ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The push for trans-rights may have just pushed too far. Persuading Americans that a person identifying as the opposite sex is the opposite sex ultimately will only convince those willing to call a lie the truth.

Last week marked the 100th anniversary of Senate passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. The Women’s Suffrage Movement knew clearly what the word “sex” meant and who they were fighting for: women, in the full biological sense of the word. These brave suffragists believed women embodied the hallmarks of the female body. They wore yellow sashes and bore the scars of long-sought recognition in the voting booth. They fought for women.

“Gender identity” is an expression of self; a perception, not a fact. There is no objective standard, no medical diagnosis that turns a male into a female. Those promulgating the idea that a “transwoman is a woman” also co-opt female status, saying one’s “gender identity” should entitle a transwoman to all the rights and recognition of the female race.

Today, if you are a woman clinging to the belief that women’s rights are limited to females, I have bad news. Proponents of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) have sacrificed that goal. In an era of progressive ideology, the conventional understanding that a woman must also be female is outdated.

A congressional hearing on the ERA proved the point, Democratic witnesses, all women, were asked if the definition of “sex” in the ERA would include “sexual orientation and gender identity.” Every one of them responded yes. Absolutely. Sorry ladies, the left just declared that your rights under the ERA would have no protected status next to a man who claims he is a woman.

Some of us aren’t buying it. Our sisterhood of menstrual cycles, PMS and childbearing will never be shared by a transwoman. Transwomen are male, biologically and chromosomally. They are boys who would rather be girls, men who perceive themselves as women, males who cannot be females.

Why would proponents of the ERA undermine their own movement for the purpose of including any man who desires to be a woman? Are they conceding that the next “first female CEO” could have male genitalia? How sad a setback. So much for equality for women in that equation.

The recent Division II National Track and Field Championships pushed the trans-activist agenda to its ultimate end. Franklin Pierce University (FPU) had never brought home the glory of a national title, but celebrated its “first” by having a biological male compete in and win the women’s 400-meter hurdles. What FPU celebrated should not be viewed as a first, but a fraud. CeCe (formerly Craig) Telfer competed against men until pumping hormones and being added to FPU’s women’s roster as a senior and beating the female competition by a full second in the Division II finals.

CeCe Telfer also competed in the 100-meter hurdle finals and did not “win.” Does that matter? Any transathlete with the physical advantage to win can also lose. That’s not the point. Women’s athletics under Title IX should remain sex-specific protecting equal opportunity and fair competition for female athletes, as the law requires. FPU’s one national title may have been enough for the university to gloat. How much more of this might we see from schools that are desperate to add national titles to their list of achievements?

Transwomen athletes are not women athletes. In a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, James Freeman aptly observed this could be the sleeper issue of 2020 for soccer moms and dads. Let’s hope so. The trans-agenda is out of control and parents are catching on. Oregon parents are suing the Woodburn school district because a teacher dared indoctrinate their second-grade son with transgender ideas. Now he is suffering mental anguish and confusion.

Franklin Pierce University has a national trophy on its shelf. What about the female hurdler who would have taken home the title for her university? What about Selina Soule, who was displaced by two high school male runners identifying as girls in Connecticut? What about the Georgia mom whose daughter had a similar experience and called our office desperately seeking a “women’s rights” organization that was still standing for women?

Whether a soccer parent or not, it might be time to wake up to what could be the sleeper issue of 2020 and take a stand.

• Doreen Denny is senior director of government relations for Concerned Women for America.

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