Fox News is not known for consistency in its ideology, except for the idea that wealthy, white, cis Christian men should make all of our decisions for us. So, when Fox News anchors began claiming protecting female athletes was the reason why trans-feminine athletes should be excluded from organized sports, it was only a matter of time before they blatantly undermined their arguments with some wildly awful sexism.
And that’s what they did last week with some truly gross mocking of the legitimacy of women’s sports at the highest level on the one hand, while on the other hand, telling us they don’t actually believe women’s sports are so important that we need to “protect” them from the horrors of inclusivity at all costs.
Recently, Fox News has given a platform to a torrent of cis female school-age and college-age athletes who have lost in competition to transgender athletes or feel they have missed out on opportunities to trans athletes. In addition to having each of these girls on the network to explain why they think they should have more rights than other human beings, FoxNews.com published an opinion piece by anti-trans student athletes Selna Soule, Chelsea Mitchell, Alanna Smith, and Ashley Nicoletti, just three days ago, titled “All four of us lost to trans athletes who took away our victories and opportunities.”
Just two days before that, Greg Gutfeld, one of the anchors on Fox News’s The Five, was belittling the Women’s National Basketball Association on the network’s highest-ranking cable news show. In a video clip posted to Twitter, you can see Gutfeld joking with co-hosts Jessie Waters and Jeanine Pirro about the WNBA’s reaction to the horrific air quality in the northeast recently, due to Canadian wildfires.
“The WNBA, which plays indoors,” Gutfeld smirks, “suspended their games. You know why? There’s a good reason. They were worried about the health of their fan.” His co-hosts burst out laughing. Never mind that the WNBA generates about $60 million in revenue per year or that the final game of the season in 2021 had a million viewers. They’re women playing sports, so let’s make light of their careers and accomplishments, right? (Please no.)
Just a few weeks prior to this broadcast, Gutfeld spoke out, on his show, against trans women like marathoner Glenique Frank competing in sports because of what he said it would cost biological women, saying, “Here’s a message to women in sports: train hard, stay focused, sacrifice months or even years of your life and lose to a dude in a wig. Your efforts will be as worthless as marriage advice from Geraldo.”
Journalist Juliet Jeske, who runs the account @DecodingFoxNews, said it well when she commented, “Fox News pretends its a champion for women and girls in sports but Greg Gutfeld just slipped and openly mocked the WNBA. I guess they only care about women athletes when they can use them as an excuse to attack trans women.”
It’s kind of like the way anti-trans bathroom bans aren’t really about who goes pee in what room but more about trying to erase transness from the public. And outlawing drag brunch isn’t about protecting children from harm. It’s about erasing evidence of people’s existence.
(featured image: Steven Ferdman/Getty Images)
