Lia Thomas was a transgender women athlete who set a record at the 200-yard freestyle event in the Ivy League university swim championships. Her opponent lost half of a length.
Her win was widely praised as a victory for women’s sport as Thomas, who until 2019 was competing – with notably less success – in the male category, took to the podium to claim her prize.
Her defeated adversaries, who were somewhat dwarfed due to her tall shoulders and impossible stature, embraced her and smiled as if everything was normal.
There was no mention that the victim had been defeated by someone who had an inborn set of physical attributes: size, speed and muscle mass.

Lia Thomas was a transgender woman swimmer who set a record at the 200-yard freestyle event in the Ivy League swimming championships. Her time beat that of her nearest rival by half an a length.
They never acknowledged the reality that they were not up against Thomas.
Just smile and nod and take it on the chin, girls, and don’t you dare complain. You can’t blame them.
They have no choice in this climate of terror that has been created by transactivists. We all have no choice.
It appears that we are finally through the looking glass.
Do not believe in six impossible facts before you have breakfast. As Alice heard the White Queen say, we are expected to believe all the scientifically incorrect or unfair nonsense being propagated by the woke supremacists. Or you’ll be responsible.
This is trans ideology. It means that anyone who self-identifies as a female can be accepted unconditionally, regardless of how it affects other females. Biological sex doesn’t exist, and anyone who dares to question the wisdom of, say, placing vulnerable women in hospitals or prisons alongside individuals who were born males, risks obliteration.
Doesn’t matter how calmly or rationally they argue their case (JK Rowling being the most obvious, but there are countless more), it’s sentence first, verdict after, off with their heads, and so on.
A transphobe being labeled is like being called a Communist during McCarthy-era America. This would mean that you are the enemy of everyone. We risk getting cast in the outer darkness if we do not agree on two plus two equals 5.
And the truth is, it’s working. Like those girls standing next to Thomas on the podium, people are starting to accept this new reality for the simple fact that they haven’t the strength or the fight to challenge it.
They’re scared, and rightly so. They just want to protect their jobs and their reputations, and they don’t want to have the black mark of the TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist) placed upon them.
It’s how radical ideology has always worked. People will eventually agree to any idea that scares them. You can do the impossible.

Like those girls standing next to Thomas on the podium, people are starting to accept this new reality for the simple fact that they haven’t the strength or the fight to challenge it
However, I don’t like being bullied and refuse to believe the lies.
In this instance, Lia Thomas is still a man with many of her physical characteristics. As such, Lia Thomas should not be competing with women who don’t have her unique advantages.
It’s the equivalent of pitting an eight-year-old against a fully grown adult. It’s not a question of transphobia. It’s not something that anyone in their right minds, and certainly not me, would care about. It’s about honesty, fairness and maintaining a level playing field.
This is why there are strict rules regarding doping in all sports. Performance-enhancing substances give competitors an unfair advantage, from increasing concentration to optimising anaerobic respiration.
And there are few more powerful performance-enhancing hormones in nature than testosterone. It is something that men have in great abundance, and women do not.
To my mind, it’s as simple as that. If we allow trans women who have gone through male puberty equivalence in women’s sport, we are effectively condoning doping – and making a mockery not only of women’s sport, but of the fundamental principles of fair play.
This was a week where we saw a 15-year-old girl – Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva – crushed and humiliated in the eyes of the world after being accused of taking a banned substance.
Perhaps we will never know whether the heart drug found in her system was ingested intentionally or, as her family claim, by accident (although either way she can’t really be to blame, since she is a minor). Her young, thin shoulders were certainly subject to a lot of retribution.
Even if she was a 22 year-old biological man identifying herself as a woman, not one person would even blink. Dare you to test her?
That, I’m afraid, is the reality of the world we live in now. And I for one don’t think it’s right or fair.
I can’t help wondering who wants this war between Russia and Ukraine more: Vladimir Putin, spreading misinformation and fuelling paranoia in the hope of justifying an invasion, or Joe Biden, a weak and unpopular President for whom the prospect of socking it to a few Ruskies might deliver a ratings boost. Either way, it’s never their lives at stake, is it?
Whisper it, but I actually feel a bit sorry for Prince Andrew. After all, it’s not his fault he was brought up to believe he could do no wrong, and that everything was simply his for the taking. How was he to know that he’d wake up one day in a world where being an arrogant, entitled mummy’s boy would no longer shield him from his mistakes?
Parks closed, warning notices everywhere, transport at a standstill – even a sodding Cobra meeting. Yes, Storm Eunice was bad, but there’s something about our post-Covid world that seems to make the authorities think they can keep us hermetically sealed in our homes at the slightest hint of danger.
The hero of this hour was plane spotter Jerry Dyer. He stood outside Heathrow filming the planes that bounce off the Heathrow runway. ‘C’mon Qatar, let’s see what you’re made of, son. Beers are on me if you bring her in… Bosh!’ No wonder his YouTube channel went viral: that’s the spirit we like in this country. Sage needs to be taken under his wing.
There’s a simple solution to Prince Harry’s security woes. He can tag along his brother or father next time he visits the UK. They both have 24 hour close protection. Or he could if he hadn’t treated them with such contempt. You made your choice, Harry. Live with it.
Woke word of the week: ‘resilience bucket’, as in ‘I’m not angry, my resilience bucket is just empty’. Brought to you courtesy of Rachel Tomlinson, head teacher at Barrowford Primary in Lancashire, who made headlines for, among other lunacies, banning meat in pupils’ lunchboxes. Ms. Tomlinson, the education Blob’s most famous victim, is a woman who places her crackpot ideas above the needs of children. What is resilience bucket? It’s more like a crock of another thing.
Take a look at me in the Supermarket
I lost my purse the other day. Stupid me, I didn’t realise it had gone until I checked my banking app and found someone had conducted a supermarket sweep of all the corner shops and off-licences within a two-mile radius of my home, aided and abetted by the e-scooters usefully supplied by Transport for London.
Thanks to contactless payments, they managed to do considerable damage – until eventually my bank’s fraud systems clocked that perhaps it wasn’t me buying rolling tobacco and Jack Daniel’s on Earls Court Road at 2am.
This is the first time I have ever been grateful for technology knowing me more than I do.