NR is not afraid to state fundamental truths.
At the NCAA swim championships in Atlanta last week, I got into an argument with a woman about biological sex. “I’m a physician,” she said. “And I can tell you this is very subtle. You might be a man. How do you know you’re not if you’ve never been tested?”
Fortunately, I do not rely on this woman, or anyone else, to “affirm” what sex I am. Unlike Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, I don’t need a “biologist” to tell me what a woman is. Sex is not “subtle.” It is obvious, objective, and binary.
If it helps provide clarity: Sex is observable at birth, detectable long after death, and demonstrable in our chromosomes, gametes, and reproductive organs. We are reminded of our sex every time we go to the bathroom or look in a mirror. The sex of the vast majority of people is identifiable at a glance.
Even as major American institutions become captured by ideologues who claim otherwise, we at National Review know this basic biological fact — that women are exclusively members of the female sex. We’re comfortable and confident stating this fact, and covering the consequences when those in positions of power ignore it to the detriment of women and children.
If you value this work, please consider a donation so we can keep it up.
We are not late arrivals to this debate. Years before many conservatives realized how powerful the trans craze would get, Kevin D. Williamson warned about “a culture organized around the elevation of unreality over reality.”
While I was reporting on the ground at the NCAA swim championships (where a biological male was allowed to dominate female athletes), my colleagues at National Review were providing fearless commentary on this farce. This month alone, National Review also has published pieces calling out the self-defeating overreach of the trans movement, the absurdity of USA Today awarding a “woman of the year” title to a man, Twitter’s ban of humor and dissent on anything trans, and President Biden’s asinine trans virtue-signaling. And it’s not only progressives who are going trans mad, either. Nate Hochman, our ISI fellow, published a damning report about the Republican Indiana governor’s veto of a bill that protects women-only sports.
Under the direction of our news editor Jack Crowe, the National Review news team provides timely and reliable coverage of important trans-related stories, free from the distorting narratives and language you’ll find elsewhere. The team covers news other outlets won’t touch and continues to shed light in some of this ideology’s darkest places through original reporting.
None of this happens by accident. In order to write truthfully on the trans issue, we writers need editors who will have our backs, who have made a conscious commitment to sex-based rights and reality. Back in 2018, when I first stumbled over the ants’ nest of gender ideology, Rich Lowry gave his full and immediate support to my decision to make it a focus in my reporting. He elevated my story on the harms done to children by putting it on the cover of the magazine. The editors have given me free rein to cover every aspect of this issue from medicine to education, parental rights, child welfare, sports, and freedom of speech.
Far more than the contributions of any one writer, National Review has taken a fierce and uncompromising institutional stance on this issue. Our senior staff have signed editorials defending biological reality, women’s sports, parental rights, and cancel culture’s No. 1 American target, Dave Chappelle. National Review has been quick to call out Republicans and conservatives who fail to hold the line. Our writers helped readers make sense of the sophistic mess that was the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County.
I am incredibly proud to work for National Review, to stand athwart the transgender madness and defend what a woman is. I’m not a doctor, and I’m not a biologist. But I can see clearly. Any support you can provide for our mission to bring honesty, objectivity, and science-based analysis back to this debate is appreciated.
Thank you.