Going For The Gold

What is your earliest Olympic moment? That moment when you saw an athlete inspire you. Mine was Mark Spitz in 1972, as he swam faster than others in the pool during the Munich Olympics. He won nine Olympic golds, a silver, and a bronze during his career. I remember watching all the competitions they put on TV with my Grandfather. A few years later, I was at a summer camp pool, where the director bought me a pair of goggles. Then I was Mark Spitz, trying to do a perfect butterfly stroke. Later I was on a community pool swim team. In high school I lettered on the swim team. I swam the 500 meter, long distance event. In later life, the pool is my exercise of choice. Partly due to someone like Mark Spitz. How many have others like Kurt Thomas, Mari Lou Retton, Dorothy Hamill and others inspired?

Then there are the Saturday Night Live skits that become true. The accusation that Olympic athletes from the former Soviet Block countries who competed as women, looked like men. Fast forward to last week at the Paris Games. Olympic boxers Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan continue to advance in the Women's Boxing competition. Both are said to have a disorder of sex development, which means they have male XY chromosomes and male-range testosterone levels at birth. The International Boxing Association (IBA) said in 2023 that Khelif and Lin were disqualified from the tournament for testing positive for "XY chromosomes" and have maintained that both fighters have an unfair advantage in the women’s division. The Olympics Committee just checks the sex on their passports.

Enter Riley Gaines who swam for the University of Kentucky, and has advocated against the inclusion of transgender women in the women's division of sports. She has been ostracized by the left as a bully. In April 2023, Gaines was a guest speaker at San Francisco State University for a Turning Point USA student chapter event. After the event concluded, protesters arrived, and Gaines was held hostage in a classroom for 3 hours.

My question for you is in sports, as in life, how do you tell someone’s sex? Biology tells us there are only two sexes. The Democrats say there are 72 and growing. Their confusion is causing problems for women everywhere.

In the cause of the right,

John B. Gaither,

Chairman,

OCGOP