A few years ago, you couldn't escape the word consent or its various adjective additions:
'Affirmative consent'
'Enthusiastic consent'
'Ongoing consent'
The Left said that women had to consent to every step of every intimate encounter with a man, couldn't consent if she'd been drinking, and could revoke that consent at any time (including long after the encounter ended if she 'regretted' it).
They told us men had to learn that 'no means no.'
Until the transgender activists and 'trans women' came along. Overnight, the concept of consent and 'no means no' went out the window in favor of a sexist, misogynistic, and punitive system that put the rights of mentally ill men ahead of the rights, safety, and privacy of women and girls.
These young women forfeited a game against a male player—one of the first teams in America to do so.
— Kristen Waggoner (@KristenWaggoner) April 9, 2025
They’ve been banned from sports competition in Vermont ever since.
Tomorrow, we’re going to court for them. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/WUJtoxpBit
Here's more:
In February 2023, the women’s varsity basketball team from Mid Vermont Christian School made a difficult choice: they walked away from the state tournament.
— Kristen Waggoner (@KristenWaggoner) April 9, 2025
They’d learned that the team in their first-round matchup included a 6-foot-tall male player known for aggressive play.…
The entire post reads:
They’d learned that the team in their first-round matchup included a 6-foot-tall male player known for aggressive play. After everyone talked—coaches, school officials, players, and parents—they knew what they had to do. Based on their religious belief that a person’s sex is God-given and immutable, they forfeited the game.
The Vermont Principals’ Association (VPA) was quick to retaliate, permanently expelling Mid Vermont Christian School from all sports statewide.
Tomorrow, we’ll tell the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals that this violates the First Amendment.
Why? One major reason is that the VPA showed clear hostility toward Mid Vermont’s religious views—hostility it hasn’t shown toward schools that forfeit games for secular reasons. For example, during the COVID pandemic, three Vermont schools were allowed to forfeit games against a player who had a mask exemption.
A VPA official even publicly testified that Mid Vermont’s religiously-motivated decision wasn’t sincere, calling it “blatant discrimination under the guise of religious freedom.”
The Constitution forbids this kind of state hostility toward religious belief and practice.
We’re asking the 2nd Circuit to restore Mid Vermont’s ability to compete. Please pray for my colleague Dave Cortman tomorrow as he argues this case.
These brave young women—and their schoolmates, teachers, and coaches—hold a simple belief: that boys are boys and girls are girls. For that belief, they’ve suffered two years of punishment.
That should end, now.
The Left is sending a very dangerous, deliberate message to women and girls: you cannot say no.
And it must end.
In Illinois, officials at a Deerfield Middle School forced teen girls to undress in front of a boy, because the boy identifies as 'trans' and wants to use the girls' locker room. In Wisconsin, two girls who refused to strip in front of a boy were punished by their school, and in Texas, girls were told the same thing, because they needed to demonstrate 'sensitivity' to the boy who thinks he's a girl.
Girls expecting single-sex locker rooms and privacy do not get such sensitivity. The people they're supposed to trust to protect and keep them safe are forcing them to undress or face punishment.
This is very similar to the anti-gun insanity of the Left that drove a school to punish a kid who turned a PopTart pastry into something resembling a gun. It was not a gun, would not harm anyone, and should have been dismissed as a boy. School officials also punished a boy for bringing a bubble 'gun' to school.
In both cases, the hope is that -- by creating harsh punishments associated with guns or objecting to changing in front of a boy -- kids will grow up afraid of guns and afraid to express their discomfort with changing in front of a boy.
We spent years telling girls and women to trust their gut when it came to their safety. All of that is gone now, in the name of 'sensitivity' and 'tolerance.'
Payton McNabb was permanently injured by a boy while playing volleyball. She suffered a brain injury and paralysis and was just expelled from her sorority for objecting to a man in the women's bathroom.
John Oliver dedicated 40 minutes of his show whining about how women have no right to object to men playing in their sporting leagues. See, Riley Gaines came in fifth, so it's completely okay that Will (Lia) Thomas forced the swim team to undress with him, while he walked around naked as a fully-intact male) in the locker room.
And I have to wonder: where does it stop? If girls in Vermont cannot politely forfeit a game without having their athletic careers destroyed, what is the Left's line in the sand?
Will girls be canceled for refusing to date 'trans women'? Will girls be told they need to demonstrate 'sensitivity' and sleep with that 'trans woman,' even if they don't feel comfortable doing so (and failure to be adequately affirming will result in punishment)?
It would not surprise me if John Oliver devoted another segment of his show to attacking these women who have the audacity to say no to dating 'trans women.'
But it's time that Oliver -- and the rest of the Left -- remember that 'no means no.'
