Iszac Henig is a woman who declared herself a man. She was also a champion Yale swimmer and, when she notified the Yale athletic department of her new “identity,” it made a place for her on the men’s team (meaning that it ousted a biological man). The new regime was a fail for both Henig and Yale because biology is a reality, while Henig’s “identity” is not.

How badly did reality kick in? According to OutKick, when she swam as a woman, Henig “finished the 2021-22 NCAA season as a women’s all-American….” When she swam as a pretend man, “Henig struggled to a 79th finish out of 83 swimmers at an Ohio State meet in November….” The only swimmers worse than Henig were a one-armed man and three people who specialized in other strokes.

Robert Spencer points out the obvious, which is that Henig is no “Lia Thomas”: “Thomas became a champion because he is a man competing with women. Henig became a poor swimmer because she is a woman competing against men.”

Even Henig understands that biological reality wins (although her feelings matter more), for she wrote about her situation in a New York Times article entitled “I Chose to Compete as My True, Trans Self. I Win Less, but I Live More.” In 2,000 words, she conceded that she can’t be a winner against bigger, stronger males.

Image: Iszac Henig. YouTube screen grab.

Her successful career for three years as a female Ivy League swimmer ended with a whimper as she pretended to be a male swimmer with her reality-based female body—complete with smaller lung capacity and much less upper body strength and stamina. It’s likely she couldn’t even compete now against boys at high school events.

Henig knows what she’s lost. “I ended up having the best swim season of my life that year on the women’s team and went mostly undefeated. I won my first individual Ivy League title in the 50 free and, at my first N.C.A.A. championship meet, placed fifth in the 100 free, earning All-America honors.” (Although some remember when “Lia” Thomas let her win.)

Things are different now because Henig is literally playing with the big boys:

Now I’m a senior, swimming with the men. I’ve been taking hormones for almost eight months; my times are about the same as they were at the end of last season. Right before Thanksgiving we finished a meet against Ohio State, Notre Dame, Virginia Tech and others. I wasn’t the slowest guy in any of my events, but I’m not as successful in the sport as I was on the women’s team.

There are real losers because of this kind of insanity. The most obvious are females who are forced to compete against males in any physically based sport, from football to badminton. However, there are going to be unknown men who lose their chances to compete, too, because a politically correct high school or college athletic department feels obligated to accommodate a former star female athlete who suddenly announces she’s male. The leftists have an agenda, and it isn’t founded on reality.

I worked for the army as an emergency physician and knew some mighty fit female enlisted and officers—some of whom were more fit and strong than I was. Still, some realities cannot be denied about female versus male bodies—upper body and truncal strength and size, muscle bulk, and the ability to take a beating. Ultimately, reality will trump ideology every time.

Competitive sports prove nature ordains some things, chief among them being biological males and females. Nature does not provide a “choice.” You can put a change of behavior, a dress, makeup, and a hairdo on a male, pump hormones into him and surgically mutilate him, but reality dictates that he’s still a male.

John Dale Dunn MD JD is a retired emergency physician and inactive attorney in Brownwood, Texas.