The news rarely gets faker than this.
In a fresh low in American journalism, NBC News’s Today show recently airbrushed a photograph of the University of Pennsylvania’s biologically male swimmer, born William Thomas, who competes as a female named Lia Thomas. The picture just above was snapped in the pool lane on March 17, moments after Thomas won the 500 freestyle at the NCAA Championships in Atlanta.
In the original image, Thomas’ male features are perfectly clear: strong jawlines, an angular brow, thick eyebrows, red goggle marks around his eyes, and a rough overall appearance. Any reasonable person looking at this photo would recognize its contents: a college-age man engaged in a vigorous swim.
Of course, this is not the look that Lia wishes to present. So, acting as his accomplice, NBC News broke out the antidote to Thomas’ toxic masculinity.
The network retouched this photo to transform William into Lia: The tough guy in the pool soon turned demure and feminine. The jawlines and brow became more curvaceous. The eyebrows appear plucked. The eyes are free of red lines. The lips are smooth. And a soft focus makes the entire image as dreamy and fictitious as Thomas’ entire existence.
The Post Millennial‘s comparison shots render all of this indisputable.
There is zero journalistic justification for such fraud.
“I pride myself on providing authentic images as a photojournalist,” Erica Denhoff, a 2008 U Penn alumna and former collegiate track-and-field athlete, told the Washington Examiner. “I’m surprised and disappointed that Today altered my image of Lia for this particular news segment.”
NBC clearly is on a mission here and is advancing the notion that Thomas is anything other than a man with a penis who thinks he is a woman and is swindling actual women out of swimming titles for which they have worked honestly and diligently.
“Lia” is locked inside “William,” perhaps a linguistic symbol of the “girl trapped in a boy’s body” claim that propels such lore.
Whatever William now calls himself, he is playing a zero-sum game. His victories cheat genuine females out of medals, trophies, scholarships, prestige, and personal satisfaction.
Period.Where the hell are the feminists in this controversy? Whatever happened to the “girl power” that was all the rage just a few years ago? The penis-equipped William Thomas disempowers girls. Literally. And yet he is ballyhooed as a “she” who should be admired.
Swimming records earned honestly by real women — for Supreme Court nominee and non-biologist Ketanji Brown-Jackson’s benefit, female human beings possess two X chromosomes, vaginas, ovaries, uteri, fallopian tubes, and femininity — are being drowned by Thomas, who is equipped with an X and a Y chromosome, a penis, testicles, vas deferens, and barely concealed masculinity.
As NBC News’ doctored photograph confirms, Thomas’ charade is sick, twisted, sad, and — above all else — monumentally unfair.
Imagine a heavyweight Olympic boxer who “identifies as” a welterweight fighter. Why? Because he says so.
He then leaps into the ring and pounds his every welterweight opponent to a pulp. He soon wins Olympic gold in welterweight boxing. Never mind his 201 pounds versus his final opponent’s 152 pounds. Details!
So what? The news media cheer. Activists gaze right past his bulkier frame and declare him, “a model welterweight athlete.” Their eyes brim with emotion.
This is insane.
According to Topend Sports, the average male competitor in aquatic events at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro weighed 181 pounds (82.2 kg). His female counterpart? 137 pounds (62.2 kg). These weights are proportional to those in the aforementioned boxing scenario.
While real Olympic pugilism fans would be appalled by such an atrocity, its collegiate and high school equivalent unfolds regularly in U.S. swimming pools and athletic fields, as Woke fans and Left-wing journalists applaud this outrage.
Lia Thomas is a world-class con artist, as are so many other men who “identify” as women, even as they awaken with morning wood and lack the dedication to their cause to lop off their manhood.
Everyone knows this, and nearly everyone is cowed by Left-wing bullies who shout them into silence. And NBC News is out front with the ultimate spa treatment. The facial that NBC gave William Thomas airbrushed and buffed him into LiaThomas, in service to social chaos.
Playing along with William’s fantasy of being Lia is one thing. Burying a young man’s athletic face beneath a mudslide of Photoshopped lies is quite another.
How nice for a cheater like Lia Thomas to have co-conspirators in such high places.
Too bad so many stay so quiet about all of this. The cancel culture that shields people like William/Lia Thomas from criticism is a powerful force.
But, yet again, George Orwell’s advice is priceless: “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
