Yet I bring up the so-called “trans women” athlete issue not to focus on it, but as a way of introducing my main topic: the destruction of men’s spaces. For while there are any number of people making the obvious, or what ought to be the obvious argument that men should not be invading women’s spaces such as women’s athletics, there is almost no one making the argument that women should not be invading men’s spaces. Yet women invading men’s spaces has been going on far longer than the relatively recent phenomenon of men competing in women’s sports. What is more, it has had far more profound effects on society.
What prompted my thinking on this subject is the news story from last week announcing that the just-crowed Miss America, Madison Marsh, is an Air Force Second Lieutenant and a pilot. At least some of the videos of her show her flying what appears to be an F-16.
Of course, all of this is presented as empowering or trailblazing. “Stunning and brave” is a hackneyed expression used to describe someone who has overcome some real or perceived barrier. And while I haven’t seen those terms literally applied to the new Miss America, the press coverage more or less does say that.
So I ask this question, why is men’s competing in women’s sports considered an evil so great that laws must be written to prevent it, but women invading men’s spaces, in this case flying military fighter aircraft, considered stunning and brave, a thing most worthy of celebration and emulation?
The short answer to that question is feminism. For at the heart of feminism is the belief that men and women are equal. Not equal in value in the eyes of God as Christianity teaches. But equal in terms of their strengths, and interests, as well as what are appropriate expectations of their behavior. Therefore, so goes the argument, any field of endeavor in which men and women are not equally represented, any area where men and women differ in terms of their performance, is prima facie evidence that a sexist and patriarchal social construct is disadvantaging women and that that this construct must be smashed and replaced by the paradigm of equality. This has been the feminist program since at least the time of the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848.
To be sure, some feminists will press the idea of the equality of the sexes further than others. But all feminists do advance that idea.
The feminist idea of the equality of the sexes cannot tolerate the existence of men’s spaces, as such spaces are deemed exclusionary, sexist, and repressive examples of “the patriarchy.” Thus the continuous war on men’s spaces by feminists for the past nearly 180 years. “Smash the patriarchy” has been their battle cry. And their smashing of the patriarchy has been a smashing success. We’re all feminists now – or at least the vast majority of us are – and thus you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone, even a conservative, questioning whether Miss Marsh’s military achievements are really something to celebrate. And this despite thousands of years of history, and more importantly, the authority of the Scriptures, teaching that fighting wars is properly the exclusive domain of men. Deuteronomy 22:5 reads, “A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the LORD your God.” On this verse, the New Geneva Study Bible has the following note, “Women were not to adopt the accoutrements of the male (e.g. carrying weapons), and men were not to dress as women” (emphasis mine). Yet this very thing, women carrying weapons and serving in military combat positions is now accepted as perfectly normal and commendable. God takes a different view.
An article in the New York Post reads, “Marsh also emphasized her goal to use her platform as Miss America to talk with girls about serving in the military and to upend stereotypes about women in the military.”[3] When I was a kid, “your mother wears combat boots” was an insult. Today, it’s a goal that the masters of the universe encourage young women to aspire to.
But the glitch in the feminist matrix is the transgender movement. The feminist movement is all about reducing and even eliminating the differences between men and women. But if men and women really are the same, as feminism teaches, and most if not all the differences we observe in their behavior are the product of social conditioning, then the idea of transgenderism is no longer so absurd. If men and women are really just interchangeable drill bits, then one in theory could change his sex (or gender) and it really wouldn’t be such a big deal. After all, men and women are the same. Thus, according to feminist theory, feminists should not complain when men declare themselves to be women and go on to dominate women’s athletics.
Properly understood, transgender women – that is, men pretending to be women – competing in and winning women’s sporting events is a reductio ad absurdum of feminist theory which insists on the equality of men and women. A reductio ad absurdum is the disproof of a proposition by showing an absurdity to which it leads when carried to its logical conclusion. This is exactly what is happening with trans women competing in women’s athletics. One would be hard-pressed to find anything more absurd. And yet even some female athletes, Megan Rapinoe for example,[4] support this absurdity because to do otherwise would undermine their worldview.
Please don’t misunderstand my point. I’m not arguing that I think men competing in women’s sports is a good thing. It isn’t for several reasons.
The proper conclusion one should reach regarding the ridiculous spectacle of men competing in women’s sports is first, maybe it’s time to reconsider feminism and see it for what it is, not the pathway toward liberation, but an enormously destructive and anti-Christian philosophy.
Second, maybe men’s spaces are not the great evil the feminists have made them out to be for almost 200 years. Maybe it’s time for them to make a comeback.
[1] “Trans Golfer Wins Women’s Tourney, Looks to LPGA, https://www.wgowam.com/news/trans-golfer-wins-womens-tourney-looks-to-lpga/?p2=%5EEQ%5Emedici%5E&prod=HP&cmpgn=medici&annot=false&sameTabLaunch=false&o=APN12175&installSource=other&geo=en-us&browser=Chrome&darkMode=false&ueid=87717a92-b635-49ab-87f2-5bf4bf894603&doi=2020-08-19, accessed 01/21/2024.
[2] When God created man, he created them male and female, what are properly termed the two sexes, not the two genders. The human race is divided into two sexes, not two genders. Gender is a grammatical term that has been used to engender confusion and blur the distinction between men and women, thus making more believable the lie that men can too change into women and women into men.
[3] “Meet Madison Marsh, the Top Gun and Newly crowned Miss America winner,” by Adriana Diaz, New York Post, Jan. 15,2024, https://nypost.com/2024/01/15/lifestyle/meet-madison-marsh-the-top-gun-and-newly-crowned-miss-america-winner/, accessed 01/21/2024.
[4] “Megan Rapinoe says US has ‘weaponized’ women’s sports against trans people, ‘trying to legislate away people’s full humanity,’” by Ben Morse, CNN, July 10, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/10/sport/megan-rapinoe-trans-rights-us-soccer-spt-intl/index.html, accessed 01/21/2024.
Lux Lucet 
Steve, in the next to last sentence did you mean to write “maybe men’s spaces are NOT the great evil”??
Good catch, Jan. Thanks! I’ve updated it.