Longtime ESPN anchor Sam Ponder lashed out against the Biden Administration Wednesday after it was announced that the administration is seeking to expand Title IX to include protections for trans athletes seeking to compete in sports that align with their preferred gender identity rather than their biological gender. Title IX, which was enacted 51 years ago, forbids federally-funded academic institutions from sex-based discrimination. It has been a rallying point for the feminist and female empowerment movements over the last several decades, but is now being revisited after a number of biological males identifying as women are claiming championships over biological women, including the University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, formerly Will Thomas, who won a NCAA Division One title over Olympic Silver Medalist Emma Weyant at the NCAA Championships in March, 2022. Supporters of the Title IX expansion that the Biden Administration is advocating for have made the bizarre claim that trans women are women and therefore deserve title IX protections. However, opponents of the expansion argue that allowing biological men to compete in female athletic competitions will cause significant harm and damage for biological women who have trained their entire lives to compete at the highest level only to have championships ripped away from them. Leading the charge in opposition to Title IX expansions is former Division One swimmer Riley Gaines who was denied a podium spot at the March 2022 Division One Swimming Championships, the same event that Thomas competed in. Joining Gaines in opposition are several prominent conservative politicians and news pundits such as Florida Governor Ron Desantis, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, former Fox News Host Megyn Kelly, British commentator Piers Morgan, and House Republicans. You can now add Ponder to that list.
The fight over whether to include trans athletes in women’s competitions has been a long drawn-out process for years, but it came to a boiling point last March when trans woman Lia Thomas outpaced the rest of “her” competition at the 2022 NCAA Division One Swimming Championships 500 meter freestyle by a wide margin. This result quickly caught the ire of Thomas’ competitors and was met with heavy criticism from those on the right, most notably conservative Governors Kristi Noem and Ron Desantis. Desantis issued a statement declaring the runner-up, Virginia Swimmer Emma Weyant, as the true winner and declared “in Florida, boys will compete with boys and girls will compete with girls”. The controversy surrounding the questionable outcome of the swimming championships became a campaign issue for the 2022 midterm elections in the United States and ultimately led to landslide victories for Desantis and Noem, and was one of the reasons why Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives. The outrage over the NCAA’s policy decision that allowed a person like Thomas to compete and steal championships away from biological women caused embattled ex-NCAA President Mark Emmert to resign. He made his official exit last month.
Riley Gaines had competed at the University of Kentucky since 2019. She was runner-up at the 2021 NCAA Division One Swimming Championships in the 4 x 200 meter freestyle. After being forced to compete against Lia Thomas in the 200 meter freestyle at the 2022 NCAA Divison One Swimming Championships, Gaines turned her attention towards political activism and joined Turning Point USA. She spoke at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last month, emphasizing the importance of protecting opportunities for women to compete in sports in a fair and equitable way. Gaines has also spoken in support of a West Virginia law that would limit participation in athletic competitions to the gender assigned at birth. It is currently being challenged in court, but if it goes into effect, athletes like Lia Thomas would be ineligible to compete in female athletic competitions in the state of West Virginia. It would also set legal precedent for other states looking to enact similar laws.
As the battle over whether to extend Title IX protections heats up, more women are speaking out against the Biden Administration’s proposal. This includes longtime ESPN Anchor and co-host of Sunday NFL Countdown Sam Ponder. The 37 year-old reporter addressed her opposition by stating the new changes “would take away so many opportunities for biological women”. This is of course a risky move on her part as ESPN, who just last month did a feature on Lia Thomas highlighting “her” “accomplishments” during a segment on women’s history month, along with the network’s parent company Disney gradually shifting further left and fully embracing the woke agendas being pushed by radical activist groups and left-wing politicians. ESPN doesn’t typically tolerate its TV personalities breaking rank. ESPN fired former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling back in 2016 for comments he made about a North Carolina law that limited bathroom access to people based off of gender assigned at birth. Upon firing Schilling, ESPN released a statement denouncing Schilling’s alleged “transphobic comments” and ensured its viewers that there is no room for discrimination at the network. In 2021, ESPN fired sideline reporter Allison Williams after she refused to get vaccinated against Covid-19. The network also suspended anchor Sage Steele in 2021 for speaking out against Covid-19 vaccine mandates. It wasn’t the first time that Steele had been reprimanded by the network. It’s unclear what will Happen to Ponder now that she has officially broken rank, but given ESPN’s recent history of silencing opposition it’s very likely Ponder will also face punishment of some kind in the coming days. Ponder is one of the more popular tv personalities currently working for ESPN so the network is in a tough spot. ESPN does not care about who is popular, so it is likely possible that Ponder will hit the chopping block.
What Ponder, Gaines, and others are doing is highly commendable considering that they are risking their careers in the process.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives recently passed the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act along party lines. Every Republican voted in favor of the bill’s passage. Every Democrat voted no, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The bill is not expected to pass in the Democrat-controlled senate, and President Biden says he intends to veto the bill if it reaches his desk.
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