The battle to order feminine sports activities for organic girls discovered an ally Wednesday in an unlikely place — ESPN.
Samantha Ponder, host of “Sunday NFL Countdown,” spoke in help of feminine swimmer Riley Gaines and her criticism of a Biden Administration plan that might let some transgender girls compete in feminine sports activities.
Ms. Gaines had tweeted that utilizing Title IX to permit trans girls, i.e., organic males, to compete within the girls’s division is unfair, and her level obtained fast help from Ms. Ponder on Wednesday.
“This could take away so many alternatives for organic girls and ladies in sports activities,” Ms. Ponder wrote in a “quote” tweet that additionally amplified Ms. Gaines’ put up.
“It’s a disgrace that we’re needing to struggle for the integrity of Title IX in 2023 and the rationale it was wanted within the first place. #savewomensports,” she wrote.
The primary a number of dozen public replies on Twitter have been virtually all optimistic — “you don’t see any ladies ‘transitioning’ and making the soccer group”; “Preach Sam and Riley!!” and “100% agree.”
Ms. Ponder’s public assertion towards trans girls competing alongside organic girls breaks together with her community, which has turn out to be a frequent goal of conservatives for its insertion of woke politics into sports activities.
Lia Thomas, a organic male who switched from the College of Pennsylvania males’s group to the ladies’s group, was honored by ESPN in a Girls’s Historical past Month section in March.
Ms. Gaines’ tweet referred to the previous Penn swimmer, towards whom she had swum when the 2 have been in faculty, and a video look backing the proposed Biden rule.
“Below the guise of aggressive equity?” Ms. Gaines wrote incredulously. ”Are you actually making an attempt to say you’ll have gained a nationwide title towards the boys? Does it not break your coronary heart to see girls lose out on these alternatives?”
Ms. Thomas gained the 500-yard freestyle ultimate on the 2022 NCAA swimming championships, however had an undistinguished profession on the Penn males’s group however joined the ladies’s group after taking a yr off to transition.
