Twitter has been abuzz this week with talk of Lia Thomas and Rachel Levine, two transgender women — i.e. biological men — who are schooling women on how to be female. The Big Tech platform has also been busy locking out critics of this proposition.

Lia, formerly William, Thomas, is a swimmer for the University of Pennsylvania who won the 500-yard freestyle national championship over a field of female athletes in Atlanta this month. Formerly ranking at number 462 in the men’s event, Thomas beat two Tokyo silver medalists to take home top spot at last week’s final.

While Thomas has enjoyed the support of many on the UPenn swim team since identifying as a female in 2019, not everyone in the swimming fraternity is pleased with the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) new rules for transgender athletes.

One teammate who spoke to the Daily Mail said that she and other female athletes feel uncomfortable sharing a locker room with Thomas. “It’s definitely awkward because Lia still has male body parts and is still attracted to women,” the teammate said.

The article, whose mind-bending headline revealed that the controversial swimmer “doesn’t always cover up her male genitals when changing” (emphasis added), was not hopeful about the situation for Thomas’ teammates. The interviewee explained that, having spoken with the team coach, “We were basically told that we could not ostracise Lia by not having her in the locker room and that there’s nothing we can do about it.”

It is perhaps not surprising that this teammate opted for anonymity when speaking to the British tabloid. Reka Gyorgy, a Virginia Tech swimmer who just missed out on a finals place, has reportedly been suspended by Twitter for offering her honest assessment of the situation.

“My finals spot was stolen by Lia Thomas, who is a biological male. Until we all refuse to compete nothing will change,” Gyorgy tweeted, shortly before her account was locked.

In a follow-up letter, Gyorgy acknowledged the hard work put in by Thomas to make it to the finals, but nevertheless took issue with NCAA’s rules, concluding that “every event that transgender athletes competed in was one spot taken away from biological females throughout the meet.”

It should be noted that in the days since, several media outlets have raised the possibility that the original Gyorgy tweet came from a fake account.

Even if that is the case, it wouldn’t be out of character for Twitter to block accounts criticising transgender ideology. Just yesterday, satirical news site The Babylon Bee had its account taken down for alleged “hateful conduct” after naming US assistant secretary for health Rachel Levine ‘The Babylon Bee’s Man of the Year’.

The linked article quipped that Levine “serves proudly as the first man in that position to dress like a western cultural stereotype of a woman”. The satirical piece was clearly riffing the USA Today’s recent decision to decorate Levine with a ‘Woman of the Year’ award.

Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon revealed that the ban would last for 12 hours but wouldn’t begin until the satirical site deleted the offending tweet. “We're not deleting anything,” Dillon resolutely announced in a thread. “Truth is not hate speech.”

Speaking to conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, Dillon doubled down on The Babylon Bee’s refusal to delete the tweet. “It’s like asking us to say that two and two make five,” he said, referencing George Orwell’s dystopian classic Nineteen Eighty-Four.

“The tweet’s a joke. That’s the first thing to get straight here … this is satire,” Dillon told the Fox News host. “Comedy is being rendered ineffective, where they’re basically making rules about what you can and can’t joke about,” he added, remarking that “the majority of Americans are actually on our side on this issue. It’s not like we’re some fringe group that has some outrageous idea that nobody accepts.”

Conservative personality Charlie Kirk also had his account suspended by Twitter for a post he wrote about Levine, not one word of which was factually incorrect:

Richard Levine spent 54 years of his life as a man. He had a wife and a family. He “transitioned” to being a women in 2011, Joe Biden appointed Levine to be a 4-Star Admiral and now USA Today has named “Rachel” Levine as a “Woman of the Year”. Where are the feminists?

In a free society, both Thomas and Levine are at liberty to identify as they wish. But the notion that all of reality must be curated to cater to their self-identity is narcissistic, oppressive and unsustainable.

Twitter can ban and block all they like. Woke activists can demand obeisance from the rest of us until they are blue in the face. But none of this will change biology, nor can it erase the private thoughts inside of my head or yours.

Here’s the rub: the only way transgender ideology can be adopted by an entire society is through totalitarian means. This is precisely the reason it must be resisted.