Lia Thomas

This week marked the fiftieth anniversary of Title IX, the Richard Nixon-era policy designed to move toward more equitable treatment of the sexes in higher education. It should have been an unequivocally celebratory moment for advocates of women's sports in America. Instead, the Title IX festivities were uncomfortable, newly complicated by the extremism of woke leftists, who are attempting to redefine what it means to be a woman. The most prominent example of this over the past year has been Lia Thomas, whose performance as a biological male competing against biological females in NCAA swimming became a national story.

A few Fridays ago, I met Tablet magazine’s incomparable Liel Leibovitz for breakfast. Over inedible gluten-free banana bread, we caught up on everything from Covid to religion, politics and pop culture. The conversation took a depressing turn, as so many seem to these days. I asked Liel if he had seen some recent ridiculous news — now too distant and unremarkable to even remember — but which highlighted the extreme hypocrisy and self-defeating brokenness of our society. He said that he had, and added: “Isn’t it great?” “Great?” I asked. “Great,” he said. “Just terrific. Things like this make me giddily optimistic.” Liel shared his philosophy with me while we walked to the Upper East Side’s premier kosher butcher — Park East.

Admiral Rachel Levine, who currently serves as assistant secretary for health in the Biden administration, is not a woman. This is simply a statement of fact. Rachel Levine is also not a powerless, marginalized individual. Yet Twitter as a company seems to believe that pointing out both of these truths is worth suspending accounts over. The conservative satire website Babylon Bee recently found their account locked over a tweet they recently sent naming Rachel Levine their “Man of the Year.” The joke was in response to USA Today naming Levine its Woman of the Year despite Levine not being a woman. By writing this piece and tweeting it out, I and perhaps the Spectator could also find their Twitter accounts suspended.