Women's Sports Was on the Ballot

Men in women's sports animated voters and brought them to the voting booth. Not abortion. Dems got it all wrong.

The primary policy theme of Harris’ campaign — if it can be said that there was one — was abortion. Or reproductive healthcare, as the Left likes to call it. The overarching drumbeat of the campaign, other than I’m not a Nazi like Trump, was Democrats care about women’s rights. But all they talked about was abortion as if that is the only right women care about.

And I do care about it. That’s one of the main reasons I was a Democrat for decades. The first march I ever attended was a pro-choice march back around ~1990 when I worked as an intern at the National Organization for Women. Check me out:

Dems were most certain that Dobbs and shout your abortion was going to bring women to the polls. They were certain that a Handmaid’s Tale meme would convince us all that if we didn’t all vote blue, we women would be forced to wear red robes and we’d be reduced to nothing but birthing people — which is, actually, what they call us.

The irony of the below meme is just too stupid for words — they are handmaidens before going in the voting booth, and they are independent women coming out of it, after voting for Harris. But Democrats have been in power for the past 4 years. Are they handmaidens now or not?

But here’s the thing: they pushed it too far. Many women do care about this issue. A lot. I care about the issue. But I believe in safe, legal and rare, and I’m just grossed out by shout your abortion. I’ve never had one but I’ve gone with a few friends when I was young. It was always a somber experience and they were sad, not celebrating. They knew it was the right choice for them. But that didn’t make it less hard.

But beyond abortion, women do actually care about other issues when it comes to their own rights. And they (we?) most definitely care about the protection of women’s sports and spaces.

We don’t want our daughters to have to compete against males. It’s patently unfair and denies our daughters the rights we had growing up in the 70s and 80s and 90s. For Gen X and Millennials, our lives were changed by Title IX. For the better. We had opportunities our moms did not. By the time we got to Gen Z, it was just expected. It was just normal for girls and young women to be afforded equal rights in the education system, not something they were hyper aware of or even grateful for. Two generations before them played sports and, if they were really good, got college scholarships for athletics. And while Gen Z took it for granted, they are now the ones having to compete against males. And having to accept males in their private spaces. And they don’t want it.

Meanwhile, the Democrats refuse to acknowledge women as a definable class. In 2022, at the Supreme Court Justice confirmation hearing for Ketanji Brown-Jackson, Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn) asked Jackson to define what a woman is. Brown’s extremely cringe-worthy response: “I’m not a biologist.”

As my friend Riley Gaines often says: “Well, I’m not a veterinarian but I know what a dog is.”

Americans can smell bullshit. Brown refused to answer a simple question because she didn’t want to piss off the far Left “progressive” camp of the Democratic Party. And if she had simply responded with Adult Human Female she would have unleashed the wrath of the LGBTQ activist class.

What do you mean adult human female!?

If a person says they are a woman they are!

Trans women are women!

Nope they’re not. They are male. And women recognize that if you can’t say these specific people are women and we deserve these specific sex-based rights and we have enjoyed them because of Title IX, then men get to steal some of those rights away.

And if a grown man like Will Thomas can say he’s a woman, then parade around in the women’s locker room at the University of Pennsylvania, taking a spot from a hard working woman on the school’s swim team, and stealing trophies from other women at the NCAA Championships, well then men are once again taking opportunities from deserving women. These men just happen to say they are women. But make no mistake, it is a men’s rights movement.

I’m not going to recount the facts about biology. Men are stronger and faster than women and everyone knows it. They have bigger hearts and bigger lungs and bigger bones. They are not stronger and faster because we have under invested in women’s sports. They just are.

Allyson Felix, the winner of 11 Olympic gold medals — 7 of them gold — and one of the greatest track athletes of all time, won World Championships in 2015 in the 400 meters with a time of 49.26. Wayde van Niekerk of South Africa won the men's 400 meters at the same event with a time of 43.48 seconds, almost 6 seconds faster. The boys’ high school record for the 400 meters is 44.20 seconds, more than 5 seconds faster than Felix’s time. The World Champion couldn’t have come close to beating a high school boy. A really good one, granted. But she is one of the greatest track and field athletes of all time.

Give me a break. Felix trained plenty hard. Men are faster. Period. Everyone knows it and no one likes an unfair fight.

The Democrats tried to position the advocates fighting for the protection of women’s sports as right wing, fear-mongering, anti-trans bullies. But being pro-woman is not anti-trans.

They tried everything — threw the entire kitchen sink of stupidity at us — in a totally nonsensical, illogical gambit to bring folks over to their ludicrous side.

• Trans women are actually at a disadvantage

• This isn’t happening. There are so few trans women and girls and even fewer play sports.

• Discrimination against trans people means you’re a Nazi

• There is no evidence that women aren’t just as fast and strong as men. Stop selling them short! We just need to invest more in their training.

• There is a wide range of strength and speed and athleticism in all women. There are varying levels of testosterone in all women. Why are you targeting trans women who are just as much women as XX?

• It’s good that trans women are competing and winning! Inclusion matters more than fairness.

• Hey I compared this totally out of shape non-athlete trans woman to a world class female athlete and look . . . the female athlete won!

It’s just all so dumb.

Anyway, the Democrats ran on women’s rights. They picked the wrong right to run on. Because for many of us, this is personal. And the issue of not even being able to say what a woman is (and thereby protect women’s rights) impacts all women. Whereas abortion, frankly, does not.

I’m more concerned about my 7-year old daughter having a fair shot at making the high school soccer team (if she wants to) and enjoying safety and privacy in women’s only spaces, than being able to get an abortion at 27. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

There’s a lot of cope happening right now amongst the leftie pundits. Some, like Joe Scarborough of best Biden ever fame, are insisting that they always said this was a loser for the Democrats. Yesterday, on Morning Joe, he said:

. . . as we’ve said on this show a thousand times, Democrats should be smarter on the women’s athletics thing. 85% of Americans oppose men transitioning after puberty and competing against women. And I’m not just saying this the day after the election. I’ve been saying this for years. This is not a hard call.

And he did say it back in March 2024 as well. But to pretend now that this has been the drum he’s been beating, rather than the Trump is Hitler drum, is absurd. I’d add to that that he also said back in March, no one wants it but no one is gonna vote on it either. “Sound and fury” on the part of Republicans, he said. “The social issues that matter the most for people: abortion and guns.”

He was wrong.

Here’s a bit of my own commentary on it:

More “reflection” on the issue, now after getting crushed in the election:

On the evening of November 5, Former Democratic U.S. Congressman from Tennessee, Harold Ford, Jr said: “The issue around transgender rights is a bigger issue than Democrats give it — or understand what it meant for girls playing sports. I’m a father of a son and a daughter — what it means for little boys playing little girls sports and going to bathrooms — I don’t think we’ve gotten our head fully around that issue.”

And just now, right now as I write this, I’m reading this from Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) in The Hill: “The Democrats have to stop pandering to the far left. I don’t want to discriminate against anybody, but I don’t think biological boys should be playing in girls’ sports. Democrats aren’t saying that, and they should be.”

A little late to the party, Tom.

And Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said today: “I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.” 

Me neither, Seth, but then why did you vote against passing the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which would have changed Title IX to recognize sex as based on biology? What’s that again? I can’t hear you.

Lots of Monday morning quarterbacking. Lots of self-delusion from lots of Democrats who are now pretending they were always on the side of women and girls on this one. Just so much COPE, as the kids say.

They’ll all come around. But I won’t forget the cowardice and stupidity and lies. And the dragging we all got. And still get. It’s one thing to argue with us, but did you have to call us Nazis? Again?

Dems — you all are on the wrong side of history on this one, and you will slowly realize it and try to pretend that you were on the right side. But the loss two days ago, and I mean a BIG loss (crushing electoral and popular vote defeat, not to mention the Senate and the House), is proof that y’all got this one way wrong.

We won’t forget. And the reason we won’t isn’t because we’re mean and vindictive. It’s because you reveal yourselves to have no spine, no moral courage. You bow to the activists, for expedience. And you sell us out, in the process.