Former ESPN correspondent Charli Arnault slammed her former employer for allegedly violating the ‘non-politics’ rule — a month after the network aired a tribute to transgender swimmer Leah Thomas during Women’s Month.
Arnolt announced earlier this week that she’s leaving the Worldwide Leader for OutKick, and spoke to Fox News about her issues with her former company — where she felt “stifled” and “uncomfortable” by the company’s culture.
ESPN has been very adamant about keeping politics out of their programming, but you just saw, late last month, they did a full tribute, during Women’s Month, to Lia Thomas, Arnolt He saidvia the New York Post.
So, they don’t seem to be keeping politics completely out of the mix. But, I have to commend (Sage Steele and Sam Ponder) for standing up for these women who have sadly lost so much of the success they worked so hard for.
Arnoult later said, “I think there are a lot of women who don’t feel comfortable about standing up for women’s rights because they don’t want to be seen as politically wrong, because it’s really crazy where this world and this conversation has gone.”
Charly Arnolt left her role with ESPN to be an OutKick host
University of Pennsylvania swimmer Leah Thomas and Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines react after they placed fifth in the 2002 freestyle 200 finals
Thomas sparked controversy in the world of college sports after becoming the first transgender athlete to win a Division I title, in women’s swimming.
Thomas previously competed in the men’s division at the University of Pennsylvania before transferring.
And former college swimmer Riley Gaines, who competed with Thomas, has spoken out against a ruling from the Biden administration that bars schools and colleges across the United States from banning transgender athletes from women’s sports.
This encouraged Steele and Ponder, now former classmates of Arnault, to speak their minds on the issue as well.
Ponder tweeted, “This would take away so many opportunities for biological women and girls in sports. It is such a shame that we need to fight for the integrity of Title IX in 2023 and why it is needed in the first place.”
Steele added, “This is heartbreaking and crazy and really hard to watch. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up feeling relieved that this was just a silly, farcical, nonsensical dream…”.
Thomas recently appeared in a video claiming that Biden’s proposal does not adequately protect transgender athletes.
In the 87-second clip, Thomas notes that Biden’s planned change allowed high schools the power to ban transgender athletes from competition on condition of competitive fairness.
Leah Thomas was quoted as saying, you know, “It breaks my heart to see trans kids miss out on opportunities.” Replace that with the word woman – does it still break Thomas’ heart to see women miss out on opportunities? Gaines rhetorically asked about Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Because that is exactly what happens. In my experience competing against Leah Thomas at the National Championships, I’ve witnessed first-hand women lose chances. I’ve watched the women not become all-American, losing the 8th and 16th places by one place because they were displaced by a man.
“This, of course, goes against everything Title IX was created to protect and now we have the Biden administration, the people in the White House, actively working to rewrite Title IX.”
In the end, Arnault sees the handling of Thomas’ situation as a worrying trend.
“It’s a very slippery slope, because when you look at it, that’s swimming, where we’ve seen a transgender person cut into the world of women, but there are many sports that are more aggressive than swimming, and they’re team sports. Think football or basketball. (If) he gets in Even an ordinary male athlete of this world, what would happen to women It would become a very dangerous landscape.
