Welcome to Breakpoint, daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

It's not uncommon in mainstream opinion writing for an author to make an absurd claim

and then spend several paragraphs of mental gymnastics justifying that claim.

A more accurate label for this kind of opinion writing genre would be

ideological writing. If the facts don't fit, twist and turn them, and pretend that they do. If that

analysis sounds a bit harsh, consider a recent opinion column that makes a claim in spite of

all evidence to the contrary. Recently, in the Atlantic, Maggie Mertons declared that, quote, separating sports by sex, does it make sense? In it, Mertons wrote this,

quote, maintaining this male-female binary in youth sports reinforces the idea that boys are inherently bigger, faster, and stronger than girls in a competitive setting,

a notion that's been challenged by scientists for years. She then went on to claim, quote,

decades of research. I've shown that sex is far more complex than we may think. And though she

admits that, quote, sex differences in sports show advantages for men, she quickly insists that researchers

today still don't know how much of this to attribute to biological difference versus the lack

of support provided to women athletes to reach their highest potential, end quote.

Now, to call this article a conclusion in search of evidence is too kind. At the heart of

Merton's proposal is the same argument that's at the heart of third wave feminism or the transgender

movement. More accurately, it's a belief that equality has to mean sameness and that men and women

therefore must be interchangeable, no matter what the evidence or reality

suggests. There's also an unacknowledged assumption that power or status equals value. Even more,

there's a failure here to recognize or perhaps to intentionally ignore created norms. In Merton's

view, if any woman is bigger, faster, or stronger than any man,

sex differences must not exist. This is kind of like saying if any day in Alaska is hotter than

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