Still another salvo was fired in the Culture Wars last week, when Marisa Rothenburger led Champlin Park to a 6-0 shutout over Bloomington Jefferson to clinch the title of the highest class in girls' high-school softball in the state.
This flap, of course, is many decades old — starting when, in 1952, it was revealed that a man named George Jorgensen had become a woman named Christine Jorgensen after what was termed "gender reassignment surgery."
In 1971, Paula Grossman, nee Paul Grossman, was fired by the Bernards Township (New Jersey) School District, where s/he had worked as an elementary school piano teacher; "Ms." Grossman had refused to accept an alternate position as a high school piano teacher (presumably on the theory that "gay" men are more likely to be "chomos" than "straight" men). But the Supreme Court — in Grossman v. Bernards Township Board of Education — ruled against "Ms." Grossman. The New York Daily News (in those days, the city's conservative newspaper) gleefully announced it with a headline four or five pages in: "Turnabout Teacher Turned Out."
Fast-forward to 1977, when Dr. Renee Richards (nee Richard Raskind) became a professional tennis player, after she had better luck in court (no pun intended) than Ms. Grossman did. She got as high as No. 20 in the women's world rankings in February of 1979 — prompting New York Daily News sportswriter Dick Young to wonder aloud whether a colt turned gelding was henceforth allowed to run against fillies and mares (right around the same time, Young became one of the most hated figures in New York when he supported the trade, by Mets general manager M. Donald Grant, of Mets icon Tom Seaver to the Reds. One banner that hung from Shea Stadium on the first home game after the Seaver trade read "Let's Lynch Dick Young and M. Donald Grant").
Since then, this controversy has steadily intensified — and has mainly involved "gender identity" as opposed to "sexual orientation" (Dodgers outfielder — the most common position for African-American baseball players, a piece of trivia that might come in handy for someone who ever appears on Jeopardy — Glenn Burke, was gay, but this was not revealed until his HIV-related death in 1995, 13 years after he had retired) — on the grounds that any male-born athlete has an unfair advantage against female competition.
The debate over this has become so fierce that it is deciding elections (this is to the 2020s what Prohibition was to the 1920s) — up to and including the Presidential election, where Donald Trump has been elected twice, largely using anti-gay rhetoric in general, and anti-"trans" rhetoric in particular, to get himself across the finish line (and not for nothing, but it is written in the Bible, at Deuteronomy 22:5 — "A woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, nor shall a man don a woman's garment — for all who do so are an abomination unto the Lord thy God").
And even Martina Navratilova, an open lesbian since 1981 wants no part of these female impersonators in women's sports.
Some Democrats are at long last beginning to question the party's "woke" agenda — on issues ranging from defunding the police to releasing accused (and thereafter nearly always convicted) murderers, rapists, and carjackers, legalizing shoplifting if the value of the stolen merchandise is less than $1,000, jailing bakers of faith for refusing to bake cakes for "weddings" that their faith teaches are an abomination — as well as their solicitous attitude toward men dressing up as women, and then "beating" real women in sporting events.
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