The Olympic Gender Police Have Picked Yet Another Woman To Attack

The gender police (read: hypocritical, opportunistic transphobic bigots) have been running rampant at the Paris Olympics, and they have a new target in their myriad of baseless attacks: one of the greatest swimmers and Olympians of all time, Katie Ledecky.

The majority of the swimming events in the Olympics typically take place in the first week, which meant that Ledecky and other swimmers were in action during late July–early August. As she has done in the past competitions, Ledecky dominated, bagging gold medals in her strongest categories: the 800m and the 1500m freestyle, silver in the women’s 4×200 freestyle relay, and bronze in the 400m freestyle.

However, that didn’t deter petty bigots from descending on Ledecky, claiming that her participation in the competition is unfair. They’ve (incorrectly, yet again) assumed, based on absolutely zero facts, that Ledecky is not a cisgender woman and called her a “man,” choosing to merely attack her for having an athletic build, which is a pre-requisite in her disciplines.

It seems that transphobes are so eager for propaganda that they’re trying to exclude cisgender women from womanhood, too. Of course, this is exactly what we try to tell them will happen when they start trying to narrow the definition of who counts as a woman to align with their biases and hate, but they’ll never realize the level of self-parody they’ve reached.

This has already been a major issue at the olympics this year, with boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting both accused of secretly being men despite the facts. It’s not a new issue, either, with Olympic champion Caster Semenya fighting a legal battle for years over her right to compete, though the recent explosion of transphobia has combined with existing issues with gender standards in women’s sports for a whole new, combined wave of hate.

These bigots went on to suggest that even Team USA athletes are unlucky in having Ledecky as a teammate, indirectly implying that the contingent was better off having swimmers who conform to their made-up femininity standards. Most of these abhorrent replies come from a Facebook post, which fortunately also had some rational voices drowning these hate comments out and lauding Ledecky for her incredible run.

Meanwhile, among this hate, Ledecky continues to flourish and will now be the United States’ flag bearer at the Paris Olympics closing ceremony. Ledecky’s next long-term goal is likely to be the 2028 Olympics, which will be held in her country in Los Angeles. Currently sitting at 14 medals (nine gold, four silver, and one bronze), the Stanford alum would ideally want to add to that tally in front of home support in four years time.