Maine's trans madness is the latest sign gender ideology is losing its cult-like grip

Yahoo

04-03-2025

An incident in the state of Maine is perhaps the clearest sign to date that the cult of gender ideology is at last losing its grip on the United States.
A Republican member of the state's House of Representatives, Laurel Libby, was recently censured by her colleagues after she posted on social media an image of a biologically male transgender high school athlete who had won a girls' state championship. Censure is a formal statement of disapproval, whose effect is to remove voting rights in the legislature. Libby was essentially stripped of the ability to fulfil her democratic duties as the result of a narrow vote on party lines by other legislators.
Ryan Fecteau, Maine's Democrat House Speaker, has claimed that the censure was about protecting a young person rather than about transgender athletes. 'This is about whether a young person should be ridiculed by a national audience, as a result of the blatant disregard and political expediency of an elected official,' Fecteau said in a statement. 'The representative can bring her censure to an end by apologising, which this student and their family absolutely deserve.'
I don't believe him. Libby's post did not attack the athlete in question. She was using the image to illustrate the fundamental unfairness of allowing biological males to participate in women's sport. The athlete won a competition while participating as a woman, but appeared to have come fifth while previously competing as a man. There is obviously huge public interest in this debate and the competition in question was a major state championship.
As someone who has long been targeted by gender activists for writing about the issue, the tactics used by these bullies are all too familiar. Whenever anyone speaks 'out of turn' (that is, fails to follow the 'trans women are women' party line to the letter), they are ostracised or harangued in an attempt to force them to capitulate. Just look at what happened to tennis legend Martina Navratilova when she spoke out against biological men competing in female-only competitive sports.
Her criticism was both gentle and polite, yet still she was hounded online. For pointing out that allowing biological men, however they identify, to compete in women's sport was 'cheating' as they have unfair physical advantages, Athlete Ally – an organisation Navratilova had co-founded – claimed she was transphobic and sacked her from its advisory board and as an ambassador.
In the upside-down world of transgender ideology, biological males – despite their physical (and institutionalised) advantages over women – become the victims, allowing them to claim to be oppressed and marginalised. In an Orwellian twist, trans-identified athletes assert that they are on the back foot, when they are in fact enjoying the benefits of the stranglehold that gender ideology has on so many institutions and individuals.
But that ideology's power is waning, as Libby's response to her attempted cancellation has so clearly proven. She has refused to stay silent or apologise. News of the controversy has spread rapidly, and she has earned the opportunity to argue her case. Now president Trump seems to have been alerted to the incident. At a White House event, he threatened Maine governor Janet Mills with removal of federal funding if her state fails to comply with his 'Keeping Men Out Of Women's Sports' executive order.
In 2023, the Biden administration proposed rules prohibiting public schools and universities from banning trans-identified boys and men from competing in sporting events with girls and women. This dismissal of biological differences between males and females as irrelevant would have prevented states from keeping female sports exclusively female, thus denying women and girls a level playing field. The US Left is still playing games on the issue. On Monday, Senate Democrats voted unanimously to block a Republican-led bill that would have stopped federally funded schools from allowing transgender biological male athletes to participate in women's sports.
I am no fan of Trump, but the Democrats' posturing on this issue has left them looking ridiculous. They may well choose to continue to ignore biological reality. But they will no longer be able to silence those of us who prefer facts and truth.
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