A lift too far: South Park edition

As the Babylon Bee frequently proves, reality is catching up with satire. In November 2019 South Park anticipated the case of JayCee Cooper v. USA Powerlifting. Ramsey County District Judge Patrick Diamond has required USA Powerlifting to recognize Cooper’s self-identification as a woman so that Cooper can compete with the ladies who are weaker than he is. Judge Diamond has found USA Powerlifting liable under the Minnesota Human Rights Act for discriminating against Cooper.

The Cooper case presents the real-life version of South Park‘s “Go, Strong Woman, Go” segment from 2019’s “Board Girls” episode. The précis of the segment reads: “As the ‘The Strong Woman Competition’ begins Vice Principal Strong Woman meets her biggest rival – a woman named Heather Swanson who recently identifies as a woman.” Heather Swanson, meet JayCee Cooper.

The South Park team did not have Heather’s appearance in the competition emerge from the courtroom. Judge Diamond takes us back to Gilbert & Sullivan’s Trial By Jury. He hungers to hear the chorus singing: “All hail, great Judge! / To your bright rays / We never grudge / Ecstatic praise. / All hail! / May each decree / As statute rank / And never be / Reversed in banc. / All hail!”

In the event, however, Minnesota Lynx president and coach Cheryl Reeve served as the chorus for Judge Diamond in her Star Tribune op-ed column celebrating his ruling with “ecstatic praise.” Reeve has not worked out how Judge Diamond’s ruling would play out in the WNBA, the women’s professional basketball league to which the Lynx belongs. Reeve is of course an ancient human type beloved of satirists going back to Aristophanes. She is a votary of Koalemos, the Greek god of stupidity.

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