When men are outed for cheating in the women's category, you know they're not talking about "trans women." Why is that?

This ABC News article is remarkable because it calls out two men (and the article calls them men) as cheaters for running and winning awards in the women’s category of the Two Oceans Marathon. As if this has not been happening for more than a decade, when they’ve been calling it “inclusion.”

ABC News clearly stating the sex of the men, and identifying it as cheating, tells you this was not about “trans women.” In fact, two men used the bib numbers of two women they knew who had entered the race but were unable to run it. The men did not identify as women, but rather just used a female friend’s bib and didn’t think through that they were registered in the women’s category.

Here’s the important part: Using this incident and the recent restriction of the women’s category to females only by the IOC, Two Oceans Marathon officials have, to their great credit, also restricted their women’s category to females only. They will not be verifying every one of the 16,000 entries with a cheek swab—for everyone who enters in the open (not elite) category, it’s still honor system, as it’s always been. Since the race officials have clearly stated their policy of sex-separated male and female categories, they expect runners to sign up in their correct sex category. BUT since they have stated that policy, if a man, for whatever reason—using a woman’s bib or self-IDing as a woman—was identified by whatever means, and particularly if that man won an award in the women’s category, he would face disqualification and banning from the event for two years. There will be no genital checks, for the love of god. Race officials have simply respected fairness for all runners by having a policy of sex-separated (and within sex, age) categories. They expect runners to show the same respect by following those rules. As simple, straightforward and fair as that is, Two Oceans Marathon is very much in the minority with that policy.

The NYC Marathon, for example, has an “inclusive” transgender policy, based on self-ID for all open (non-elite) entrants. They offer a nonbinary category but clearly state that “transgender” runners may enter according to their identity. By having this policy, NYC Marathon officials are prioritizing the desire of men to affirm their feminine identity over fairness for the approximately 25,000 female runners. To them, affirming a few men’s false beliefs about themselves is more important than respecting ALL women’s right to an all-female category. NYC Marathon officials know it is unfair for men to compete in the women’s category but they have turned a sports event, an athletic competition, into an affirmation exercise.

Two Oceans Marathon respected the reality of sex and fairness that is at the very foundation of sports, and defended the sex boundary around the female category. The two men admitted their mistake, and accepted the punishment, while the two women they displaced from the top 10 were awarded their correct position. (Of course, all the thousands of women after 10th place also moved up two places).

If men—just men, for whatever reason—enter the NYC Marathon, or almost any marathon in the U.S., in the women’s category and happen to place in the top 10, they will be given a women’s award and a woman’s place. Instead of calling out men as cheaters, the media will hail the “inclusivity” of the NYC Marathon, and the bravery of “trans women.”

Men competing in the women’s category—is it cheating or is it inclusion? Would ABC News have used that headline—men cheating in the women’s category—if those men had claimed feminine identities and run in the NYC Marathon?