A Tale of Two Disabilities
We recently finished one of the most unusual Olympic Games. The 2020 (2021?) Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo were played with virtually no spectators, movements of athletes and media were limited, and many competitors could not even stay for the closing ceremonies because of a new rule requiring them to leave the Games within 48 hours after their last event. Yet, with all these restrictions, the International Olympic Committee saw fit to loosen the rules when it came to allowing a biological male from New Zealand to compete in women’s weightlifting.
This week we are in the middle of the Paralympic Games, where individuals with some sort of physical disability demonstrate their exceptional physical capacities in other areas. Most of these athletes naturally need some special accommodations and assistance in order to compete effectively.
Whereas special new accommodations can now be made for someone experiencing gender dysphoria at the Olympic games, the accommodations that paralympic athletes have come to expect and rely upon have been curtailed. Two-time Paralympic swimming star Becca Meyers, who has been deaf since birth and is now legally blind, had to withdraw before the games began because the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee would not allow her to bring her personal care assistant (PCA), in this case her mother, to Tokyo with her. She was asked to rely on the one PCA allotted to 34 athletes on the U.S. Paralympic swim team.
Thanks to the inflexibility of the USOPC in refusing to grant Meyers the assistance she has always had, she will not be able to add to the six medals she has already won (three golds, two silvers, and a bronze) in the last two games. But, hey, a man can now compete in women’s Olympic sports. In this upside-down culture we live in, we shouldn’t be surprised.
