New York Times national reporter Michael Powell must have shocked the paper’s liberal readership with his balanced report on transgender athletes that appeared on Sunday’s front page.
Powell focused on the controversy over biological male college swimmer Lia Thomas (birth name William) switching to the Princeton University’s women’s swim team and breaking records, thus denying actual female swimmers opportunities for victory and the resulting recognition: “Much Debate but Little Dialogue on Transgender Female Athletes.”
Powell’s 2,700-word deep dive (ahem) opened with a vignette on the pressure felt by female athletes on progressive college campuses like Princeton to stay silent as their turf is invaded by men in the name of tolerance. It’s a dilemma for feminists, and Powell drew out the conflicts.
Women on Princeton University’s swim team shared their frustration with each other and how it turned into anger. After watching Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer who competed at the University of Pennsylvania in swimming, take home meet after meet and break records, they were enraged.
….
Many swimmers described their private meeting under the condition that they remain anonymous. They detailed the bio benefits transgender female athletes have. To ignore these, they said, “was to undermine a half-century fight for female equality in sport.”
Powell observed the need for women to be quiet.
This is a source of rancor that impedes dialogue. Ms. Thomas is met with silence and muffled laughter at meet. Some trans activists label college female athletes as transphobes or bigots. They fear being attacked and refuse to speak out when they express frustration and disadvantage.
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Trans activists attempt to silence opponents, who they denigrately call TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists).. A spokeswoman for a gay rights group urged a reporter not to “platform” — that is not to quote — those she said held objectionable views, including Martina Navratilova, the retired tennis legend, a champion of liberal and lesbian causes. Ms. Navratilova argues the transgender female tennis players have unsurmountable biological advantage.
Interestingly enough, by Powell’s definition the New York Times itself is also “trans activist.” The paper also used the “TERF” slur against Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling in the metadata of a news story. An unflattering story from June 2020 featured the original URL link (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/arts/jk-rowling-terf-transphobic.htmlThe derogatory acronym was actually found in Rowling’s original URL. The original URL, preserved above, also included the insult “transphobic.”
There was no excuse for using the term, as “TERF” doesn’t appear in the actual story text. Evidently, someone had second thoughts about Rowling’s personal insult. The link is now resolved to a standard URL.
Powell showed examples of extreme transgender activists acting out online and offline, something that the mainstream press doesn’t often cover, and which posits the movement to be driven by compassion and tolerance.
Powell’s presentation also featured a crash course on biology that was strangely overlooked in most media coverage.
Record times for elite male swimmers average between 10 and 12 percent faster than those of elite swimmers for women, a record that has been held over the decades.
This is not a mystery. The testosterone in men starts in the womb. Puberty speeds that process. Men on average have broader shoulders, bigger hands and longer torsos, and greater lung and heart capacity….
He even recounted how Thomas, who ranked low in men’s swimming, shot up into the top 10 nationwide when he started entering women’s swim meets. One example: “….she ranked 65th in the men’s 500-yard freestyle but won the title as a female.”
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