ESPN Runs Incredibly Misleading Headline About Transgender Athletes, Joe Biden
While it's almost certainly true that many people who work at ESPN subscribe to the same belief as most Americans – that biological males don't belong in women's sports – the Disney-owned company continues to make curious decisions surrounding its reporting of transgender issues.
First, their most prominent reporter on the subject is Katie Barnes. Barnes is a transgender activist who lists her pronouns publicly as "they/them."
Here's an excerpt from Barnes' personal website: "As a non-binary person of color, Katie is committed to using their voice, visibility and platforms to bring attention to the issues that marginalized people face."
It's not difficult to surmise where Barnes stands on the issue.
But it certainly calls the company's ethics into question by having an activist "reporting" on a subject in which they have a heavily vested interest.
And that leads to a recent ESPN article on the decision by the Biden administration to withdraw its attempts to allow biological males to compete in women's sports as long as they "identify" as women.
As OutKick's Ian Miller reported last week, "In April 2023, Biden's handlers submitted a change to Title IX regulations that would have effectively prevented states from banning males from competing in women's sports. Sane jurisdictions that worked to protect women's safety and the fairness of single-sex athletic events would have been overruled by new federal regulations. That proposal is now dead in the water."
The administration said, essentially, that the multiple ongoing lawsuits surrounding gender identity and sports made them pull the potential changes.
That makes sense, and it was a huge win for women. Finally, it seems, the Democrats made a move to protect women from having men compete in their sports, and share their locker rooms.
But, according to ESPN, this was not a win for women, but a shot at transgender athletes.
ESPN ran a headline about Joe Biden dropping his plan to allow transgender athletes (biological males) into women's sports that completely misrepresents the issue.
(Imagn Images & Getty Images)
The headline for the ESPN story reads: "Biden drops plan to protect transgender athletes."
Interesting, isn't it? Instead of framing this as a win for women, it's framed as an attack on transgender athletes.
Now, it's important to remember this: no one is saying that transgender people cannot compete in sports. People just want biological sex to determine who competes in women's sports.
Certainly, there is no issue with biological women calling themselves men and competing in men's sports. Of course, that never happens.
This only becomes an issue in one direction and common sense tells us why.
But instead of focusing on that, ESPN chooses to frame this as a failure to "protect" biological men, as opposed to a successful defense of women.
Martina Navrátilová pointed this out on X.
As if that weren't enough, the above article isn't even the only one currently on the ESPN website with a mischaracterized headline on transgender athletes.
As OutKick reported on Sunday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the NCAA alleging that its transgender participation policy, saying that the NCAA is "falsely marketing and selling competitions as ‘women’s’ sports only to provide a mixed sex event."
Here's how ESPN chose to frame that story: "Texas AG sues NCAA to block transgender athlete participation."
This is another misleading headline. No one is trying to "block transgender athlete participation." All males are free to compete in men's sports. This is an issue of allowing males to compete in women's sports, which obviously, doesn't make sense.
We created women's sports for a reason – so women could safely compete against other women without worrying about the physical advantage held by men.
It's odd that a company that calls itself "The Worldwide Leader in Sports" seems to lack the basic ability to determine whether it's fair to have males competing in women's sports.