USA Today deletes 'hurtful language' from op-ed by female HS sprinter angry she's lost to biological males. What apparently was so 'hurtful'? She called them 'males.'

USA Today is feeling the backlash after deleting what it termed "hurtful language" from an op-ed by a female high school sprinter upset that's she's been forced to race against — and has lost to — biological males who identify as female. In short, transgender females.

And what apparently was so "hurtful"?

Whatever else she may have written, Chelsea Mitchell referred to her aforementioned opponents as "male" or "males" — and USA Today later cut those references from her piece.

See, in WokeWorld, that's known as "misgendering" — and it's a no-no.

What are the details?

Townhall said Mitchell's USA Today op-ed first ran over the weekend — but by Tuesday the paper added an editor's note at the top: "This column has been updated to reflect USA TODAY's standards and style guidelines. We regret that hurtful language was used."

Alliance Defending Freedom — which is representing Mitchell and other female Connecticut track athletes in a lawsuit over having to compete against transgender females — stated that USA Today editors "without notice to Chelsea, changed the word 'male' to 'transgender' throughout her piece."

Indeed, the Internet Archive reveals that the May 23 version of Mitchell's USA Today op-ed contains 11 references to "male" and "males" — but they all were either deleted outright or replaced with the word "transgender" in the piece's present form.

Here's one example from Mitchell's original piece: "Instead, all I can think about is how all my training, everything I've done to maximize my performance, might not be enough, simply because there's a runner on the line with an enormous physical advantage: a male body."

Catch those last three words? Well, they're gone now.

The new sentence uses the word "transgender" before "runner" — and the words "a male body" have vanished: "Instead, all I can think about is how all my training, everything I've done to maximize my performance, might not be enough, simply because there's a transgender runner on the line with an enormous physical advantage."

What's been the reaction?

As you might expect, folks got angry at USA Today. Christiana Holcomb of ADF certainly gave the paper what for:

Author Abigail Shrier — who knows something about the subject (and getting deleted for her views) — weighed in as well:

And U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) was only too happy to crack that quip:

Anything else?

The below video is one example of what Mitchell and other female athletes have been up against. It's from the 2018 Connecticut girls' 100-meter dash. Mitchell is the third runner from the left. The runners to her left and right — Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood — are transgender females.

The results? Mitchell came in fourth. Miller and Yearwood came in first and second, respectively. In fact, Miller set a meet record that day. But had Miller and Yearwood not been allowed to race against biological females, one might conclude that Mitchell would have finished higher that fourth.