Although we are currently in the dead of winter, summer will be here before we know it. Democrats may be singing the Summertime Blues along with Eddie Cochran, “I'm gonna raise a fuss, I'm gonna raise a holler” when they are forced to nominate a socialist to represent their party in the upcoming presidential election. Or alternatively alienate half of their base.

There will also be a bit of fussing and hollering over the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Assuming the coronavirus outbreak doesn’t turn into a science fiction movie leading to a near extinction event, gender politics and intersectionality are likely to provide a healthy dose of dyspepsia for Olympic committees and organizers.

As a preview of coming summertime gender wars, a biological male was invited to the US Olympic track and field trials to compete against American women. As reported by the Daily Caller,

Megan Youngren “is set to make history on Feb. 29 as the first openly transgender athlete to compete at the U.S. Olympic marathon trials,” The International Olympic Committee requires transgender athletes in women’s sports to keep their testosterone levels below a certain threshold, but scientific research suggests that suppressing testosterone isn’t enough to neutralize biologically male athletes’ inherent physiological advantages. Former U.S. Olympic athlete Rebecca Dussault told the Daily Caller News Foundation in September 2019 that allowing biological males into female sports will have disastrous effects on female athletes. “Once a male body has gone through puberty, they have received the benefits. So the skeletal form, lung capacity, muscle density, the greater length of levers in their body, their muscle-to-weight ratio, their capacity to deal with dehydration much better, narrower hips, I mean you name it — they are physiologically designed differently than women,” she said.

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The testosterone levels are a red herring. The International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF), the international governing body for track and field sports, created new rules for trans female athletes. “Competitors must now keep their levels of natural testosterone below five nanomoles per litre of blood in order to compete in the female category.”

While current testosterone levels are relevant, what is far more important are the testosterone levels during puberty. Aside from stimulating facial hair and a deeper voice, testosterone influences muscle and bone size and growth, meaning that much of the male athletic advantage over females is programmed into boys as they pass through puberty.

Once the body is built through testosterone, medically lowering the levels in the bloodstream has minimal effect. In other words, it’s too late.

If you build a Porsche turbo roadster, then feminize it by painting it pink, using lower octane fuel, or changing performance tires to all weather tires, it’s still a powerful Porsche. The post-build modifications change the car only minimally. Same too with boys and girls.

As an example, let’s look at the 2016 Rio Olympics and compare the men’s and women’s marathon results, the sport mentioned above where a biological male will be competing as a female.

At the last Olympics, the gold medal winner in the women’s marathon ran in a time of 2:24:04. In contrast, the men’s gold medal winner ran 16 minutes faster, finishing in 2:08:44.

Interestingly both winners were from Kenya, born about a month apart in 1984, taking age and ethnicity out of the equation.

More instructive are the finishing times of the other men in the race. If the gold medal winning woman ran in the men’s event, her time would have placed her in 90th place, far away from the medal stand. Conversely, any of the top 89 finishing males would have won a gold medal if competing as a female in the women’s event.

This is no fluke. Run a similar comparison for other events such as the 100-meter run, swim, or weightlifting and see a similar effect. Simply declaring oneself a female and pharmacologically lowering one’s testosterone doesn’t change biological reality and athletic performance. Just as a presidential candidate declaring himself “severely conservative” doesn’t make him so.

Real life examples abound. In 2017, a New Zealand weightlifter, a man competing as a woman, easily won a gold medal in his/her weight class. His/her testosterone levels were even below the required threshold for 12 months before the event.

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The US women’s national soccer team, World Cup and Olympic champions, lost a game to a 15-and-under boys’ soccer team from Dallas. Ditto in Australia where their women’s national soccer team lost a practice game 7-0 against a team of teenage boys.

Gender politics and intersectionality may play well in Democrat primary debates or on The View, but not so much for female athletes, spending years practicing and training, only to be told they must compete on an uneven playing field where the game is rigged against them.

Feminist groups are notably silent on the issue. In fact, they play along with the unfairness, despite their claims of supporting women’s rights and opportunities.

A statement on women’s rights and gender justice, endorsed by such groups as the California Women’s Law Center, National Organization for Women, and the Women’s Law project, are quite happy with this uneven playing field. These groups ”Support the full inclusion of transgender people in athletics.”

Somehow these organizations convince themselves:

“Nondiscrimination protections for transgender people—including women and girls who are transgender—are not at odds with women’s equality or well-being but advance them.” Good luck selling that. Or this, “Equal participation in athletics for transgender people does not mean an end to women’s sports.”

Sure it does. When Carl becomes Carol, and as an 89tth place finisher in the men’s Olympic marathon enters the women’s event and takes the gold medal, that’s a wrecking ball to women’s sports.

How many more men will want to compete as women in this summer’s Olympics? Eddie Cochran faced a comparable problem in his song, Summertime Blues:

I'm gonna take my problem To the United Nations Well, I called my congressman And he said, quote: "I'd like to help you, son But you're too young to vote"

Congress and the UN are too woke to help, instead playing along with this charade. Will the Olympics ditch political correctness for common sense before the games become a joke?

President Trump may tweet about the issue but everyone else will stay silent and pretend not to notice, for fear of upsetting the intersectionality gods of gender justice. For female Olympic athletes, all they will be able to do is sing the Summertime Blues.

Brian C Joondeph, MD, is a Denver based physician and freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in American Thinker, Daily Caller, and other publications. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and QuodVerum.