Rebel News Podcast - July 22, 2021


SHEILA GUNN REID | Olympic Heptathlete and Kinesiologist Linda Blade: Women's Sports Under Attack By Radical Gender Activists


Episode Stats

Length

32 minutes

Words per Minute

163.21576

Word Count

5,334

Sentence Count

304

Misogynist Sentences

33

Hate Speech Sentences

30


Summary

Linda Blade joins me to discuss her new book, Unsporting: How Trans Activism and Science Denial Are Destroying Sport, co-authored with columnist Barbara Kay. In this episode, we talk about the current state of women s sports, and why it s time to speak up.


Transcript

00:00:00.800 Oh hey guys, it's Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're listening to a free audio-only recording of
00:00:05.760 my weekly Wednesday night show, Aptly, called The Gunn Show.
00:00:09.900 However, you know what, this is the internet so you can watch or listen whenever you feel
00:00:14.180 like.
00:00:14.400 That's the beauty of not being tethered to terrestrial TV or radio.
00:00:19.040 You can just basically watch or listen whenever you want at your own convenience.
00:00:23.620 Now, tonight my guest is someone whom I have been dying to talk to because I have a daughter
00:00:30.780 in contact sports.
00:00:32.520 It's Linda Blade.
00:00:34.120 She co-authored the new book, Unsporting, How Trans Activism and Science Denial Are Destroying
00:00:40.360 Sport.
00:00:40.940 She co-authored this book with everybody's favorite Jewish grandma, Barbara Kay.
00:00:47.080 Now, if you like listening to the show, then I promise you're going to love watching it,
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00:01:53.140 Are we watching the slow demise of women's sports?
00:01:56.160 I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
00:02:06.060 At this summer's Olympics, a genetic male will likely take home a gold in women's weightlifting.
00:02:12.700 It's not bigoted or intolerant to simply state the biological reality that human bodies,
00:02:20.780 which have experienced male testosterone-inspired puberty, carry more muscle mass, have greater
00:02:27.660 bone density, they have larger hearts inside their chests, and that leads to stronger cardiovascular
00:02:33.420 systems.
00:02:34.280 It's the reason female-born athletes who take testosterone were once considered guilty
00:02:40.600 of unfair doping, because it's cheating.
00:02:44.580 Testosterone is a performance-enhancing substance.
00:02:48.120 This is simple science.
00:02:51.140 And to deny it by allowing transgender, female-identifying competitors to compete with or against biological
00:02:59.240 women is to rob these female athletes of their work, their accomplishments, and future opportunities
00:03:05.000 that come from their success.
00:03:06.740 But it's happening right now in mixed martial arts, in cycling, weightlifting, even contact
00:03:12.620 sports.
00:03:13.660 Male-born competitors are stealing accolades and endangering the women they are competing
00:03:19.080 against.
00:03:19.780 But if you say these things, you risk being cancelled, fired, or losing funding for your
00:03:26.920 sport.
00:03:27.600 You're damned if you do speak up, and, well, damned if you don't.
00:03:32.220 That's why my guest tonight is so, so very brave.
00:03:36.560 As a career athlete and coach, Olympian and kinesiologist Linda Blade saw exactly what was
00:03:45.200 happening to women's sports, and she saw what was coming on the horizon, and she had to speak
00:03:50.060 up, regardless of the consequences to her, before it was too late.
00:03:54.600 So she co-authored the new book, Unsporting, How Trans Activism and Science Denial Are Destroying
00:04:01.820 Sport, with columnist Barbara Kay.
00:04:05.620 Linda joins me in an interview we recorded yesterday morning to discuss the future of women's sport,
00:04:13.820 if any, and to offer a way forward in which all athletes are able to compete on a level
00:04:21.400 playing field.
00:04:29.380 So joining me now from BC, Linda's taking the time to, while she's on vacation to talk with
00:04:35.780 me, is Linda Blade.
00:04:37.840 And Linda, I wanted to have you on the show for, well, for me, for personal reasons.
00:04:43.300 But I think what are personal reasons for me are the same reasons that a lot of other
00:04:48.600 mothers really appreciate your brand new book that you co-authored with Barbara Kaye.
00:04:54.700 It's called Unsporting, How Trans Activism and Science Denial Are Destroying Sports.
00:04:59.680 And I'm proud to say that we at Rebel News are the publishers of your book.
00:05:03.680 Now, Linda, for people who don't know you, I know who you are, and you've sort of been on
00:05:11.780 my radar since, I think, about 2009.
00:05:15.100 Really?
00:05:16.020 Yeah.
00:05:17.160 But for people who don't know who you are, tell us a little bit about your background.
00:05:22.980 Yes, I was on Team Canada as a track and field athlete in the event called Heptathlon, which
00:05:31.600 is combined events, just like men's decathlon.
00:05:34.740 I retired in sort of late 80s, early 90s.
00:05:39.000 Then I went to university, got my PhD in sports sciences, kinesiology, then became a coach.
00:05:45.220 And I've coached athletes in about 17 different sports across the board on their fundamental
00:05:51.080 movement skills and helping them to become better athletes.
00:05:55.860 I've even coached some Olympic gold medalists, Jamie Saleh and David Peltier in the figure
00:06:00.620 skating.
00:06:02.380 And so by 2014, I became the elected president of Athletics Alberta, which is the Alberta Track
00:06:09.900 and Field Association.
00:06:10.860 And so since that time, I've been entering this whole bewildering world of policy, sport
00:06:17.040 policy at the national level.
00:06:19.200 And that's, you know, we can talk about that.
00:06:22.300 Sure.
00:06:23.400 I guess that moves us into why did you write this book?
00:06:28.340 Like, why was this necessary?
00:06:30.200 I'm very glad you did.
00:06:32.080 But what prompted you to write this book?
00:06:34.720 And I guess, you know, even just voicing an opinion on these subjects can end up with
00:06:41.700 you being canceled.
00:06:42.700 Your career's basically over for a lot of people who go against the narrative.
00:06:47.000 But you took a step beyond just saying, hey, I've got some issues with this.
00:06:52.120 But you wrote a book.
00:06:53.160 You put your ideas to paper.
00:06:56.100 Well, it's precisely because of the canceling that I wrote this book.
00:06:59.580 This is the book again.
00:07:01.300 I'll show it again.
00:07:02.720 You can get it on unsporting.com.
00:07:05.660 I wrote this book precisely because when I raised the issue that I was concerned about
00:07:11.220 male bodies entering women's sports for safety reasons, obviously, and contact sports, and
00:07:17.780 for fairness reasons, I was basically shunned.
00:07:21.120 And, you know, it's that strange feeling around the table that you're not supposed to be saying
00:07:24.600 something.
00:07:25.040 And when somebody, you know, when I get that feeling, I realize something's terribly wrong,
00:07:31.580 especially when it's such an obvious issue.
00:07:33.680 And I just committed to speaking out as much as I could before it was too late.
00:07:38.640 Because really, if the rules of sport change to the point where somebody could be even in
00:07:43.660 prison by saying the wrong thing about males in sport, I need to say this quickly before
00:07:49.140 things get that bad.
00:07:50.900 Now, what were some of the responses when you first started raising concerns about, as
00:07:57.820 you say, male bodies in women's sports?
00:08:00.000 Because you don't come at this at all from really an activist viewpoint whatsoever.
00:08:06.360 You come at this from an issue of fairness and science based on your own science background.
00:08:12.200 Your background is in how the human body works.
00:08:16.500 And so you have a very unique perspective on this, but yet you were treated as something
00:08:21.840 less than an expert when you raised these, I guess, dissenting opinions.
00:08:28.420 Yes.
00:08:28.980 Well, because I am president of an association, I realized that it's our governing, my governance
00:08:36.140 colleagues who are in governance, sport governance, that if we don't set the right policy, it's
00:08:41.680 going to not just ruin sport for women and girls.
00:08:43.720 It's going to ruin sport for everybody because imagine if there's a parent or volunteer, an
00:08:50.040 official, most of our people at ground level, Sheila, are just volunteers.
00:08:54.900 And if we don't protect them and give them the right to distinguish what the rules are,
00:08:59.700 distinguish between male and female on the field or on the track, we put them at risk
00:09:05.700 and then they feel uncomfortable and our volunteer class could just walk away and we would actually
00:09:11.100 have no capacity to conduct sport at ground level, which is going to hurt the boys and
00:09:16.960 the girls.
00:09:18.060 And so I just felt like this was actually an existential threat to sport.
00:09:22.720 And if I get canceled, you know, Sheila, I've had my turn.
00:09:26.840 So I immediately saw that I'm of the age, you know, I'm almost six years of age.
00:09:31.800 I've actually had my turn.
00:09:33.500 I've been an athlete.
00:09:34.700 I've been on national teams.
00:09:36.480 I've been a coach, enjoyed coaching.
00:09:39.160 I've been in governance.
00:09:40.480 You know what?
00:09:41.220 If they cancel me now, I guess that's the price.
00:09:44.040 It's not a big price for me to pay, at least in terms of my career.
00:09:48.760 And I just felt like I was in a really pretty good position to make this argument without
00:09:53.200 a huge deal of threat to my, you know, my life and my career.
00:09:58.340 And I guess so, if not me, who?
00:10:00.960 I guess that's really the question I was asking myself.
00:10:04.720 And so around those policymaking tables, what was some of the pushback that you were hearing?
00:10:12.640 Yeah.
00:10:13.300 First of all, the activist pushback is these aren't men.
00:10:17.160 They're really females inside a male body.
00:10:19.720 That's just utterly ridiculous.
00:10:21.680 You know, I mean, it may be true that somebody really honestly, fervently believes that they
00:10:26.800 have grown up with a male body with all the advantages and really secretly inside they
00:10:30.860 are female.
00:10:31.400 If they believe that, that's fine.
00:10:33.020 But we compete with our bodies.
00:10:34.580 We don't compete with our identities.
00:10:36.740 So it's really not even my business, Sheila.
00:10:39.160 Like, it's not our business what somebody believes about themselves.
00:10:41.880 We don't classify sport on the basis of belief.
00:10:45.020 Like, otherwise, we would say, okay, if you're this religion, you compete in that category,
00:10:49.840 another religion, or if you actually have, you know, a political party, you go over there
00:10:54.520 and this other political party, you race over here.
00:10:57.620 We do not compete on the basis of our ideologies.
00:11:01.180 I mean, the beauty of sport is that, you know, we can put that baggage aside.
00:11:05.360 But so that's like the one thing that I was getting at, that it's not, even if you're
00:11:09.640 really a female inside, I mean, it's not my business.
00:11:12.420 You have a male body.
00:11:13.560 Second thing is, the people around the table were frightened.
00:11:17.320 I could tell from the looks on their faces that they were ignoring me and shunning me
00:11:21.260 because they didn't want me to go there.
00:11:23.140 Don't go there.
00:11:23.960 It might hurt our funding.
00:11:26.780 It might cause, you know, our sport to be, you know, somehow demeaned or maligned by activists.
00:11:35.340 Maybe we might not be in line with what the government wants us to think.
00:11:40.460 So there was a lot of fear, I think, around the table.
00:11:44.620 Most of my colleagues were males, like at the top of the sport decision-making process.
00:11:49.300 And, you know, I have noticed, I can't help but notice that a lot of times, because they're
00:11:55.140 men, they just don't get the threat that it feels to be a woman and feel this, like, what
00:12:01.480 happens if a man comes into our, you know, safe space and our single sex space.
00:12:06.360 And I mean, I'm not, you know, I've never been an activist.
00:12:10.020 I've just been a coach.
00:12:11.420 I just realized that there was something terribly wrong.
00:12:13.860 And they were afraid, afraid when people are afraid, there's something going on.
00:12:19.700 Yeah, I suppose they were afraid of being canceled.
00:12:22.920 And you really weren't.
00:12:24.680 No, I didn't care about that.
00:12:26.800 But maybe I should.
00:12:27.720 But I mean, it's so much bigger than that, you know, and I think they were afraid that
00:12:33.360 they wouldn't get funding for the sport.
00:12:34.900 If we don't get funding for our sports in Canada, we're really not.
00:12:39.000 It's also an existential threat.
00:12:40.960 So I'm saying an existential threat from the purpose, from the point of policy and ground
00:12:45.760 level.
00:12:46.280 And they're thinking as existential threat from the top, from the minister, from, you know,
00:12:51.320 where they get their funding, the quiet cancellation that happens when you just don't get the grant.
00:12:56.720 Right.
00:12:56.800 And I don't, I can't blame them actually, if you're feeling like that, but I feel like you
00:13:00.780 have to balance those threats and protect sport as best we can.
00:13:06.320 Now, I want to talk to you a little bit about the science of it all, because a lot of the
00:13:11.840 pushback that we hear from the activists on the other side, because truly that's what it
00:13:17.360 is activism on the other side, whereas, you know, you take a, we're just trying to protect.
00:13:23.400 Yeah.
00:13:23.820 You take a fairness viewpoint of it, but on the other side, they do try to argue the science
00:13:28.260 and they say, well, for example, uh, with the case of like Fallon Fox, um, they will argue that
00:13:35.320 even though, uh, Fox has gone through male puberty carries male muscle muscle mass has male bone
00:13:44.260 density, the fact that this person is now taking estrogen to suppress, uh, their male hormone
00:13:50.340 hormones, that, that somehow equals the playing field.
00:13:54.660 Um, yeah.
00:13:55.840 How do we argue against that?
00:13:58.100 Well, um, that goes straight to the, uh, into the, um, responsibility of the international
00:14:05.120 Olympic committee.
00:14:06.500 Um, because in 2015, the international Olympic committee bought the lie.
00:14:11.040 In fact, perpetrated the lie that if a male, a grown adult male athlete takes, you know,
00:14:17.180 reduces their testosterone level, that that somehow brings that the level, the playing
00:14:22.300 field level to the female level, which is just absolutely not true.
00:14:26.720 The IOC themselves, um, have for years expected solid scientific evidence for any new policy they
00:14:34.600 make.
00:14:34.880 But on this case, immediately, they just went with the, with the culture and with the activists
00:14:41.220 and, and without studying anything just said, yeah, you take hormones.
00:14:45.860 Yeah.
00:14:46.000 You're going to be the same as women.
00:14:47.080 But in fact, there have been 13 scientific studies, uh, that measure hormone, like the
00:14:53.080 performance levels and muscle muscle strength in males before they transition.
00:14:57.420 And then after they take the hormone like reduction, uh, uh, hormone replacement therapy, and in
00:15:04.560 every single one of those cases, the advantage that they have, the male advantage and strength
00:15:09.220 and many other variables has not diminished, has not diminished appreciably.
00:15:14.100 There is no evidence that it brings the male body into even level playing field with the
00:15:19.720 female.
00:15:20.160 And we're not, listen, Sheila, female bodies are not just male minus the hormones, right?
00:15:25.980 I mean, you cannot, you cannot reduce, even if you take like change the substances in your
00:15:31.600 blood, it's not going to make your heart smaller.
00:15:34.140 It's not going to make your lungs smaller.
00:15:35.900 It's not going to diminish the size of your limbs, like your limb length and your height.
00:15:40.100 You're not suddenly going to be shorter.
00:15:42.100 I mean, you're not going to change the entire structure to look like a female.
00:15:46.260 It just doesn't happen.
00:15:47.380 That logically this could not be true.
00:15:51.280 And so that was like the first lie.
00:15:53.300 The first lie is that hormones level the playing field.
00:15:55.340 The second, second lie, Sheila, was that the IOC literally said, the medical commission
00:16:00.320 said, well, there's not going to really be that many transitioning.
00:16:03.780 Just let a few into women's sports, you know, it's not going to make a big difference.
00:16:08.300 And we are seeing now that that's absolutely not true because society is championing this
00:16:13.900 some, for some reason, this movement has become popular.
00:16:17.680 A lot of males are self-identifying into women's sports.
00:16:21.080 And if you just take just even the two high school runners from Connecticut, between the
00:16:26.460 two of them for three years competing in the female high school division, they took 15 state
00:16:31.740 records and they caused about 85 girls to miss opportunities.
00:16:36.720 Just two of them.
00:16:37.820 And if you have like Laurel Hubbard, for example, and now in the Olympics and women's weightlifting
00:16:42.520 was the New Zealand male who transitioned at 35 and now in the Olympics.
00:16:46.320 If just think about it, no matter what medal he gets, he, she, whatever medal he gets, then
00:16:55.360 the person, everybody below him drops a notch.
00:16:59.500 So it does affect every single person in that field.
00:17:02.160 And it means that some woman in the world didn't get to compete because it's not an endless,
00:17:07.160 you know, unlimited number in the Olympic category.
00:17:10.380 You get invited to the Olympic games.
00:17:12.400 It means some woman in the world somewhere didn't get to compete because Laurel Hubbard
00:17:17.340 is sitting there in the group.
00:17:20.480 So it does affect us every single time.
00:17:25.080 Now, I guess too, on the flip side of that, the, many of these professional sports bodies
00:17:32.260 and amateur sports bodies, they used to recognize testosterone as a performance enhancing drug.
00:17:38.360 And yet now we're allowing people who've experienced 35 years of testosterone coursing through their
00:17:45.240 bodies.
00:17:45.600 And we think that's completely fair now.
00:17:48.680 It's preposterous and it's, it's actually outrageous.
00:17:53.640 And the one governing body in Canada, the Canadian center for ethics and sports, CCES,
00:17:59.740 their only mandate, Sheila, the only mandate after the Ben Johnson affair and the cheating
00:18:04.320 in the eighties, their only mandate was to make sure that Canadians don't dope.
00:18:08.700 And now they're promoting this.
00:18:11.660 They are the prime association group in Canada, promoting male bodies, self-identifying into
00:18:18.020 women's sports, male bodies that have had full, like 20 plus years of, if you, if you think
00:18:24.800 there are females in a male body, then they have had 20 years of testosterone doping and
00:18:29.680 advantages built up that are now suddenly supposed to be like, we're just supposed to say, welcome,
00:18:35.940 welcome to the group.
00:18:37.180 And they've been cheating.
00:18:38.360 I guess, if you're going to say that doping is cheating, then they've actually had 20 years
00:18:43.960 of cheating that they're, that we're just supposed to pretend like that somehow, even one year,
00:18:49.600 in fact, the CCES position is they shouldn't be forced to take hormones or surgery or anything
00:18:55.440 at all. In fact, CCES says they can be a male for one season in one sport and female for another
00:19:02.540 season in another sport. And then they can change their mind because, you know, gender is fluid. So
00:19:07.160 they can go back and forth between like, they could be a male hockey player one season, and then
00:19:12.180 they could be like a female sprinter the next season. And like, where does this end? This is
00:19:17.420 ridiculous. Well, how do we even police sport?
00:19:20.020 No, that's the thing, like the these bodies, their one job is to make the playing field fair.
00:19:27.440 And this is anything but fair for female sports. I want to ask you, where are the feminists in all
00:19:33.760 of this? Because I noticed that you are, whether it's purposefully or otherwise, using a little bit
00:19:40.300 of modern feminist language when you say women's only spaces. And you know what, this is where I agree
00:19:46.940 with the more radical of the modern feminists. I do believe there should be women's only spaces.
00:19:52.620 And they are largely silent on this, or pushing this. And I don't understand. I don't understand
00:19:59.640 how, how they reconcile that in their minds.
00:20:03.260 Well, there's two kinds of feminists that you're going to run into on this issue.
00:20:06.440 There's the intersectional feminists who believe in, you know, like third or fourth wave feminism,
00:20:10.940 where they want to believe that men and women are equal. And so sports maybe is a platform to show
00:20:18.480 that we can just kind of all be equal and share the same space. And then there's the more radical
00:20:23.620 feminists, which means it's not extreme feminists. By that, the radical feminist means the root of
00:20:29.720 feminism, radical being the root. And those more like wave two, like the World War Two, after World War
00:20:35.420 Two, we believed in equal pay for equal work, that women should be allowed in the workspace and in
00:20:41.760 public spaces, in government. So, so I guess, you know, I had to study all that, just because I mean,
00:20:49.060 I was a coach, and I didn't even, I didn't even understand what was going on. I'm just coaching all
00:20:53.000 my life and in the trenches with my head down. And then when this hit me, I thought, well, okay,
00:20:57.500 why aren't some women supporting me? And why are others supporting me? And so it just, I think it turns
00:21:02.180 out that there's the more modern feminists want to believe this, this, it's a fairy tale, actually,
00:21:09.020 that there's no difference between male bodies and female bodies. And then the more traditional
00:21:13.360 feminists, which are the radical feminists, believe that, you know, we have to have distinct
00:21:19.360 recognition, have sex, single sex spaces, whether it's in prisons, in women's shelters, like, you can't
00:21:26.780 put a male rapist into a women's prison, I'm sorry, he's going to end up raping people. That's the way
00:21:31.820 he does it, right. And so yet our government through Bill C16 is justifying even that. So I'm just
00:21:38.560 saying that there's just, there's a purpose for having single space, sex spaces for females to be
00:21:45.540 safe, for life to be fair. And for us to have parity in society and have equal standing and have security
00:21:52.860 to thrive as women. And with all the skills that we have, we bring skill sets, men bring skill sets.
00:22:00.380 I mean, I love to death, my father, my husband, my son, like, I love the men in my life, I'm not
00:22:06.560 against them. But I also realize they're men, and I'm a woman, and there's differences. And let's
00:22:11.900 celebrate that. Like, why do we have to pretend like we're just one big blob of a humanity? I mean,
00:22:18.320 not a single person in this country, I dare you to find a single person in this country, that came
00:22:24.200 about by any other way than the joining of two gametes, a sperm and egg, male and female, and then
00:22:31.300 they made another person. Find me the person that came about any other way than that. And I will maybe
00:22:37.140 change my mind. But until then, we are biological beings. Now you just touched on Bill C16. And
00:22:44.680 there is some pretty serious threats to people like yourself who speak out against this radical,
00:22:52.700 I will call it radical gender, gender ideology, because I think that's really what it is.
00:22:59.460 Do you feel like that sort of thing is looming over the head of people like you that could serve
00:23:05.660 to silence you through the court system?
00:23:08.100 So when, when I look back at what the politicians were saying, Sheila, during the Bill C16 debate,
00:23:16.300 they made it very clear that there was a difference between biological sex and gender identity. And
00:23:21.840 let's face it, our charter, National Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canadian Charter of Rights and
00:23:26.480 Freedoms, does emphasize that we can't be discriminated on the basis of our sex, which is biology. And then
00:23:32.960 these newer bills were about gender expression and gender identity. And so I not a single politician at that
00:23:42.300 time that I was looking at in Parliament, was talking about the fact that gender should completely replace
00:23:48.500 biological sex, they were saying these two things were being held in balance. So when you say like somebody
00:23:54.960 needs to like the law says you can discriminate on the basis of gender identity or gender
00:23:59.420 expression, expression, fine. But not bullying somebody does not mean that you include the wrong
00:24:07.200 sex body in a space that's going to be harmful to the other sex. These two things have to be held
00:24:15.900 in balance. And this is what laws are, they're trying to find the balance. So when they passed that law,
00:24:21.480 I honestly didn't think that there was a single politician who thought, oh, that'd be a great idea,
00:24:25.360 put a rapist in a female prison. No, no. But I think what's happening is the middle management and
00:24:31.780 the and the wokesters and everybody in the middle is interpreting it that way. Yeah. So like, for
00:24:37.280 example, in sports, we can say if a if a boy shows up, let's say a high school boy shows up in a dress
00:24:43.360 and wants to run a race, it's still run with the guys. We don't we have already resolved that issue.
00:24:48.640 We have no bullying policy in sport. We will not bully. We will respect the gender expression,
00:24:55.320 gender identity, but but we will also stick to the sex based rules. This is easy to implement. It's not
00:25:02.060 like we are somehow breaking the law. We are holding the law in balance. You know, and it's it's funny,
00:25:08.900 because even these days to watch your child play sports, you have to go through an anti bullying course.
00:25:14.380 So it's it's not like we're we're completely against anti bullying. Most of us are forced to
00:25:21.060 participate in these anti bullying programs. Even if you've never bullied anybody in your life,
00:25:25.420 you still have to do it. So I mean, it's not like sport doesn't take bullying seriously. But this is
00:25:30.180 not the same. This is really not the same. Right. I wanted to ask you, I guess, if we don't rein this
00:25:38.180 in, and that'll be my last question, how do we rein it in? But if we don't rein, if we don't rein
00:25:43.240 it in, what are the consequences for women's sport going forward? Like, what's the timeline? How
00:25:48.180 how long do we have left before there's no such thing as women's sports? I say we have about five
00:25:53.960 to 10 years, and then women's sports will not exist because and let's face it, I'm going to say that
00:25:59.100 it's going to hurt women and trans identifying women. So trans males who identify as women. Because
00:26:06.760 I think about it this way, Sheila, once the whole final, let's fit the entire podium in every
00:26:11.940 competition is there's enough males now who self identified into women's sports, that the real
00:26:17.220 female athletes who are born female, don't have a chance, they will walk away quietly.
00:26:24.420 Because I know this, a lot of females would rather not complain, they just walk away disappear.
00:26:28.100 So they will self exclude from the sport category. What's going to be left at that point is a bunch of
00:26:34.940 males in the women final. And once these activists are seeing that they're surrounded
00:26:41.760 by other males just like themselves, in the final, they will no longer feel special or unique, or
00:26:49.200 they will no longer feel that they're being affirmed with the females. So the very, you know, they enter
00:26:56.320 women's sports specifically to for a social affirmation. It's not because they want to compete, because we
00:27:02.340 offer them third categories, and they say no, they want to be with the women because they feel they need to
00:27:08.320 be seen with women, right to as a form of social expression. So the minute everybody disappears,
00:27:14.160 although all the female born athletes disappear, the field will be left, it'll be like the men's a
00:27:20.560 final, the men's be final, and there will be no women. And you know what, these people will no longer
00:27:25.040 feel affirmed. And they'll probably just end up walking away to because they're not getting what they
00:27:29.600 need. They're not getting the social affirmation they need. So it's only the first few people like Laurel
00:27:34.000 Hubbard, who will feel like they're so special, and they're being platformed and profiled with all
00:27:39.060 the women. And then eventually, it'll just be all men. And they won't feel special anymore. And then so
00:27:44.620 what I feel like is, why go through that cycle? Why destroy the entire thing? And then we'd have to
00:27:51.960 rebuild women's sport anyway, in 10 or 20 years, to start over again. What so it's worth defending now.
00:27:59.920 And the, and you alluded to what is the solution? Yes. And the solution really is when we bring this
00:28:06.380 up again, I'll show the book one last time, we bring this up in the book. I'm sporting. We basically
00:28:14.740 advocate that there should be an open category for all all different types of like, anybody who's not a
00:28:24.480 female and a female only category. So female and open. And actually, this is how sport works right
00:28:32.240 now. If you look at the NHL, NFL and NBA, all the professional male sports are actually open sports.
00:28:40.080 If a woman was good enough, she could be an NFL player, she could be an NHL player, they are open.
00:28:46.340 But of course, magically, no women ever qualify because the male body has quite a few inherent
00:28:52.200 advantages. So I'm just saying that we should just stick with what we have male, like we should
00:28:58.160 have an open category, keep the binary, keep it open. So let's even if you're a female who identifies
00:29:03.300 as a man, and you're taking extra hormones, we'll then go into the open category. But the baseline
00:29:09.580 should be female, specific, born female, not doping. And then everybody else can go into the open
00:29:16.820 category. And, and, and, and it's, that operates on the principle of absence of competitive,
00:29:22.460 competitive advantage. So whenever you add a new person to a category in sport, the one thing they
00:29:28.860 cannot bring with them is a competitive advantage. So like, you know, if you have a sprinter suddenly
00:29:34.520 join, like even the men's team, but then he has a fantastic new running shoe, which has been
00:29:38.880 happening lately, or like a distance runner, brand new running shoe that nobody else has.
00:29:43.760 Well, then, you know, there needs to be a rule about that, because that person brings something
00:29:48.120 extra special, which is a competitive advantage above what everybody else has access to. So
00:29:55.040 if we're saying, there's this new kind of person called a trans person, and they're trying to come
00:30:01.320 into a category, we need to critically ask, is there physically a competitive advantage? And if there is,
00:30:07.560 they need to go stay out of that category and go to the one where they don't bring the competitive
00:30:12.620 advantage. It's just logic. And when anybody joining the men in the open category, they're
00:30:18.460 not going to be bringing to the men a competitive advantage. So it actually is, you can maximize
00:30:24.800 access, and it's full inclusivity, because everybody gets to compete, but you just compete
00:30:32.940 according to those principles.
00:30:35.180 Well, Linda, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. And I want
00:30:40.380 to thank you for your level headed approach to all of this, because there's so much emotion injected
00:30:45.740 into this. And you, you know, you just present the facts and the science of it all. And I really
00:30:50.400 appreciate that. And lovely talking with you.
00:30:53.860 Thank you so much. And good luck with the book. It's been a real blessing to a mom like me with a
00:30:58.940 daughter in contact sports. Well, tell her good luck. And thank you very much for having me and
00:31:04.140 have a great summer, everybody. We can get through this.
00:31:17.280 If you're a mom like me with a daughter in contact sports, Linda and Barbara's new book is an absolute
00:31:23.920 must read. It'll scare you, but it'll give you hope for the future. And again, you can get
00:31:29.940 Linda blade and Barbara Kay's brand new book at unsporting.com. The book again is unsporting
00:31:36.900 how trans activism and science denial are destroying sport. Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
00:31:43.740 Thank you so much for tuning in. I'll see everybody back here or, you know, wherever I am next week.
00:31:49.620 And remember, don't let the government tell you that you've had too much to think.
00:31:53.920 I'll see you next week.
00:32:23.920 Bye-bye.
00:32:25.040 Bye-bye.
00:32:25.080 Bye-bye.
00:32:27.920 Bye-bye.
00:32:28.300 Bye-bye.
00:32:32.860 Bye-bye.
00:32:33.240 Bye-bye.
00:32:33.840 Bye-bye.