Selective Outrage

Question: Have you noticed how the left has a monopoly on outrage?

Let me begin this blog by saying it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that transgenderism mixed with woke ideology has become unmoored from rational thought.  Recently Ohio Senate Bill 132 failed to pass muster in the Buckeye state – had it passed it would have prevented male athletes (i.e., those born with an x and y chromosome) from competing in women’s high school and college sports.  Opponents of the bill framed it “outrageous” and “one of the most extreme political attacks on transgender people in recent memory,” claiming it attacked the Ohio High School Athletic Association and the NCAA in their ability to make policies they deem are best for athletes.  Begging the question, best for ‘which’ athletes.

High school athletic associations and the NCAA have twisted themselves like pretzels to find ways to mollify the progressives on this matter.  Even the politically correct International Olympic Committee punted on the matter and has left it up to the international federations (IFs) to look at this issue and decides what’s fair and what’s not.  Rather than issue a firm judgment on transgender inclusion, the IOC has repeatedly passed the buck to the other sporting bodies such as the Swiss Union Cycliste Internationale regarding gender eligibility regulations.

The result is we now have “sport-specific” transgender policies that look to each sport’s individual governing bodies to determine transgender participation under the guise of balance, fairness, inclusion, and safety.  By doing so, male participation in female sport has become the “wild west” of athleticism where a man can be categorized as a woman when competing in sport A but would have to compete as man if he were competing in sport B – makes a lot of sense doesn’t it?

We all know life isn’t fair; so, perhaps high schools and the NCAA should have special rules for those born with the gene that causes chronic asthma?   I mean, to be “fair” aren’t athletes afflicted with asthma every bit as deserving as transgenders when competing?

But if the governing body did that, they would first have to ascertain if the athlete suffered from allergic asthma, sometimes called atopic asthma, i.e., asthma triggered by allergens like pollen, pets, and dust mites or if it were seasonal asthma, occupational asthma, non-allergic asthma, or exercise induced asthma.  With those variables, exercise induced asthma would qualify for some type of head start, so, should that be 50 meters, 60, a 100?   Meanwhile atopic asthma, i.e., asthma induced by pets wouldn’t qualify because owning a pet is optional unless, of course it’s a service animal.  Are you beginning to see how ridiculous this is?  By predicating policy on therapy requirements or the percentage of testosterone, estrogen, or any other hormone in the bloodstream what these organizations are doing is telling us just how many angels they’re going to allow to dance on the head of the pin.  The bottom line here is that such arbitrary rules are just plain silly.

As I’ve written previously, the matter is easy to resolve; those born with two x chromosomes should compete in one category and those born with an x & y chromosome should compete in another.  Nonetheless, when state legislatures propose bills to ban 225-poundvsix-foot six-inch men from competing against 100- pound five-foot two-inch girls the left is “outraged!”  Yet when an abomination such as the Taliban in Afghanistan preventing more than five million girls from attending school and preventing them from learning to read and write occurs, the silence is deafening!

The net result is that with the help of a complicit media, progressives have fine-tuned selective outrage into an art form.

Quote of the day: “Kindness in words creates confidence.  Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.  Kindness in giving creates love.” – Lao Tzu