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“Current ten-year-old girls cannot live out this same dream as long as men are allowed to compete in women’s sports.”
–SOPHIA LOREY
A male librarian shouted down a former women’s soccer player when she tried to speak about the struggles women have in sports because he claimed that she misgendered biological males who compete in women’s sports.
In California it is illegal to speak a view in a public building that differs from that of the California government, according to a librarian who kicked Sophia Lorey out of an event to which she was invited to speak. Lorey was giving a speech at the Mary L. Stephens Davis Branch Library in Davis, California, yet when she mentioned men playing on women’s sports teams, transgender activists and library employees began interrupting her for “misgendering” people.
A library employee stated that referring to transgender females (biological males who claim to be female) as males was discrimination and violated library policy and California law. When asked for the statute which said that you could not “misgender” someone, he was unable to provide one.
The former soccer player started speaking and talked about her dream of playing college soccer. Then she stated, “Current ten-year-old girls cannot live out this same dream as long as men are allowed to compete in women’s sports.”
Activists then began heckling and interrupting her. She opted for the phrase “biological men” but was told by the same male library employee that if she said it again, she would be kicked out of the library. As she continued using the phrase, the employee then said if she didn’t leave, he would shut the entire event down.
The incident was caught on video.
Lorey said on X, formerly called Twitter, that she was shocked. “I directly said why am I being asked to leave and he told me ‘Because you are misgendering, you were talking about men in women sports,’” she wrote in part.
Biological males that identify as female and compete in women’s events have dominated those competitions. Most recently, a 40-year-old male powerlifter in Canada finished first in a women’s regional competition by lifting 463 pounds more than his closest competitor, unofficially breaking several Canadian and world records. In 2022, biological male William Thomas, who now goes by Lia Thomas, brought the issue to the forefront when he handily won a Division 1 NCAA women’s swimming championship, despite previously competing for three years as a mediocre competitor in NCAA male swimming events.
The issue of biological men in women’s sports has also led to women being erased, not just in sports but in their right to speak about the issue. An attorney, Erin Friday, spoke in Lorey’s defense, telling the protesters that while she was happy they were there with their signs, they must also honor Lorey’s First Amendment right to speak and believe what she wanted. By contrast, another lawyer claimed that in a public place, speakers could not discriminate.
Kaitlyn Wheeler, a former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer and advocate for keeping males out of women’s sports, tweeted, “Once again, here is a prime example of not only first amendment rights being taken away but the silencing of women. @SophiaSLorey this only emphasizes how much louder we must speak the TRUTH! Keep up the great work.”
Fellow former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines tweeted, “This is ridiculous, but not shocking….a female athlete silenced for calling a spade a spade. They won’t even engage in a civil conversation. Props to this gal for sticking her ground.”
Heckler’s vetoes, or the practice of detractors silencing a speaker, have been ruled to violate the First Amendment. They are a favorite practice of activists who seek to stop speakers from challenging their beliefs. In recent years, they have been used to shut down a variety of conservative views but seem to be used most widely to stop dissent from LGBTQ orthodoxy. What is crucial is yet again, men have used the façade of protecting “women” to stop women from decrying the wrongful actions of men against women. If that sounds confusing, that’s because it is.
Female athletes are uniquely qualified to speak about the issues that come with letting men compete in their sports. Yet when they speak about these problems, left wing activists try to keep them from doing so. It’s difficult to speak about the problem of males in women’s spaces when you aren’t allowed to call them men or biological males; if the males are “women,” as the activists insist, you have no complaint.
That is what the left seeks to do, by calling it discrimination to disagree with transgender ideology, they can stop discussion. The only way to push back is for more people to follow the lead of Lorey, Gaines, Wheeler, and others by standing up for the truth and refusing to be silenced.
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