(LifeSiteNews) — Some days, Canada feels like a time capsule, a country trapped around 2016. Country after country – the United Kingdom, the Scandinavian nations, the United States – have begun to pull back from the premises of transgender ideology. Even international bodies such as the Olympic Committee have decided to ban trans-identifying men from competing against women. But if you read the mainstream press in Canada, it’s as if this debate is not even happening. With a handful of exceptions (the National Post), Canada’s press is a hermetically sealed bubble.

Exhibit A is a recent headline in Ontario-based news outlet Guelph Today: “University of Guelph professor warns IOC transgender ban will harm women’s sport.” In other words: Not allowing trans-identifying men to compete against women will hurt women’s sports.

“This policy is unnecessary,” said Dr. Charles DT Macaulay of the Department of Management at the Gordon S Lang School of Business and Economics. “I have yet to come across any study that has systematically demonstrated that trans women have some sort of physical, athletic or competitive advantage in sports. The results of trans women athletes competing at elite levels have not demonstrated they are dominating.”

The only possible conclusion here is that Macaulay is actively avoiding such evidence. In 2021, Emma Hilton and Tommy Lundberg published an extensive study titled, “Transgender Women in the Female Category of Sport: Perspectives on Testosterone Suppression and Performance Advantage,” which detailed how male puberty brought advantages in bone density, muscle mass, and other traits that cross-sex hormones does not fully suppress.

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Also in 2021, the British Journal of Sports Medicine published a systematic review of 24 studies titled, “How does hormone transition in transgender women change body composition, muscle strength and haemoglobin? Systematic review with a focus on the implications for sport participation.” The study concluded that trans-identifying men retained significant physical advantages in sports.

Another study published shortly thereafter in the same journal titled, “Effect of gender affirming hormones on athletic performance among transgender women and men in the US Air Force” reached similar conclusions, as did a 2022 study titled, “Transwoman Elite Athletes: Their Extra Percentage Relative to Female Physiology.” There are also plenty of other extensive analyses on the same issue, all of which are easily discoverable for the layman, much less an academic with access to university databases.

Having apparently missed all of this, Macaulay solemnly warns that the Olympic Committee’s decision will harm the “marginalized” without any rational basis. “The IOC changing its policy to only allow women who fit within a narrow definition will rebound throughout all levels of women’s athletics, from youth to international competition,” Macaulay said. “There are athletes who will be excluded from competition because they will not fit within the definition of ‘female’ as presented in this policy.”

“The IOC’s new policy states eligibility for any female category will be determined on the basis of a one-time SRY gene screening,” Guelph Today reported. “However, Macaulay points out, not all males have the SRY gene and not all females are without it. Furthermore, it remains separate from one’s psychological and social understanding of their self- and gender-expression.” Predictably, Macaulay’s conclusion is that the policy “will have detrimental effects on all women.”

Macaulay defaulted to a favorite trick of trans activists by referring to those who are intersex, once again exploiting a small population of people in the service of transgender ideology. He is not arguing for careful exceptions to be applied to those with the intersex condition; he is arguing that men who identify as transgender should be permitted to compete against women. As Guelph Today summarized it:

It also further marginalizes trans women, eliminating inclusive environments in women’s sports that have made them feel more comfortable in their bodies. “Recognizing and embracing that diversity across all women has profound health and social benefits,” Macaulay says.

READ: Transgender pedophile threatens German judge with ‘misgendering’ fine

It is, frankly, gross that activists continue to use the condition of being intersex as interchangeable with transgender identification.

“This negates the genealogical, biological and anatomical diversity that exists across humanity,” Macaulay stated. “The reason this policy only applies to women’s sports is because many people believe that all men are physically stronger than all women and that no transgender man would possess a physical or athletic threat to cisgender men, especially elite athletic men.”

Macaulay has either declined to read or is willfully misrepresenting the arguments that are actually being made by those who wish to restrict female sports to females. “Being an accomplished athlete is more than just physical strength,” he insisted. “In many sports, skill is a significant factor in success, and skill is something developed through effective training. It is not a biological given.”

Macaulay’s comments remind me of a recent admission by the famous liberal academic Malcolm Gladwell, who confessed in a podcast interview last year that he had been “cowed” by trans activists into supporting trans-identifying men in women’s sports. Despite knowing better, he said, he allowed comments that were “nuts” to pass without objection.

That describes the editorial position of pretty much Canada’s entire media ecosystem.