As usual, the liberal Anchorage School District and Anchorage School Board registered their immediate fact-challenged reply:

The radical Anchorage School District was first out of the gate with a response:

“We are disappointed in ASAA’s decision today. Our hope was this matter would have been tabled. We will be reviewing the decision and the impacts it will have on our students,” said MJ Thim, chief of communications, publications, and external affairs.

Margo Bellamy, president of the Anchorage School Board was incensed in her testimony to the organization:

“There is no historical record in the state of Alaska that provides any data to suggest that Trans-girl athletes pose a widespread threat, unfair competitive circumstances or risk to student safety. AASA should not be setting policy or interfering with local ordinances or local district policies. This Bylaw change will cause school districts to discriminate based on gender/sex and force districts to either comply, with unreasonable and harmful requirements, or seek alternatives for noncompliance,” Bellamy said.

Back on September 1st, I wrote about the Alaska Board of Education decision that initiated this by-law change. The matter has now come to completion; fairness returns to Alaska school sports.

Now, as to the dissenters: Clearly, Anchorage School Board President Margo Bellamy is not a biologist. She is, to put it very simply, wrong. First, there are and always have been clear and undeniable developmental differences between boys and girls, differences in bone strength, muscle mass, and lung capacity, among other things. As for her claim that this policy is causing school districts to "discriminate," well, yes, in a manner of speaking, this new policy will discriminate against boys claiming they are girls to gain an unfair advantage in sports, which can lead to scholarships and other perks; this causes actual financial harm to the girls that are elbowed out by these practices in other states.

It turns out that the University of São Paulo in Brazil has published research that directly refutes the claim that "transgender" women have no advantage over actual women; this is actual research, based on actual data, carried out by actual scientists. By all means, read the entire article summarizing this work, but here's the money shot:

The researchers found that, although the transgender women had about the same testosterone levels as the cisgender women, they had about 40% greater skeletal muscle mass. Moreover, they were about 19% stronger and had 20% greater cardiopulmonary capacity. Interestingly, transgender women’s athletic markers generally fell right in the middle between cisgender men and women.

That would seem to slam down a lid on the whole issue; "transgender women" (and girls) have an unfair advantage over actual women (and girls), and should not be allowed to compete in women’s or girls' sports. Of course, plenty of people will refuse to acknowledge these results, which are not surprising to anyone with any knowledge of biology. Why? Because the entire issue is political, not scientific, and while we argue this political issue, how many young women are being denied scholarships and other opportunities by universities and other organizations that deny these facts?

These practices are not unreasonable or harmful. They are, sadly, necessary, but they are also absolutely rooted in fairness; boys will now compete with boys, girls with girls, and never the twain shall meet, unless the competition in question is one that requires no physical prowess; chess, for instance. That's reasonable. That's biology. That's reality. Alaska shouldn't have to implement a policy to ensure what is patently obvious to anyone with enough smarts to pound sand — or who isn't blinded by leftist ideology.

Meanwhile, California's schools are still engaging in lunacy. My colleague Alex Parker recently documented the West Coast-based Gender Spectrum organization, which pushed, among other things, pronoun insanity:

Those favoring emojiself pronouns may turn out to be "smileyself," while nounself-pronoun people might hop to the beat of "bunself." For those in need of noun-gender justice, a trio of triumph was displayed:

• Foxgender 
• Moongender 
• Rockgender

Unbelievable. Significant parts of California and the rest of America's Left Coast may be descending into lunacy, but at least the Great Land still retains some common sense. And this isn't the first instance; last year, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough — where we live — passed a resolution that, in the Mat-Su schools, boys will use boys' restrooms and girls will use girls' restrooms.  Seems like that's something you shouldn't have to specify, but it's a measure of how crazy things have gotten that an area like the Mat-Su should have to codify this into a public ordinance.

One final, tangential consideration: This is another example of how the government closest to the voter is the government that is most responsive to the voter. The Alaska Board of Education and the Alaska School Activities Association have listened to the voting public in Alaska and acted accordingly. The members of both the B of E and the ASAA are known in their communities; people can reach them. Try getting an appointment with your Congressman or one of your Senators — and good luck, unless you're a big donor or major campaign finance bundler!

Slowly, we're seeing inroads of sanity into the whole "transgender" issue. Let's hope it continues.