Megyn Kelly, Swimmer Riley Gaines Slam ESPN for Honoring Trans Swimmer Lia Thomas

ESPN is again taking heat for liberal advocacy with prominent observers denouncing its adulatory feature on the contentious college swimming career of transgender athlete Lia Thomas as part of its celebration of Women’s History Month.“OH HELL NO,” ex-Fox host Megyn Kelly tweeted when confronted with an ESPN clip celebrating the University of Pennsylvania swimmer, who was born male, with soft music playing in the background.Ms. Thomas is the first transgender NCAA Division 1 champion. At the NCAA championships last year, Ms. Thomas blew her competitors out of the water in her victorious 500-yard freestyle race — defeating the second-place racer by 1.75 seconds.Victories by more than a single second in such races are considered astronomical.Before her transition, Ms. Thomas ranked much lower among male competitors — ranked in the 500s, nowhere near the top ten rankings she racked up among women.One of Ms. Thomas’s former competitors, Riley Gaines, who has long been a vocal critic of the NCAA for allowing Ms. Thomas to compete with women, has also lashed out against ESPN. Ms. Gaines is a 12-time all-American swimmer who swam for the University of Kentucky.“Lia Thomas is not a brave, courageous woman who EARNED a national title,” Ms. Gaines tweeted earlier this week. “He is an arrogant, cheat who STOLE a national title from a hardworking, deserving woman.”Ms. Gaines went on to call the sports network “spineless.”Conservative radio host and sports commentator Clay Travis called ESPN’s feature on Lia Thomas “pathetic.”In recent years, ESPN has attracted criticism for its perceived forays into liberal politics — sometimes at the expense of athletics coverage.An ESPN host, Jalen Rose, last year tried to cancel Mount Rushmore, saying sportscasters should no longer use the term when making metaphors about great athletes.Mr. Rose said the iconic American landmark’s name was “offensive to all of us, especially Native Americans, Indigenous people who were the first people here before Christopher Columbus.”“That land was stolen from them when it was discovered that it contained gold. And 25 years later, to add insult to injury, four American presidents were put on what we call Mount Rushmore on the top of the dead bodies that are buried right underneath,” Mr. Rose said in the video.One of ESPN’s most prominent hosts, Jemele Hill, left the network in 2018 after tweeting that President Trump was a “white supremacist,” among other comments.The culture wars that ESPN has involved itself in have dovetailed with the politics of its liberal parent company, Disney, which is also taking heat for getting involved in gender politics. Last year, commentators took a pause during a Woman’s NCAA Tournament as a moment of silence in protest of Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law, which prohibits instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through second grade.Disney, which is Florida’s biggest private employer, pledged to seek the repeal the law, known more formally as Parental Rights in Education Act, stating that the company was “dedicated to standing up for the rights and safety of LGBTQ+ members of the Disney family, as well as the LGBTQ+ community in Florida and across the country.”Disney’s stance against the law cost the company big in Florida as Governor DeSantis took aim at its amusement park’s semi-autonomous status.“Today, the corporate kingdom finally comes to an end,” Mr. DeSantis said last month, as he announced new appointments to the oversight board for the Orlando patch that Disney has long controlled. “There’s a new sheriff in town and accountability will be the order of the day.”Disney’s inept handling of the controversy was also seen as one reason Disney fired its then-CEO, Bob Chapek, and brought back its longtime chief Bob Iger.Meanwhile, Disney is in the midst of a three round series of layoffs, aimed at cutting 7,000 jobs. The company is also trying to slash more than $5 billion in costs. It’s not clear yet whether or how ESPN will be affected. The network is hugely profitable for Disney but its business is in secular decline due to cord cutting and consumers pushing back at the high cost of sports TV.

Megyn Kelly, Swimmer Riley Gaines Slam ESPN for Honoring Trans Swimmer Lia Thomas

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