women", and against women, in various physical sports - with entirely predictable results!
Examples of the opposite - women who "identify as men" competing in men's sport - are rather conspicuous by their absence! In many sports, they are actually allowed the choice of competing as men or continuing to compete as women; needless to say, I've yet to hear of a single one choosing to do the former! In other words, they want to have their cake and eat it!
In some sports, governing bodies have introduced bizarre rules to try to make it something vaguely like fair. "Transgender women" are required to take female hormones and reduce the levels of male testosterone in their bodies to below some arbitrary limit, before being allowed to compete "as women". This might reduce their muscles, but it doesn't change the fact that men's bones are bigger and stronger than those of women!
Not very long ago, it was standard practice that female athletes who were unusually muscular had to be examined by doctors to prove that they were actually female. In the 1980s, the then Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies, in a desperate attempt to prove the supposed superiority of their political system by establishing superiority in sport, indulged in state sponsored cheating, which included female athletes taking testosterone to artificially build muscles.
One person who is particularly outspoken against men in women's sport is the former Olympic swimmer, Baroness Sharron Davies, and with very good reason. In her competing days, she was regularly beaten, and robbed of medals and championships, by women from what was then East Germany, who were the products of such state sponsored cheating.
But now we have actual men competing against women, all in the name of wokery and "inclusion"! As long as this is allowed to happen, women's sport can never be fair - or in some cases, safe - again!
7.2. Tennis and "Battles of the Sexes"
I have absolutely no interest in tennis, but I'll mention it here for a very good reason - because it's one of the few sports in which the difference between men and women has been put to the test!
It has been said that a male tennis player ranked number 100 in the world would be expected to beat the female number one every time, due to the difference in physical strength and power of shots. There have, over the years, been several "Battle of the Sexes" exhibition matches between a man and a woman, involving major names, and going back as far as 1888. In some cases, these were played under modified rules designed to favour the woman - and the man still won.
The most famous of these took place in 1973, when the then 29-year-old Billie Jean King, ranked as women's world number one for the previous five years, actually beat Bobby Riggs, who had challenged her to the match. Riggs, however, was 55 years old; he had been a highly ranked player in the 1940s! He had been derogatory about the women's game, and claimed that even at that age, he could beat their number one - but it backfired on him.
The Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, are regarded as two of the greatest female players of all time. In 1998, when they were aged just 17 and 16, they claimed that they could both beat any male player not ranked in the top 200. ( Therefore, conversely, they acknowledged that any male player in the top 200 would be expected to beat them! ) So a male player who was then ranked number 203 challenged them to prove it, and played an exhibition match against each of them in turn. It backfired on the sisters, as he beat both of them!
In 2025, another "Battle of the Sexes" took place, between the women's number one, Aryna Sabalenka, and Nick Kyrgios, who was then ranked number 671. The latter ranking, however, was extremely misleading; at the height of his career, Kyrgios had been ranked as high as number 13, but had had a lengthy period of injury problems which prevented him playing in any major tournaments for a couple of years; hence he had plummeted in the rankings.
The match was played on a specially modified court, designed to compensate for the obvious male physical advantages. Sabalenka's half of the court was 9% smaller than normal ( in dimensions, that is - 17% smaller in area ), so that she didn't have to move or reach quite as far, while Kyrgios had to play his shots more accurately, into a smaller target area, to offset his superior power. Nevertheless, Kyrgios won decisively.
7.3. Two notorious cases
Note again that I'm not talking here about people who have had "gender reassignment" surgery, but men who simply choose to "identify as women" - whatever that even means! - and are somehow accepted as being women, just because they say so!
A particularly notorious case is that of the American cyclist Austin Killips. When competing as a male, he was decidedly mediocre - then he decided to "identify as a woman", and was idiotically allowed to compete as one - and surprise surprise, began winning numerous events. Several female cyclists subsequently quit the sport in disgust, saying there was no point any more, if they had to compete against a man.
Killips is six feet tall, and when you see pictures of him on a podium, wearing tight fitting cycling shorts, it's rather visually obvious, shall we say, that he is still very much anatomically male!
During one race, he committed a blatant foul, violently shoving an opponent out of the way. According to the rules, that should have resulted in an instant disqualification - but he was somehow allowed to get away with it, with no punishment whatsoever!
It seems that some spineless officials were afraid to do their job and disqualify him, for fear of being accused of being “transphobic”!
But this almost pales into insignificance, against the most infamous case of all, the American swimmer "Lia" Thomas - a six foot four male formerly known as William.
At university, when Thomas began competing as a male, even describing him as "mediocre" would have been generous! He was ranked number 554 in the US - not in the world, just in the US.
So he suddenly declared that he "identified as a woman", changed his name to Lia and began wearing a woman's swimsuit - and for some idiotic reason, was allowed to compete "as a woman"! And again, guess what... he suddenly began winning championships left, right and centre!
Can there be any doubt that this shameless creature chose to "identify as a woman" for the sole purpose of cheating in sport?
This case also highlights the other, even more disgusting aspect of this sordid business. While still at university, just because Thomas declared himself a woman, he was allowed to use the women's changing room! He was allowed to undress in front of women; the women were forced to undress in front of him, and had no say in the matter! Those who complained about it - that is, all of them - were told by the university authorities to, and I quote, "Shut up and get re-educated"!
A female former swimmer has elaborated on this. For female competitive swimmers, changing isn't just a matter of taking off your clothes and putting on your costume, in a matter of seconds. They can't cover their modesty with a towel, as a woman would when changing on a beach. For obvious reasons, a woman's racing swimsuit is very tight fitting, and in this lady's words, "it takes a couple of minutes of contortions to squeeze yourself into it". And those women were forced to do that in the presence of a six foot four man, who cheerfully dropped his pants in front of them!
What was that I said earlier, about "trans" rights trampling all over those of women?
Thankfully, some kind of justice has now been done. Within days of President Trump taking office in 2025, Mister Thomas was stripped of every medal he had ever won, and all records and championships were restored to the women who had rightfully won them.
Unfortunately, it's probably too much to hope that he will also be retrospectively arrested on multiple counts of indecent exposure and voyeurism!
7.4. But it gets much worse...
In sports such as cycling, athletics and swimming, allowing men to compete against women is simply unfair, and robs women of medals or championships. But what about in sports which involve physical contact?
Since all this madness began, there have been numerous medical studies on the fairness and safety, or otherwise, of "transgender women" competing in women's sport. Some of these were proper scientific studies, while others were probably anything but! If a study somehow concludes that it is fair, then I suspect that that study was financed by people with a vested interest in it saying so! That is not how science is done!
A proper scientific study consists of studying data and drawing conclusions. It does not consist of deciding in advance what conclusion you want to reach, and looking for data to support it!
A couple of years ago, Scottish Rugby, following a genuine medical study, decided not to allow "transgender" women to play in the women's game. That was a rare victory for sanity - but it was utter insanity that such a matter ever had to be debated! Does it really take a medical study to conclude that men playing against women, in such a sport as rugby, is not only unfair, but dangerous?
As I've mentioned in a couple of other places on this site, I'm a lifelong follower of the sport of boxing. Since all this lunacy began, there has been one possibility which I've dreaded - a man being allowed to compete in women's boxing! I always assumed that no boxing authority would ever allow that to happen - but there are many countries, and several US states, which don't have any governing body for boxing; it comes under the jurisdiction of the national or state government's Department of Sport or equivalent. My fear was that some "woke" idiot in some such department would simply decide that it had to be treated the same as any other sport, full stop, without giving any rational thought to the consequences.
( For the sake of completeness, I'll mention here that in 1999, there actually occurred the only licenced male versus female fight in the history of professional boxing! At a time when women's boxing was still regarded as a novelty and struggling to be taken seriously, an American female boxer, Margaret MacGregor, had a barmy idea of wanting to fight a man, and a promoter indulged her.
Of course, had she taken a beating, there would have been outrage about it! So they deliberately chose as the opponent the worst male boxer they could find - a chap who had had two fights three years before, both against opponents who hadn't yet won a fight, lost both by stoppage, and had then given it up. He was offered some silly money to come out of retirement and make a fool of himself, and lost on points.
This took place in one of those states without a boxing governing body. It was permitted to happen, because someone in the state government decided that not allowing it would be sex discrimination! Go figure. )
I should also mention that many female boxers spar with men in the gym - but there's a chasm of difference between sparring, with ultra-soft gloves and headguards, and actually fighting!
A couple of years ago, my worst fears came true, and the ultimate obscenity actually happened. ( I'm not talking about the Algerian boxer in the Olympics - more about her shortly. ) Incredibly, it happened in a country which does have a boxing authority - but which has been completely taken over by wokery and "ED&I" insanity - that is, Canada.
A "transgender" woman - that is, once again, a man pretending to be a woman! - was actually allowed to compete in a women's amateur boxing tournament. His first scheduled opponent wasn't even informed that her opponent was "transgender" until an hour before they were due to fight! Hardly surprisingly, she refused to fight him, and withdrew from the tournament. The "transgender" creature was then declared the winner by default, and went through to the next round.
Many suggested, quite reasonably, that all the women should have withdrawn from the tournament in protest. But had they done so, then presumably, the man in drag would have been declared the overall winner by default, without ever putting on a pair of gloves!
The danger of this idiocy is obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together!!! Does a woman have to be killed, before the world returns to sanity???
7.5. What about women with DSD?
There are a small proportion of people with genetic conditions collectively known as Disorders of Sexual Development, or DSD - meaning that their bodies develop in ways more typical of the opposite sex, or even ambiguously.
In particular, there are some women whose bodies produce abnormal levels of male hormones, resulting in physiques which are abnormally muscular for women, and resembling those typical of men. Obviously, in these cases, it's something which they can't help - but it's equally obvious that if such women compete in sport, they have physical advantages over other women, of the same kind which those Russian and East German women used to achieve artificially, in the days of state sponsored cheating!
The best known such person is probably the South African runner Caster Semenya, who won Olympic gold medals in 2012 and 2016, amid much controversy. While she is anatomically female, she is said to have levels of testosterone typical of men, and has a physique which looks distinctly masculine.
At the Paris Olympics in 2024, two female boxers, Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan, were allowed to compete, after having been disqualified from the previous World Championships for failing "gender verification" tests - though the details of those tests have never been revealed. Both won gold medals.
Again, both have physiques far more typical of men than of women. Khelif's appearance, in particular, led to widespread speculation that she actually was a man. Her first opponent protested that "It's not fair!" during the fight, and said she had never been punched so hard before.
For some reason, Lin seemed to be quickly forgotten, but Khelif caused considerable controversy. After her victory, many in the media demanded that she be made to prove that she is actually female - which led to her father angrily waving her birth certificate at reporters.
Khelif insists that she is female, but has DSD - which seems entirely feasible, as being "transgender" is illegal in her country!
The obvious question is; should such women be allowed to compete in sport? It's obvious that they have unfair physical advantages, though through no fault of their own.
One point of view is that it would be unfair to disqualify them as a result of something over which they have no control. The other is that it's a matter of balance between being unfair to one person and being unfair to everyone else.
Of course, not allowing Khelif or Semenya to compete would be unfair to them - but allowing them to compete is unfair to every other woman who has to compete against them! And in the case of boxing, it's not merely unfair, but also dangerous!
For me, that's a no-brainer!