Sport

For much of my life, fitness wasn’t optional. I was held to very specific standards and tested to confirm that I was adhering to those standards. I was a hockey player. In college, and briefly, in the minor pros. Most seasons began the same way: a searing battery of strength and conditioning tests – on-ice sprints, off-ice endurance runs, bench press, squats, pull-ups, all to termination. Scores aggregated and ranked, from first to last. Personal value was assigned to the scores. Coaches took notice. I trained accordingly and drew a portion of my self-worth from being fit. That mindset would serve me well after school, when I joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee. I was medically discharged before commissioning, but while I was in, fitness wasn’t optional.

I was present when President Trump signed the executive order to protect women’s sports. But I knew the fight wasn’t over. In fact, it seems to be getting even uglier.  The American “progressive” faction is digging its heels in to allow men to keep stealing women’s trophies and opportunities – turning hard-won female spaces into political battlegrounds.   This Monday, for the first time, a man ran in the Boston Marathon in the women’s category – and a female athlete who disagreed with his inclusion was sent violent threats, highlighting the farcical state of American athletics.  The rule change means that now it is possible for a man to win the men’s category, the non-binary category and the women’s category.