It’s likely you’ve never heard of Cynthia Millen. Also, you may not have heard of University of Pennsylvania athlete Lia Thomas. Both were mentioned in a report about Millen resigning after serving for 30 years as an official of the USA Swimming organization. Who these people are and what they stand for are important.
Lia Thomas is a UPenn student who, for the past three years, has participated in intercollegiate swimming competition along with his male teammates. He did well but set no records and attracted no unusual attention. But before returning to school for his senior year, he subjected himself to transgender sexual procedures and now claims to be a female competing as a member of UPenn’s women’s swim team. The result has Thomas performing at a record-setting collegiate level high enough to threaten record times set in recent years by Olympians Missy Franklin and Katie Ledecky.
Cynthia Millen earned selection to be an official at the current U.S. Paralympics Swimming National Championships. But, before that tournament began, she announced her resignation from the swimming organization she has happily been a part of for three decades. She said she could “no longer participate in a sport which allows biological men to compete against women.” And she added, “Everything fair about swimming is being destroyed.”
Millen let it be known that were she officiating at any female meet where Thomas was scheduled to perform, she would not allow the “transgender” individual to compete. She additionally called on other officials, including many who are volunteers, to quit if asked to ignore the presence of a male who now says he is a female. Her challenge to other officials is summed up in her statement, “There are no swim meets if there are no officials.”
Collegiate swim meets aren’t the only sporting events where “transgender” individuals are competing and scoring victories. Nor is the United States the only Western nation where some males have claimed to be women after undergoing some medical procedures. High-school track meets held for girls have been forced to allow participation of “transgender” claimants who are boys. They easily triumph. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, a male weightlifter claimed to be female, competed as a woman, and won that event.
While the males whose claims of having changed their “gender” are proliferating in the United States, none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin has fired a verbal shot that should be listened to by all of mankind. In a year-end, four-hour press conference, the former head of the dreaded KGB rather bluntly addressed the issue of transgenderism by thundering, “I am a proponent of the traditional approach that a woman is a woman and a man is a man.” He added: “And I hope that our society has the internal moral protection dictated by the traditional religious denominations of the Russian federation.”
Whoever would have guessed that most Americans would find themselves agreeing with the likes of Putin while being expected to accept the growing U.S. green light regarding transgenderism. But that’s where Americans — and others — find themselves; it’s become a world where many have shunned basic common sense in favor of a change that amounts to a denial of the reality expressed by Russia’s leader. He likely knows that, on the very first day Joe Biden took office in January 2021, he signed Executive Order 13988 to prevent and combat discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation. And Americans are expected to comply with such a ruling in the name of tolerance. Beyond the world of sports, Vladimir Putin’s government personnel have already complained about U.S. officials attempting to sway the thinking of the Russian people about transgenderism (and other reality distortions favored by the LGBTQ+ community).
A male who claims to be a female after undergoing a questionable medical procedure still has male testosterone, larger hands, muscular strength, a deeper voice, and other characteristics that aren’t altered via some medical procedures. This explains why most claimants in sports are shifting from male to female, not female to male. To conclude that the change to female gives males an unfair advantage to compete in female sporting events is obvious.
Nations, even civilizations, are built and sustained with fundamental values often called “pillars.” These include the importance of family, sound money, moral underpinnings, and recognition of two genders. Tampering with gender, such as working to abolish its assignment to each individual at conception, invites a weakening of all other pillars. Is that what the let-everyone-decide-for-themselves crowd seeks? No one should ignore the possibility that the forcing of tolerance regarding claiming to be a member of the opposite sex is an attack on the health, not only of swim meets, but of civilization itself.
