Sam Ponder defends Sage Steele after Megan Rapinoe takes swipe over trans women in sports debate

ESPN broadcaster Sam Ponder defended her colleague Sage Steele on Tuesday after U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe sideswiped the latter anchor over feedback about transgender participation in ladies’s sports activities.

Rapinoe mentioned in an interview with Time journal when individuals like Martina Navratilova and Steele are speaking about equity and equality in ladies’s sports activities, they’re actually speaking about how they will deal with transgender individuals for the remainder of their lives. She additionally equated Dave Chappelle’s jokes about transgender people to “violence.”

Rapinoe additionally mentioned it was “bulls—-” when individuals speak concerning the equity in ladies’s sports activities and that transgender athletes taking benefit in ladies’s sports activities is “simply not taking place.”

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Ponder disagreed with the sentiment.

“Sage says bio males shouldn’t compete in feminine sports activities and now she’s guilty for violence? That is an try to silence good-faith dialogue and debate,” she wrote on Twitter. “Disagree passionately, say she’s incorrect (& why)… however to say she is answerable for violence is absurd.”

Steele added: “Sure Sam…it’s absurd. And predictable! That is what occurs when ppl enable their feelings to get in the way in which of FACTS & SCIENCE. Esp after they’re combating to maintain a false narrative alive. You mentioned it finest after (USA Right now columnist Nancy) Armour attacked you: ‘biology isn’t bigotry.’”

Steele has expressed help for former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines for her advocacy to maintain ladies’s sports activities truthful. Steele declared that she stands with Gaines and referred to as what has occurred with trans individuals overtaking ladies’s sports activities “ridiculous,” “heartbreaking,” “tough to look at” and added the hashtag “savewomensports.”

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Sunday NFL Countdown Host Sam Ponder of “ESPN’s Sunday’s NFL Countdown” speaks onstage throughout the ESPN portion of the 2017 Summer time Tv Critics Affiliation Press Tour at The Beverly Hilton Lodge on July 26, 2017 in Beverly Hills, California. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Photos)

Sage Steele speaks onstage throughout The Gamers Tailgate Hosted By Bobby Flay and offered by Bullseye Occasion Group for Tremendous Bowl LVII on Feb. 12, 2023 in Phoenix. (Jesse Grant/Getty Photos for Bullseye Occasion Group)

Steele got here to Ponder’s protection after Armour attacked Ponder’s views on transgender participation in ladies’s sports activities in Could.

For Rapinoe, she went so far as to say that she would “completely” settle for a transgender lady on the U.S. ladies’s nationwide staff.

“‘You’re taking a “actual” lady’s place,’ that’s the a part of the argument that’s nonetheless extraordinarily transphobic. I see trans ladies as actual ladies,” she mentioned. “What you’re saying routinely within the argument—you’re type of telling on your self already—is you don’t imagine these individuals are ladies. Subsequently, they’re taking the opposite spot. I don’t really feel that means.”

USWNT ahead Megan Rapinoe throughout Ladies’s World Cup media day at Dignity Well being Sports activities Park. (Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports activities)

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Rapinoe was one in every of 40 skilled athletes to co-sign a letter to House lawmakers in April in opposition of the Safety of Women and Ladies in Sports activities Act, arguing that the invoice would exclude ladies and ladies from getting “psychological and bodily well being advantages.”

Fox Information’ Paulina Dedaj contributed to this report.