‘Manufactured Panic’: Psaki Pulls Baghdad Bob Routine On Males Competing in Girls’ Sports

This could serve as a classic example of the it’s not happening and it’s great that it is form of argumentation. Or, alternately, it evokes the memories of Baghdad Bob, insisting that the American forces had been crushed by Saddam Hussein even as the Iraqi dictator went to hide in a spider hole. 

With centrist Democrats lamenting the ways in which radicals pushed their party too far to the Left, especially on transgender issues, Jen Psaki called for the party to … ignore the evidence before their very eyes, especially when it comes to women’s sports. It’s barely an issue at all, Psaki insisted — and even if it was, Republicans lied about issues of “safety or fairness.”

And the tanks are nowhere near Baghdad! Via Victory Girls Blog, fittingly enough:

Jen Psaki says Democrats must double down on pushing the transgender agenda on Americans, including allowing men to play against girls in sports

She says it’s not an issue and that men playing against girls in sports presents “no threat to safety or fairness.” pic.twitter.com/iIoujvv1Fm

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) November 18, 2024

There’s obviously a lot of soul-searching right now going on within the Democratic Party, and that’s a good thing. But what I worry about is that in the course of all that soul-searching, some Democrats might reach the wrong sweeping conclusions. And there are a lot of issues that fall into that bucket. But one in particular that stuck out to me is transgender rights. Republicans spent hundreds of millions of dollars on anti-trans ads this election cycle, including one that showed Vice President Harris talking about government funding for gender-reaffirming for prisoners and detainees.

If that sounds like a particularly obscure issue, it is, because it applies to a tiny group of people. And it’s also a policy that, by the way, was in place during the first Trump presidency. Another one of the lines that ran over and over again in those ads and throughout right-wing media is this idea that America is faced with a crisis of boys playing in girls sports. Now these ads created this perception that the issues of trans kids playing sports was dominating schools across the country, which is completely false. … 

Look, reflection is good, but if that were actually an issue at thousands of schools across the country, it would be worthy of a debate. But there are just incredibly few examples of transgender girls playing in youth sports. And when we see those examples, there isn’t evidence that these kids are a threat to safety or fairness. 

Are taxpayer-funded sex-change surgeries for prisoners “a particularly obscure issue”? Kamala Harris certainly didn’t think so in 2019. Harris specifically bragged about her role in sticking California taxpayers with those costs in an attempt to burnish her own progressive credentials in the run-up to the Democrat presidential primaries in 2020.  Harris never backtracked from her position on that either, and never explained why taxpayers should pay for those “transitions” for prisoners in the first place. 

All those ads did was highlight Harris’ public advocacy for that policy, which voters found absurd rather than obscure. They also found it relevant, as even the progressive group Future Forward found; their focus-group testing indicated it moved uncommitted voters 2.7 points in Trump’s direction after watching it. And that didn’t even touch on the issue of male athletes crowding into women’s sports, although other ads did, especially in Senate races in Texas and Ohio. 

Pskai uses obscure in place of inconvenient. She also uses perception in place of reality when it comes to the sports-access issue, which has escalated for the last few years as women displaced by males in their sports have become more outspoken about it. Riley Gaines and others have spoken out about their opportunities for honest competition being erased in service to the unreal and false position of pretending biological males are girls/women simply because they feel like it. 

Worse yet, they are being silenced and shut down for daring to dissent from the trans agenda and are accused of “hatred” and bigotry for wanting to preserve women’s competition for biological females. That was the point being made by Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) in the segment Psaki highlights, and which Psaki completely ignores with the exception of a throwaway, “reflection is good, but …” 

As far as “incredibly few” examples, the Olympics just featured a biologically male boxer beating the crap out of female competition. The outcomes of those alone provided evidence of the risks involved, let alone the injuries suffered by girls and women in other competitions in the US. Even the UN has determined that trans athletes have robbed women of nearly a thousand medal positions in international competitions:

Female athletes have lost nearly 900 medals to transgender rivals competing against them in women’s sporting categories, an eye-opening United Nations report has revealed.

The study — titled “Violence against women and girls in sports” — stated that more than 600 female athletes have been bested at various events by competitors who were born male.

“According to information received, by 30 March 2024, over 600 female athletes in more than 400 competitions have lost more than 890 medals in 29 different sports,” the report said.

How many men have lost medal positions to biological females competing against them? Zero. That’s what we call evidence everywhere else other than MSNBC. Nina Bookout at VGB heaps scorn on Psaki for ignoring reality in practically every way possible:

Whether Jen The Scold or John Oliver likes it or not, this IS an issue. It IS a problem. Women and girls are being told to shut up and deal when it comes to males in women’s sports. They are being told that THEY are the hateful ones for not wanting a guy in the locker rooms with them or sharing a hotel room during team travel times. 

Yet, we are engaged in “manufactured panic” when we point out the very real health and safety concerns surrounding this issue. …

Jen Psaki is shaming, belittling and erasing women for not wanting men on their teams. Identity politics is a very REAL reason why Democrats lost this election. Yet, it’s obvious that they’ve learned nothing. Keep going with this “manufactured panic” narrative Jen. It’ll serve Republicans well in 2026. 

Indeed. Psaki’s Baghdad Bob act may make her and the radical progressives feel better. However, that advice won’t help Democrats win elections in the future as the Queer and Transgender movement are simply too “weird” for mainstream Americans, to use Tim Walz’ line of attack against Republicans. Americans understand biological reality — and they know a cult when they see one.