For a woman who says she doesn’t “like conflict,” U.S. soccer’s Megan Rapinoe has sure started her share of it. The pink-haired co-captain of America’s 2019 World Cup team has made a name for herself — not because of her players’ success — but because of her expletive-laden political rants. Now, the fiercely leftist activist, who owes her lucrative career to women’s sports, is on a public crusade to destroy them.
When most Americans think of Rapinoe, they see a woman at her team’s victory parade, hands smugly behind her back during the national anthem, refusing to cover her heart — or her hostility — for America. They see an aggressive, polarizing figure who’s content trashing the country that helped her chase her dreams. Thanks to an explosive interview with Time magazine, they also see a star of women’s soccer attacking Title IX from the global platform it gave her.
The “I’m-not-that-combative” athlete set about disproving it in a wide-ranging conversation with reporter Sean Gregory that ranged from topics like Roe v. Wade to transgendering sports. To the 29 women who’ve lost titles to biological men — and the countless girls and collegiate athletes knocked from podiums, heats, scholarships, and other opportunities — Rapinoe has a message: “Get a grip.”
To all of the parents who’ve sacrificed for their daughters’ sports — traveling to meets, getting up early for practices, giving up weekends to help coach or ref — Rapinoe says get over it. In the grand scheme of the transgender agenda, she insists, “I’m sorry, your kid’s high school volleyball team just isn’t that important.” A woman who wouldn’t be speaking to Time magazine if it weren’t for the level playing field she now disses, wants people to know that she is “100% supportive of trans inclusion.” “… I think people also need to understand that sports is not the most important thing in life, right?” It was a bizarre argument for someone whose life is sports to make.
But then, Rapinoe’s whole interview was full of contradictions. She doesn’t think your daughter’s games matter but thinks hers are so important that she deserves men’s pay. She admits she wouldn’t be where she is without Title IX (“It was a transformational piece of legislation”), then burns it to the ground with her tirade for “trans inclusion.” She says there’s no such thing as an “unfair advantage” for men competing against women, never mentioning that her team was thumped by under-15 boys in a Texas scrimmage.
“Show me the evidence that trans women are taking everyone’s scholarships, are dominating in every sport, are winning every title. I’m sorry, it’s just not happening,” Rapinoe claims, ignoring multiple lawsuits, a wave of state laws, and the latest tally of titles lost to biological men. “We need to start from inclusion, period,” she demands. “… But we can’t start at the opposite. That is cruel. And frankly, it’s just disgusting.”
Like most people blinded by their LGBT fanaticism, Rapinoe paints the issue as a matter of life and death — which it very well could be, just not in the way she or her allies expect. “I would also encourage everyone out there who is afraid someone’s going to have an unfair advantage over their kid to really take a step back and think: What are we actually talking about here? We’re talking about people’s lives. I’m sorry, your kid’s high school volleyball team just isn’t that important. It’s not more important than any one kid’s life.”
The implication here is that boys who aren’t allowed to compete on girls’ teams will kill themselves. It’s a favorite trump card of the Left: Surrender your common-sense norms, or kids will die. On the contrary, new data suggests, indulging these gender fantasies is what puts kids on the brink. Easier access to this kind of trans-affirming care — especially without their parents’ consent — is what increases suicide. And in some cases, by 14%.
Meanwhile, this all-consuming, explosive, nationwide debate could be resolved in an instant if activists like Rapinoe would do one thing: compromise. If men and boys don’t want to compete against their own gender, let them create their own category. Do what the world swimming federation is suggesting and play with other men who can’t hack it against their own sex. Or, in Rapinoe’s words, suck it up. Compete like a man. Since when did ruining women’s sports become the only solution to this false dilemma?
Probably the same moment that LGBT activists decided they weren’t interested in the co-existence they were asking for 30 years ago. Now, after decades of holding the American public hostage to their cries for inclusion, the tyranny of the minority has reached ludicrous heights. The 99.3 percent, who are already at the mercy of the .7 percent in bathrooms, locker rooms, hiring decisions, military policy, health care, and education, want to use the sense of entitlement Democrats have gifted them to grind women’s rights into dust. Selfishness — not equality — drives this train. And the sooner Americans realize that, the sooner we can stop the Left from turning sports into the political football it was never meant to be.
Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.
