When a male athlete has a physical advantage, he's gifted; when a woman athlete has a physical advantage, she's a man?

Brittney Griner is dominating college basketball, success which is generating some inappropriate attacks and comments about her gender. Here's the take of columnist Ray Ratto:

I think we may be looking at this Brittney Griner thing all wrong. Not the playing thing -- that we got all right. She's a hell of a player, maybe unlike any other player in the history of women's basketball.

But the insulting, offensive and retrograde remarks about her gender -- I think we may be going about her defense all wrong by using persuasion and gentle chiding. We may want to simplify our argument to its essentials, to wit:

If you think Brittney Griner is something other than what she purports to be -- that is, a woman -- then you are an idiot and a coward.

There. That wasn't so hard to read, was it?

But here I am taking her word on faith, and there's always the possibility of being wrong, so let's adjust our earlier assessment of her critics thus:

Unless you are a licensed gynecologist with access to her medical records or have examined her yourself, you don't get to express a stupid opinion about her, because you know nothing. So shut the hell up.

And why are we taking what seems to be a stand against free speech and for broad-based reader abuse in the matter of slandering the Baylor center?

Simple. Because we live in troubled times, and we cannot afford to luxuriate in ignorant calumnies for our own amusement. Every minute someone wants to make some sort of clever remark about her as something other than a bona fide woman is a minute we cannot get back, and we've wasted more than enough time on it as it is.

I mean, this "she must not be a real woman if she can play like that" is one of the oldest canards in the book, and is a reminder that people who don't like women's sports can never be content with, "Well, it's not my cup of tea, but you go ahead and enjoy it if you like."


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