What happened to the Olympics?

The Olympic Games, an international showcase of athletics like none other, should be a time of enjoyment, competition, and a chance for everyone the world over to support their country.

And the Games themselves, meaning the actual athletic events, have historically been just that for the most part. I’ve marveled since I was a little girl at the grace, power, and elegance of both the women’s and men’s U.S gymnastics teams. The U.S. basketball teams routinely bring home gold in dominant fashion (and to no one’s surprise who knows me, this is my all-time favorite event). Track and field, always some of the most exciting events, is just starting in Paris.

And during this Olympics, the 51-year old Turkish shooter, Yusuf Dikec, has gone viral with his laid back demeanor, casual t-shirt, plain glasses, and hand in pocket as he shoots. Standing emotionless on the podium accepting his silver medal in marksmanship, he simply asked his ex-wife to let him have his dog back. The memes are priceless.

As you can see, I love the Olympics. I always have. But the Olympics and the International Olympic Committee have decided that simply being a left-leaning organization wasn’t enough. No, they have decided to destroy anything about family entertainment, religion, and culture, anything that is good, true, and beautiful.

It started Friday night with a purposely offensive and disturbing drag queen mockery of da Vinci’s The Last Supper, with a haloed self-described lesbian “love activist” posing as “Olympic Jesus” in the “Gay New Testament” depiction.

A cloche was then lifted revealing a mostly naked blue man, Dionysus—the Greek god of drunkenness, insanity and ritual madness, religious ecstasy and sexuality—served on a dinner plate surrounded by and barely covered by strategically-placed fruit. The segment was entitled, “La Cène sur la scène sur la seine”—The Last Supper on the stage on the Seine. Oh and there was also a sleazy scene depicting a ménage à trois in France’s Bibliothèque National—because all of this screams sports, excellence, perseverance, beauty, and athleticism. Right.

Yes, we should pray for those who think this is acceptable. We could extend grace. But that doesn’t excuse what was shown on primetime television—a blasphemous, sexualized pagan ceremony with one child present and millions of other children most likely in the viewing audience. It doesn’t excuse what our children had to witness before we turned the channel.

As one writer accurately stated, “The culture from which [this Olympic performance] emerged is largely parasitic, dependent for its existence on the denial or the mockery of what it once considered true. It has nothing positive to say, glorying only in the defilement and destruction of things that earlier cultures saw as holy. Under its tasteless wrappings, it’s an anti-culture of nothingness.”

And then on Wednesday, we saw Algeria’s Imane Khelif, an athlete with a Y (male) chromosome, compete in women’s boxing. Interestingly, footage from actual fight appears to have been removed across social media. But I saw it; it was hard to watch.

Keep in mind that Khelif was banned by the International Boxing Association(IBA) from competing in the female category in 2023. Because they understand the dangers. But the IOC was fine with it.

The issue is a bit complicated and requires some understanding. Despite what the left will tell you, the reality is that biologically, there are only two sexes, male and female, determined before birth by the ability, but for a historic developmental injury/accident, to produce sperm or eggs. And despite chromosomal anomalies that may cause someone not to have only XX or only XY chromosomes, if a person has a Y chromosome, they are biologically male.

Because Khelif has a Y chromosome, she is biologically a male. The presence of a Y chromosome and male level testosterone levels are what resulted in the IBA’s disqualification. But she was raised as a female reportedly due to a disorder of sexual development (DSD), an extremely rare birth defect involving the genitourinary system (0.018% or about 1 in 5500).

People with DSD’s are not members of a third sex—they are still either male or female from before birth. We should have compassion for anyone who is the victim of such a cruel biological anomaly.

While Khelif was apparently and understandably raised as a girl based on physical observations at birth, there remain physiological advantages to having a Y chromosome. She is not a female, who just by good fortune or working harder, happens to be that much better than all the other elite female boxers. What we observed is the physical advantage of physiologically being a male. And our ire should be directed at the IOC and the misogynistic system that promotes and jealously protects the pseudoscience that weakly backs them—this boxer should not be competing against women. It’s too dangerous, and it is inherently unfair.

And we saw how it turned out. Angela Carini, an Italian woman who has trained her whole life for this moment, forfeited the fight after being struck in the face multiple times in just 46 seconds. What did the IOC do? They doubled down on their decision to allow Khelif to compete against women. As has pretty much everyone on the left.

These events happened, ironically, on the exact same day the Biden administration’s radical and lawless executive rewrite of Title IX went into effect. Instead of defining sex in our discrimination laws as has been biologically known since the beginning of time and as it was originally intended by the drafters of the original legislation, the Biden administration added gender identity to the definition of sex under Title IX. This unconstitutional addition will allow men who simply “identify as women” to freely occupy and enter women’s private spaces and participate in women’s sports.

Keep in mind, Title IX was written to prevent sex discrimination against women and girls in education and sports. This new language essentially erases over 50 years of equal rights and opportunities for women and girls. (I’ve previously written about this here and here.)

I’m disturbed and sad about what the Olympics has become. But as conservatives, we need to do more than just be disturbed, sad, angry, or all of the above. We need to engage the cultural insanity at every level where the opportunity presents itself. We must pursue, promote, and celebrate that which is good, true, and beautiful. And we must call our institutions back to their original purpose: preserving and perpetuating the enduring values of our nation. Do this, and we can redeem our culture.

That is why we exist. That is our story. We will lead the fight in advocating cultural change through institutional change. It is crucial.

We pray for God to have mercy on our great nation and on us all. We desperately need it. And we need His courage and grace. Are you with us?

– Lesley