The tide is turning — in the direction of sanity.
Last week, 16-year-old Veronica Garcia, a biological male who now identifies as a girl, took gold in the 400-meter race at a state-wide high-school track meet in Tacoma, Washington.
The East Valley High School junior won with a time of 55.75, a full second ahead of the second place winner.
But when Garcia’s name was called to collect the medal and ascend the podium, the crowd went largely silent, with someone reportedly yelling, “She’s not a girl.”
Fellow competitors stood, stone-faced, with their hands behind their backs. There was no cheering nor hoorays for Garcia.
On display was a true sisterhood, united in quiet demonstration.
These girls know they were screwed by an unfair system and they had the courage to not go along with it. And Garcia, who last year finished 164th out of 172 in the boy’s 5000m at a regional championship, was shocked by the hush.
“I guess maybe I expected sportsmanship because I was cheering the rest of them on when they were called. So I guess I expected to get that reciprocated,” Garcia told the Spokesman. “I didn’t get that.”
But sportsmanship — defined as “fair and generous behavior or treatment of others” — is not a one-way street. These female were not offered integrity by the victor.
Garcia’s disbelief is illustrative of the trans movement’s arrogance. After nearly a decade of being told to cede fairness for inclusion of biological males, females are fed up. They don’t owe a trans runner their awards or their gushing love and approval.
Many female athletes have been scared into going along with these rules or paying the price: Be called a bigot and have future employment threatened. Remember at UPenn, when women on the swim team were silenced over trans swimmer Lia Thomas? If they had an issue, they were told, they should seek therapy.
Or the five middle school girls in West Virginia who bravely protested a biological boy competing in their track and field event? They were suspended.
Chicks are simply sick of cheering on sabotage on the playing field. There are countless other examples of girls taking this raw deal.
And yet, I have sympathy for Garcia.
“I’m just a teenager. I wish people would remember that,” Garcia said.
This is a 16-year-old who was lied to by adults.
Garcia has been fed a narrative and sold a bill of goods by adults who affirmed, affirmed, affirmed at every turn.
Activists and doctors — and some activist doctors — have repeatedly reassured young boys that they can magically become a girl: Take a pill, or simply check another gender box on a form, and the world is your oyster.
They’re told they will be accepted into all female spaces — embraced and ushered into this bizarre world of “girlhood” invented by Dylan Mulvaney. They’ll be celebrated! Get a parade!
And furthermore, they are promised, they’ll be able to participate in girls sports and be enthusiastically cheered on when they inevitably win because of their physical advantage.
Now, they’re even included in Title IX through a Biden Administration overreach that erases true biological women.
Gender identification, not biological sex, has become the threshold.
But this is where the affirmation model meets reality. The activists’ promises were never real. One cannot change one’s sex. A male can live as a women— but females are not required to exalt them, welcome them or satisfy their egos.
‘At the very least, give us respect, because I think the best thing anyone can do is, even if you don’t understand why we’re transgender, the very least is to be nice to us. Kindness goes a long way,” Garcia said, not acknowledging that a male participating in women’s sports is not “nice.”
Because of trans athletes competing against women, there have been injuries in some contact sports, to go along with stolen accolades and awards. Never mind the invasion of privacy in locker rooms.
As I frequently say, everyone should be able to participate in sports — but athletes should be grouped with members of their own sex. Or create a third, unique division.
The world is no longer afraid to acknowledge that this is lunacy. Girls feel emboldened to speak the truth.
It’s time the other side caught up.