A 59-year-old male Finnish farmer, Markku-Pekka Antikainen, took up figure skating at age 50, declared himself trans, and has now performed under the female name "Minna-Maaria" at the opening ceremony of the European Figure Skating Championship. Finland was proud to announce that they would be including the world's "first trans figure skater" at the proceedings, only to discover Markku could not skate.
Previous warnings that the trans "athlete" may not be qualified for the event were present, but strangely, ignored. Markku has competed before with similar results. However, he received higher marks from judges for his routines anyway, likely due to his trans status. Take a look at this routine, in which Markku dresses up as a Gisha, stumbles about and yet still gets a 2nd place score:
Similar to the way in which children competitors are sometimes given special treatment because judges are afraid to hurt their feelings, the culture of participation trophies and special allowances for trans participants is slowly erasing competitive environments and turning athletics into a joke.
The debate over male athletes competing in female sports while claiming to be women is often more about the inherent genetic differences between the sexes and the clear advantages men have. In this case, the debate is about trans participants being given chances they don't deserve simply because they say they are trans.
At bottom, the greater conflict is over what constitutes reality. Though Markku is a non-athlete given license to pretend he belongs in an arena with champions, other men with biological advantages are given license to pretend they are women while destroying women's sports and dominating in every field.
One ultimately has to wonder if any of this is about social "dignity" or so-called equity? Perhaps it is actually meant to be nothing more than a mockery of human excellence and truth; an attempt to tear down all notions of merit while forcing the public to act as if they believe men can be women or that the mediocre can be extraordinary? Perhaps all of this is an exercise in forcing the populace to see something that is not really there and to participate in the big lie?
