Leftist political commentator Rachel Maddow called “trans athletes” in women’s sports “a fantasy … a fake problem.”
Maddow, host of MS NOW’s (formerly MSNBC) The Rachel Maddow Show, appeared on Pablo Torre Finds Out, a sports and investigative journalism video podcast.
She told Torre the pushback against males competing in girls and women’s sports was “repulsive,” the “politically transparent” creation of an “authoritarian movement.”
Try telling that to the collegiate women swimmers who lost out to Lia Thomas (formerly Will), in race after race, and were forced to change with him in the same locker room.
Try telling that to the two high school girls in Vermont who were investigated for “harassment” after asking a biologically male student who identifies as “trans” to leave the girls’ locker room.
Try telling that to Payton McNabb, who was severely injured in a high school girls volleyball game by a male student.
Torre discussed “the trans athlete” with Maddow, asking, “I’m wondering how this issue feels to you?”
Maddow asserted that the problem of male athletes in girls and women’s sports was “a fake problem,” an invention “that has literally no contact with the real lives of 99.99999% of Americans.” She said the fight to keep males out of girls sports has caused “profound, dangerous, dangerous, life-threatening harm … to trans Americans.”
She also said this problem in women’s sports is “like microwaves falling from the sky… this crazy thing that’s not happening … they’re talking about a problem that is not a real thing.”
Here’s why Maddow is profoundly wrong.
Most importantly, males who claim to be women are not women. They can never become female. So they should not be allowed in women’s sports, competitions, restrooms, locker rooms and showers.
LGBT activists and their allies have asserted numerous lies, claiming a man’s beliefs about his “gender” literally mean he is a woman; drugs, hormones and puberty blockers turn a man into a woman; and males who claim to be women have no inherent advantages over female athletes.
But they then go on to argue that suppressing testosterone and pumping female hormones into men erases those inherent advantages they claim don’t exist.
“Transgender” ideology demeans girls, women and femininity.
Maddow somehow believes all this. Make it make sense.
Torre tried to downplay the issue. He said he called the NCAA and asked, “How many trans athletes are competing in women’s sports, or at all?”
The NCAA told him, “There are effectively zero.”
Maddow and Torre smugly concluded from this that trans athletes are a non-issue. You would think investigative journalists would know, or want to know, why this might be the case in the NCAA.
If they dug deeper, they would know the organization established a policy allowing transgender-identified athletes to compete in 2011, when it’s Office of Inclusion published a handbook, “NCAA Inclusion of Transgender Student-Athletes.” The handbook allowed male athletes to compete in female sports after one year of hormone suppression.
LGBT activist groups such as “The Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network Sports Project” and the “National Center for Lesbian Rights Sports Project” helped create the handbook. The NCAA reaffirmed this policy in 2021.
But suppressing natural testosterone levels and taking female hormones don’t erase men’s physical advantages.
The NCAA then released a statement threatening states looking to pass legislation to protect women’s sports, saying they might not allow them to host championship events.
Only after public outcry, protests and a lawsuit, did the NCAA change its policy in 2022. But even that was a weak effort, as the organization dropped its blanket “Inclusion of Transgender Student-Athletes,” allowing national sports bodies to set their own “transgender athlete” guidelines.
In addition, the NCAA does not oversee all college or junior college sports. Other agencies are involved, as well as state laws and college guidelines. These have allowed many transgender-identified athletes to continue to compete at the collegiate level.
In February 2025 the NCAA finally created a new policy keeping women’s sports for women. But they did this only after President Donald Trump signed an executive order protecting girls and women’s sports, the Department of Education clarified that “sex” in Title IX means male and female, and the Department of Justice launched a Title IX task force to protect women’s sports.
The policy could change back if Congress or a new administration reversed these actions.
Contra Maddow, many Americans are affected by this problem.
Shewon.org lists more than 3,600 individual female athletes who lost more than 5,100 medals to men in 53 sports. But the website only lists the top female athletes displaced by the male. So, for example, a boy takes the state title in the girls high jump. The site only lists, at most, the top three girls who placed behind him.
But that’s only part of the story: Every girl in that event – whether dozens or hundreds – went down a rank due to him. They all lost to a male in their sport. They were all harmed.
Also affected are every female athletes’ friends, family members and fans who watched males, claiming to be female, steal spots on teams, victories and accolades from them. Their teams were affected if the male helped his team win a championship.
In addition, the male athletes robbed girls and women of privacy and threatened their safety by using their showers, locker rooms, restrooms and travelling accommodations. Female athletes have also been physically harmed by playing against bigger, stronger male athletes.
Maddow said “authoritarians” invented this “fake problem” to gain power and “reorganize the government.” But she seems completely unaware of the fact that LGBT activists and their allies, using totalitarian tactics, spent decades trying to force homosexual and transgender ideologies on all Americans.
In a follow-up article, the Daily Citizen will explore who the real authoritarians are.
Related articles and resources:
Department of Justice Launches Title IX Task Force to Protect Women’s Sports
DOJ Lawsuit Describes California Department of Education’s Infuriating Treatment of Girls
High School Girls Investigated After Asking ‘Trans’ Male Student to Leave Female Locker Room
NCAA Ban on Men in Women’s Sports ‘Toothless,’ Say Advocates, Gaines
Payton McNabb, Injured Volleyball Player, Wins Title IX Victory
President Trump: ‘There are Only Two Genders: Male and Female’
Riley Gaines and 15 Other Female Athletes Sue NCAA Over ‘Transgender Policy’
State AGs Call on NCAA to Restore Women’s Sports Records Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women’s Sports and Spaces
The post Rachel Maddow Calls ‘Trans’ Athletes a ‘Fake Problem’ – She’s So Very Wrong appeared first on Daily Citizen.
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