In West Virginia v. B.P.J. the Supreme Court has just ruled against “transgender” athletes. Boys claiming to be girls can no longer destroy female sports and traumatize girls in locker rooms. 

The opinion was written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. It is a reasonable ruling, although it doesn’t go far enough, in my opinion, because it’s missing something fundamental about what inspires the LGBTQ+ community to demand such things. What’s lurking behind the current transgender craze is the same thing that lurked behind the gay right movement for decades: hatred of women.

This phenomenon has been noticed not just by conservatives but by feminists and many honest gay people. In 2018, the videographer Monica Rodman published an article in the gay magazine The Advocate, in which she recalled working on the set of a film.

Several years ago, I volunteered to work on a micro-budget feature film for my friend at the time, a white male recent college grad; let’s call him George. He couldn’t afford to pay me properly, so instead he provided a stipend that barely covered the cost of living for a month. I agreed, partly because he was my friend, but mostly because I needed the money. About a week into production, I was setting up for a scene in the living room and as we were getting closer to picture’s up, George grew increasingly impatient. So instead of helping me, he threw a plastic bag at me in front of everyone and ordered me to “pick up the fucking trash.”

I didn’t think much of George’s abuse. I think I even silently nodded and picked up the trash bag that lay at my feet. It wasn’t until someone else spelled it out for me later; that George was acting unnecessarily hostile toward women, and women only. He treated the men on set as his equals and the women as subsidiaries.

She went on:

Perhaps gay misogynists can be more dangerous to identify because of how easily they infiltrate the cracks of even the burliest of lesbian feminists, like me. We unknowingly excuse gay men of their misogynistic tendencies, especially when it comes to verbiage (“bitch,” “girl,” etc.). And the more we are unaware, the longer we allow misogyny to exist among those whom we’ve long thought to be our brothers in arms.

Rodman concludes with this: “I will be honest in admitting that I am not familiar with the ins and outs of drag culture, but it does spur the question: Why is it considered entertaining when a man mocks a woman or how he understands womanhood?”

The reasons for it are obvious: to gay men and “trans” women, real women are competition. Gore Vidal talked about this. In 2013, he noted in Vanity Fair that many gay men were jealous of women because “they get to be women, and a lot of gay men would like to be women.” To a gay man, the ideal mate is strong, handsome, athletic, loaded with testosterone, muscular, and brave—indeed, anything but effeminate. In short, a straight man. As Vidal saw it, this accounted for a lot of the unhappiness among gay males. Their goal is always out of reach.

The most violent and misogynistic work of popular culture in my lifetime was American Psycho. The 1991 novel that later became a film and popular Broadway show follows the serial killer Patrick Bateman as he tortures and murders several women in New York. Liberal fans of American Psycho have contorted themselves into thinking the book is a satire of the excess of 1980s Reagan America, just as Monica Rodman tried to blame gay misogyny on “the patriarchy.” But the author of the book, Bret Easton Ellis, a gay man, himself sometimes comes close to admitting the truth. “Is it about gay hated of women?” he stammered in a 2010 interview with The Guardian . “Maybe it is. You tell me.”

When pressed, Ellis offered this:

If you’re writing about a misogynist, does that then make a book misogynist? I don’t think I’m a misogynist. But even if I was, so what? So you’re a misogynist—so what? So you’re a homophobe, or a racist—so what? Does that make your art less interesting? I don’t think so. Call me a misogynist. I think basically most men are misogynistic. And it is what it is.

No, most men are not misogynists. Misogyny is a disordered way of thinking. Furthermore, and in an irony that conservatives will understand, most conservative men honor and respect women a lot more than those on the left. It honors women to understand and respect their differences—neither ignoring them nor making too much of them.

Some readers might know that Justice Kavanaugh and I grew up together and went to the same Catholic high school. While there—and even earlier—we were familiar with the exploits of many great female athletes. We all had sisters, cousins, girlfriends, and friends whom we admired as athletes, as friends, as women. We knew the original Caitlin Clarks.

Liberals have been mocking Justice Kavanaugh’s ruling, noting that he is known to be a sports fan with two daughters who compete, suggesting that his interpretation of the law is colored by his personal biases. It’s more likely that Kavanaugh’s personal experience is informed by basic truths about human biology and by his understanding of the nature and purpose of sports. These things together make for a powerful ruling. Here’s a crucial excerpt from Kavanaugh’s opinion:

In assessing the reasonableness of the regulations, we also must recognize the distinctiveness of competitive sports—and the safety and competitive fairness issues that can arise when females are forced to compete against males.

With respect to safety, allowing biological males to play on women’s and girls’ sports teams can put women and girls at significant risk of injuries. The safety risks are particularly severe in contact sports.

And as to competitive fairness, allowing biological males to play on women’s and girls’ sports teams can put female athletes at a serious disadvantage. That is because sports are generally zero sum. Allowing a biological male athlete to compete on a girls’ team necessarily displaces or disadvantages a female athlete—replacing her on the roster, knocking her out of the starting lineup, reducing her playing time, depriving her of a medal, and the like. That hard reality of sports cannot be ignored or swept under the rug.

Justice Kavanaugh’s conclusion, despite the mocking of the left, could only have come from a man who deeply loves and respects women and female athletes:

Women and girls who play sports care deeply about all of those things. They obsess about them. They spend extraordinary time and effort to train in the heat and in the cold, to work out early in the morning and late at night, to get a little faster, to become a little stronger, to jump a little higher, to shoot a little better, to watch a little more video, to make the lonely journey back from an ACL tear, to scrap for playing time, to start, to win the game, to win a championship, to hang a banner, to bring home a medal, to be all-tournament, all-county, all-State, or all-American. They put a championship trophy or all-league award on their bedroom shelf—and it stays there forever as a reminder of their love of the game and pride in their achievements. They learn to endure losses with grace, to lift up their teammates, and to respect opponents who have beaten them fairly and squarely. They learn to win with class—to look a defeated opponent in the eye, shake her hand, and congratulate her on her effort. Whether the star of the team or the last player on the bench, they form lifelong friendships and lifetime memories. They savor their athletic accomplishments and cherish them for years, even decades, after their playing days are over.

My own view about the misogyny motivating the trans attack on women sports—as correct as I think it is—obviously doesn’t reflect the opinion written by Justice Kavanaugh. Back in high school, I would often announce my opinion about something, only to have him quietly correct me, indicating where I perhaps had some of the truth but had gone too far. Or, sometimes, he would just flat-out say, “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Mark,” and change the subject … to sports.