Leaders of institutions, particularly in the decadent modern West, have long since abandoned reason.
Indeed, even when they try to restore a degree of common sense, their efforts often come with exasperating caveats.
For instance, according to BBC, Kirsty Coventry, the new president of the International Olympic Committee, said at her first news conference that the IOC would seek “consensus” and “cohesion” on the question of gender eligibility as it seeks to “protect the female category.”
In the past, the IOC has allowed each sport’s governing body to determine gender eligibility.
The controversy came to a head during the 2024 Olympics in Paris when Algerian boxer Imane Khelif won the gold medal in the women’s category — and pummeled female boxers along the way — despite the results of a prior gender test, which showed that Khelif had the chromosomes of a biological male.
A seven-time Olympic medalist in swimming, Coventry campaigned for IOC’s presidency on the promise to ban men from women’s competition.
All of this, of course, sounds sensible. After all, men have no business competing in women’s sports. And the IOC should impose a uniform ban on such madness.
To get there, however, Coventry suggested a much more complicated process than the situation requires.
“There was overwhelming support that we should protect the female category,” she said of her first meetings with IOC members, per The Guardian. “And with that, we will set up a working group made up of experts and international federations.”
Is this a good move by the IOC?
Ah, administrators do love a “working group” filled with “experts,” don’t they?
“It was agreed by the members that the IOC should take a leading role in this,” she added. “And that we should be the ones to bring together the experts and the international federations and ensure that we find consensus.”
“We understand that there will be differences depending on the sports,” the new president continued. “But it was fully agreed that as members that, as the IOC, we should make the effort to place emphasis on protection of the female category.”
Coventry also indicated that the IOC would not revisit past controversies — such as the one involving Khelif.
“We are not going to be doing anything retrospectively,” she said. “We are going to be looking forward. From the members that were here, it was, ‘What are we learning from the past and how are we going to leverage that and move that forward to the future.’”
On the whole, Coventry’s comments constitute good news, albeit with one maddening caveat.
Indeed, her insistence on “working groups” and “experts” to determine a policy that keeps men out of women’s Olympic competition makes the situation sound more complicated than it is.
Moreover, it calls to mind a style of leadership satirized in an old cartoon.
In that cartoon, a medieval king stands behind the parapet atop a castle, flanked by guards wielding spears. With dozens of enemy arrows flying at them from every direction, the king exclaims “Quick! Form a committee!”
The cartoon’s caption reads: “The Birth of Corporate Leadership.”
Saturday morning board development workshop #corpgov #committee humour pic.twitter.com/JAkmtNlTvp
— Zoe Harrison (@harrison_zoe) January 16, 2016
Thus, one rolls one’s eyes at the IOC.
As Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a recent concurring opinion, “so-called experts” cannot prevent free citizens from demanding that their elected representatives ban transgender medical procedures on minors.
The same should hold true for keeping men out of women’s sports.
Nonetheless, one can hardly blame Coventry for the atmosphere of wokeness that has hitherto engulfed the Olympics.
Moreover, her pledge to “place emphasis on protection of the female category” almost certainly means the end of transgender madness. And that — caveats notwithstanding — is worth celebrating.
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