ESPN Takes Stand Against Florida Parental Rights in Education Bill
CLAY: I’ve been arguing for a long time that the sports media is even more biased than the political media, which coming out of this Hunter Biden discussion that we’re having, this one is even crazier to think about. So, ESPN is not covering the transgender swimmer story, which happened all this week and through the weekend. A 6’4″ man, Will Thomas, decided to become a woman and change his name to Lia Thomas, and won the 500 swim competition over every other woman in college athletics.
ESPN, Buck, just pretended this story basically didn’t exist, because they don’t know how to cover it because it threatens the very essence of women’s sports. What they did cover, they had the women’s NCAA tournament on. And they decided that they were going to take a stand against the “don’t say gay” bill, even though the bill in Florida that we talked about doesn’t actually say gay in any way.
This occurred on ESPN. They had a moment of protest. I want you to listen to this. This is nothing to do with the world of sports at all, Buck. This is a next-level crazy move by ESPN, which has gone full-on woke insanity. This is MS-ESPN. Listen to this.
Here’s @ESPN’s Elle Duncan getting very upset that teachers can’t talk to very young children about sex and gender identity:
— Bobby Burack (@burackbobby_) March 18, 2022
CLAY: How crazy that is. I could see your face as you’re listening. This is ESPN! This is a sports network. That was not some, like, somebody’s Instagram. If you’re watching the women’s college basketball tournament on ESPN, that’s what you suddenly heard, and then they paused programming.
BUCK: First of all, did she say LGBTQI+? What’s the I?
CLAY: Yeah, I thought you might know.
BUCK: I thought you might know.
CLAY: Is it indigenous people? Are they part of the crew now? Is it indigenous?
BUCK: No, no. “Intersex” is probably what it is.
CLAY: What does intersex mean? I don’t now what that means.
BUCK: That means, there was a previous term that would have been used for that where you have both… By the way, I could be wrong. That’s a guess. No one yell at me I’m guessing what the acronym addition means.
CLAY: Is that when you have two different body parts?
BUCK: Yes, there was a previous term. Now that term, by the way, which we all learned, which begins with an “H,” is considered bad.
CLAY: I don’t even if I knew that term.
BUCK: You’re not allowed to use that term. Now it’s called “intersex.” That’s actually for the biological reality of gender.
CLAY: Small percentage chance occurs where you’re born both maybe male female biology.
BUCK: There’s sort of a bi-gender situation. It’s usually more one than the other. But that’s not what the transgender debate is about. “Intersex” is usually kept in a separate category. I think that’s what the I is. But ESPN introducing me to a new extension of the acronym. Plus, doesn’t the plus cover the I? Isn’t the point of the LGBTQ+?
CLAY: I can barely keep up now. Imagine you’re sitting down, because… By the way, the funny thing about this is it was during the South Carolina women’s game — and I’m not making this up, Buck. They were up 44-4 on the Howard women’s team, the 1 versus the 16 seed. So, the moment of silence really should have been for Howard’s women’s basketball team. But imagine you’re sitting down to watch this with your kids and then suddenly this anchor comes on and talks about the “don’t say gay” and pauses programming.
BUCK: This has an almost Soviet feel where you’re watching sports and they break in they give you some kind of political propaganda message in the middle of it.
CLAY: It’s weird.
BUCK: It’s bizarre. You always tell me this, because you come from a sports world background, that it’s more woke and political than political media. And I think about this. Who in the sports media will say that? A lot of people… We have friends at Fox and the Daily Wire and The Blaze and all over that all agree with us that the trans-athlete competition thing is just flatly absurd, insane and wrong.
Another thing about it. I like the woman who didn’t make it to the NCAA finals came out and said, “Lia Thomas stole my spot,” because that’s the truth. Lia Thomas stole her spot. This should never have happened. In the sports media, you would think there would be some voice.
CLAY: It’s OutKick. It’s OutKick and that’s it. Nobody else will even cover it.
BUCK: What about Barstool?
CLAY: Barstool, they’re so afraid because of the controversies they’ve gotten in the past, that they try and steer clear of almost all political-related issues. They really won’t cover this.
BUCK: This is a litmus test, because if you’re… Not even a conservative, if you’re a rationalist and you cover sports and you see this happening, I didn’t know — it makes sense when you see the photos. Lia Thomas is 6’4″. The women — the actual women — Lia Thomas is swimming against, maybe they’re 5’10”, 5’8″. Whatever.
But it is the visual manifestation of the absurdity that we’re all told not only to accept, to “celebrate,” which is always the next step. It starts with be nice, “Let’s be inclusive, and then just treat everybody alike, put everybody in the same category,” and then it’s, “No, we have to elevate, and you have to bend the knee and accept this and get excited about it.”
CLAY: What’s interesting to me here, Buck, is this is such an extension. Initially, there was at least a tacit connection between the world of sports and politics. That was the fig leaf they would use. When LeBron James says, “I’m not going to go to the White House because Donald Trump is there,” to celebrate winning a championship, “Oh, will Tom Brady be there or not at the White House to celebrate with his Patriot teammates or is he going to stay away? What did Gisele say to him?”
That was sort of the nexus that would allow them to cover left-wing politics. Buck, that was just a SportsCenter anchor coming out, by the way, on a local Florida bill that really will not impact hardly anyone. For those who have forgotten, it’s kindergarten to third grade. They’re not going to allow sex to be taught in public schools for kindergarten through third grade. There’s no sports connection to it at all.
BUCK: One way that you know… What if we just made it…? And Ron DeSantis has gone on offense, as he should, about what is actually called the Parental Rights in Education Bill in Florida. And people don’t even realize, the activists were so aggressive in renaming the bill and getting the media to do their bidding, I think very few people even still know it’s the Parental Rights in Education bill.
But there’s hysteria on the left not only about the LGBTQI+ agenda here. But they also know parental rights in education is a huge vulnerability for them going into the midterms. They know that they got their clocks cleaned in Virginia on the left, because what did our new Governor Youngkin or new Governor Youngkin do? He just said, “Parents should have rights.”
And he actually followed through on that as soon as he came into office. Clay, I think that as people learn more about this, they’ll realize how crazy the left is. But beyond that, what if we just made it kindergartners? What if the bill just said, “What aboutuntil the first grade?” Is that a problem? And then you start to say we’re only talking about up until third grade, which these are really young kids.
Gender identity and sexuality training in the school system for kids who are six, seven, eight years old, as I said before, I’m pretty sure some days I woke up when I was six and I said, “I’m a hippopotamus,” and I didn’t expect anybody to take me on a special trip to the zoo. They are little kids; they are very impressionable. They have parents. You need to guard them for a reason. You have kids. There’s a reason you don’t let your 6-year-old make all the determinations about their day-to-day lives.
CLAY: As my wife has said, for a long time, in response to all these stories, no parent lets their 6-year-old pick all their meals, because if we did, they would eat candy exclusively because they’re 6 and they like the taste of candy, right? So this is just craziness. And this, Buck, significantly has nothing at all to do with sports. And ESPN, by the way, refusing all comment on this story at all, to OutKick, to Fox News, to everybody.
