Asymmetrical Warfare of Ideas

Seven T-shirts met with the combined machinery of police, private security, venue management, and a professional sports organization.

On September 6, I went to go to the Portland Thorns game with a small group of friends wearing t-shirts that showed our support and allegiance to single-sex sports for women and girls.

That was it.

That was the extent of our “action.”

Was this a stunt on our part? Yes.

Was this political theater? Also yes.

But ultimately, I exposed something far more sinister than I originally intended. I had hoped to show public support for women and girls at a time when the women’s sports conversation is at the forefront of public consciousness and has mainstream media attention. Instead, I revealed a soft authoritarianism at work within our own country and the extent to which transgenderism has full access to coercive institutional pressure to forcibly suppress the quiet NO of women who do not consent.

Rather than being left to watch the game in peace, we were targeted as we arrived and forcibly ejected from the stadium. We were treated as criminals, surrounded by security and police, and forced to leave under threat of arrest. All this because we had planned to reveal gender critical t-shirts that said: XX/XY Athletics, Woman, and XX≠XY. Other than wearing t-shirts, our plan was to watch and enjoy the game.

The extreme overreach and disproportionate use of institutional force to this simple action exposes the deeply anti-woman foundations of transgender ideology and the scope of its ideological power and hold on multiple public and private institutions.

Five women and two men wore pro-woman T-shirts. That was the act. Look at the response: state police, private security, stadium authorities, and a professional sports organization worked together to eject seven peaceful people under threat and duress. The important story isn’t simply what was written on seven shirts; it’s the extraordinary asymmetry between a peaceful act of expression and the institutional machinery that mobilized against it.

I have spoken before about the asymmetry of harm that exists between men and women that has to do with our physical attributes and the flow of sex-based violence. The disproportionate use of institutional force over our quiet action exposes an asymmetrical warfare of ideas between trans ideology and a pro-women and girls stance. The fact that such a cooperation of public and private authority was coordinated and mobilized to stop our action before we even took off our jackets and before the game even started should shock everyone who still believes in free speech and free expression as a constitutional right.