We’re having some moments of common sense these days.

“Can a man become a woman? Not — no,” Rahm Emmanuel said.

Obviously. But why did it take so long to admit the obvious? Maybe we’ve reached a ‘tipping point’ in people no longer being afraid of stating biological reality.

Author Malcolm Gladwell admitted to being “ashamed” by his performance hosting a prominent sports conference discussing the “path forward for the inclusion” of trans athletes in women’s sports — claiming he was “cowed” by public pressure.

In a podcast released Tuesday, Gladwell, 62, lamented a 2022 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference during which the “Outliers” author said he was “objective in a dishonest way.”

Gladwell himself did not admit it at the time.

“[T]he trans athlete on the panel, at one point they turn to you, Ross, and they said, ‘Ross, you have to let us win.’ And it was at this moment that I realized this position, this argument has gone to the furthest extreme.”

“They’re not asking for a place at the table, they’re not asking to be treated with respect and dignity. What they’re asking is for no one to question their considerable physiological advantage they bring to the sport,” Gladwell said.

“I heard that and thought, ‘This is nuts,’ and yet I didn’t say anything.”

The “Tipping Point” scribe explained simply by saying that the “cultural winds have shifted” beyond just sports.

“Even the advocates are having to shift their feet and make a different claim.”

What Gladwell is saying is cowardly, but he’s far from alone in this regard. Major old school players quickly backed down or were intimidated by cancel culture online mobs. Remember when Stephen King had to apologize for saying that a writer could wrote any character regardless of race or ethnicity?

These people aren’t intimidated by gulags or even by loss of income. I presume Gladwell could be perfectly fine without another paying gig. Ditto for King. What they’re really afraid is losing their status, being shunned by their social set, stepping outside the world that they know. People like David Horowitz or David Mamet did it. But most liberal elites are cowards who are only now willing to tentatively say what J.K. Rowling placed her entire public life on the line to say.

(Note: few of them actually say, what Rahm boldly did, that a man can’t become a woman, they’re in the more safer arena of questioning men competing against women.)

Did anyone actually believe this stuff?

“My suspicion is that 90 percent of the people in the audience were on your side but 5 percent of the audience was willing to admit it,” Gladwell recounted.

No one believed it, but everyone was afraid to say so. And they say Communism is dead.