Media attempts at gender blurring are big items in sports coverage again this week. Transgenders (see photo of trans athletes who appeared in documentary "Changing the Game") in high school sports in North Carolina and Connecticut are in the news, and a Montana man's presence in a women's cross-country meet Saturday is fanning the debate as well. Sports media are clearly assisting LGBT advocacy groups in the cause of blurring the genders.
For starters, the Raleigh, N.C., News Observer is running a story by Bailey Aldridge about the North Carolina Values Coalition pushing back against the North Carolina High School Athletic Association allowing athletes to compete based on gender identity. The NC Values Coalition is asking people to sign a petition urging the association to reverse its rule and keep boys out of girls' locker rooms.
Approved in May, Aldridge writes, this new policy was "lauded by LGBTQ advocates and proponents of women's rights who seek fairness for transgenders," according to the ACLU of North Carolina.
However, the News Observer is promoting anything but fairness in journalistic terms. Appearing at the top of the page and above the story is a video of Melissa Winter, a youth advocate for the Kansas City Anti-violence Project, gleefully explaining what each of these letters stand for: LGBTQIA.
Aldridge assures readers it's part of an effort by the association to be "more inclusive" of transgender students, to protect them from fear and stereotypes. And the bathroom/locker room argument has already been rejected by LGBT advocates.
High school girls in Connecticut who have lost repeatedly to boys saying they are now girls have filed lawsuits against their state association. This whole issue of trans males in women's sports could further erupt if the University of Montana's "Juniper" Eastwood — born Jonathan Eastwood and who previously competed in distance running events as a male —dominates in the Clash of the Inland Northwest women's cross-country meet Saturday. The Bozeman Daily Chronicle crows about her becoming the first Division I trans athlete to compete in her sport.
Lest the pronoun cops bust her, The Daily Chronicle's Shayley Ragar identifies Eastwood as a female who "was a standout athlete in high school and won state titles in multiple men’s races. She earned athletic and academic scholarships to attend UM." Eastwood was heavily recruited by colleges and chose Montana. In the 2016 and 2017 Big Sky Conference track and cross-country championships, "she" was the top runner for the Montana Grizzlies men's teams.
In the fall of his junior season at Montana, Eastwood "came to terms with an internal struggle she’d had since elementary school. She no longer wanted to live and compete as a man when she knew she was a woman." Eastwood struggled with depression and alcohol abuse, "wallowing in despair" nearly every day. There was a light at the end of the tunnel of this despair: running as a "woman."
While identifying as a male runner, Eastwood recorded times in the 800 meters, the 1,500 and the 5,000 that are far, far better than the existing women's national collegiate records. If this dude obliterates women's records in track and cross-country, it will further demonstrate the unfairness of foolishly allowing males to compete as "females." Something media try to excuse away by saying trans "women" take drugs to enhance estrogen and suppress male testosterone.
The story portrays trans athletes as inspiring and heroic, noting, that the World Health Organization (WHO) reclassified "gender incongruence" from a mental health issue to a condition that can be treated with hormones or surgery. The story overlooks the fact that the WHO succumbed to political correctness in doing so, at the risk of encouraging confused people to engage in long-term health risks.
Ragar also notes in her story that Donald Trump Jr. criticized Cece Telfer, a transgender runner at a Division II college, for having an unfair advantage over women.
