Readers may have heard of Adam van Koeverden, who won Olympic medals for Canada in kayaking in the first two decades of this millennium. He’s now a politician, in the Liberal party, and Minister of Sport. Yet with his comments the other day, he shows his notion of a fair playing field is distorted by his distorted views. Here he is, responding to the IOC’s requirement for genetic testing of athletes, to ensure they’re the ‘gender’, which is to say the sex, they say they are. Good for them, but here’s Mr. van Koeverden’s reply:
Iâm quite concerned that going back in time 30 years, to a time when (gender verification testing) was commonplace, will be harmful to sport, and specifically womenâs participation in sport
Ah, yes, 30 years ago, when things were a tad more sane than they are now. What the Minister for Sports is referring to, of course, is not so much ‘women’s participation’ in sport, which is under no threat at all. Women can play and compete in whatever sports they want nowadays. What he really means, behind the Orwellian doublespeak, are biological men who think they’re women, or claim to be women, competing against biological women. The fact we have to use the redundant ‘biological’ shows how far we’ve unhinged from reality.
This is not about biological women thinking they’re men competing against men. They simply would not be able to complete, at least at the international Olympic level. No woman could ever have beaten Adam van Koeverden in kayaking. They’d just be getting out of the gate, and he’d be halfway down the course, along with all the other men. Same with running, jumping, swimming, pole vaulting and all the rest of it.
But biological men, under the pretense of being women, can and do beat biological women at this level – sometimes quite literally, as in last Olympics’ boxing match. There’s no contest, for nature has its way every time. Men have significantly more muscle mass, strength, endurance and all the rest of it, for which no medical intervention is a substitute.
Whatever else is wrong with this unreality of transgenderism, allowing men to compete against women results in a very unfair playing field for women, and in the end, the end of women’s sports.
Such is distinctly unchivalrous and unsportsmanlike, and unbecoming a minister of sport.
