Clay Travis: Woke Sports Media Silent As Biological Man Destroys Women's Swimming

Over the past several weeks a transgender swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania, who previously spent three years swimming in college on the men's team, has dominated women's swimming in the Ivy League, recently winning two races by a jaw dropping 38 seconds and 15 seconds and threatening to set all time world records for women's swimmers. As Outkick's Joe Kinsey has demonstrated these swimming accolades have left the women's swimmers on Penn's team, the actual biological women, that is, furious over their inability to compete with a biological man who decided a year ago he was a woman.

While Outkick has given these women a voice, what's become increasingly clear is most people in sports media are going to pretend this story doesn't exist at all because it challenges the woke sports narrative to point out the inconvenient truth that transgender athletes are poised to destroy women's athletics.

ESPN, which memorably gave Caitlyn Jenner an ESPY for having the courage and bravery to become a woman, at present time, does not have a single story about the Penn transgender swimming controversy. Not one! So does ESPN believe this formerly male swimmer who decided to become a woman is also a hero? Are they at all concerned about the clear precedent being set here -- that mediocre male college athletes can become women and become the greatest women's athletes of all time? If so, they're not saying.

Pat Forde, at Sports Illustrated, whose own daughter is a women's Olympic swimmer who attends Stanford, has not uttered a single word about his feelings on a biological man threatening to beat his daughter's teammates at Stanford's all time swimming records. That's despite the fact that he regularly Tweets about women's swimming and doesn't miss an opportunity to interject left wing politics into his sports takes either. Why has Forde suddenly gone silent about the very existence of women's athletics? Does he believe his daughter and her friends, who have spent lifetimes pursuing their sport at the highest levels possible should be simply swept away by male swimmers? Would Forde be troubled if his daughter's Stanford scholarship was taken away and given to a biological man identifying as a woman? We have no idea, he won't utter a word.









But it's not just Forde either.

Megan Rapinoe, who is presently suing for women to receive equal pay for their soccer work, has not uttered a word about men threatening to erase women's athletic achievements.








And, lest we forget, Jemele Hill, who has never found a sports and politics controversy she doesn't have an opinion on, hasn't said a word about biological men potentially erasing the entirety of women's athletics either. And that's even though this woman used to be a white man. It's definitely the height of white privilege for a man attending an Ivy League school to suddenly decide to become a woman and within a year to become the greatest "women's swimmer" of all time.






So what's really happening here?

Why have ESPN and so many athletes and sports media figures, who usually race to utter opinions on the intersection of sports and politics, completely ignored a direct assault on the foundation of women's athletics? And that's no hyperbole. For years transgender activists have claimed this threat from transgender athletes was exaggerated. But what we're seeing here is just the beginning. Because if this Penn swimmer can become the greatest women's swimmer of all time, isn't there soon to be a mediocre male track athlete or basketball player who will decide to follow the lead and dominate women's athletics too? As one of the Penn women's swimmers said in our article last week:

“When I have kids, I kinda hope they’re all boys because if I have any girls that want to play sports in college, good luck. are all going to be biological men saying that they’re women,” Thomas’ teammate told OutKick. “Right now we have one, but what if we had three on the team? There’d be three less girls competing.”

Why is it that so many people are so silent when it comes to this story and its direct assault on women's athletics? Where are the feminists? Where are the Title IX activists? Heck, if anyone tried to argue that 20% of all women's scholarships should be cut and given to biological men instead, the pitchforks would be out.

But that's exactly what might happen here. Transgender swimmers are a tremendous competitive advantage. A team of trans swimmers would crush all the biological women to smithereens. And if one team has a trans swimmer, why wouldn't other teams recruit their own trans swimmers to try and stay competitive?

This is all, plainly, lunacy.

But it's where woke sports is taking us, to a place where there are no sexes, where men, whether identifying as men or women, win everything and set every record.

This is particularly bonkers because the idea that men and women shouldn't compete against each other is well established in athletic competition for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Biology dictates that men are bigger, stronger and faster than women. If men and women competed in unisex sports there would be no women champions and most decent teams wouldn't even have a single woman.

Not even in high school.

Once boys hit puberty, women have no chance to compete with them any longer.

So how is it that so many are so silent as we witness a direct assault upon the very existence of women's athletics?

Simple, because this is where left wing politics inevitably lead us: to a direct conflict between favored identity groups. The reason why left wingers in sports pretend this story doesn't exist is because it forces them to pick sides. There's no middle ground here. You're either in favor of women's athletics existing or you believe that biological men can decide to be women and win all the women's awards.

Those are the two options here.

I'm clear and transparent in my choice, I believe that women's athletics should exist. That women should compete against women and that men should compete against men. That's the very essence of athletics. It's an opinion shared by the vast majority of sports fans.

Earlier today I offered up a Twitter poll on the issue.


































98% of the voters in my poll said that biological men shouldn't compete against women. I asked left wing sports media members to post their own poll asking the same question. I'm open to the idea my followers aren't representative of the larger American public, but so far no other sports media have been willing to post their own polls. That's probably because they fear attack from the transgender interest groups.

I say, bring them on.

I'm right, they're wrong.

The idea of insisting on competitive fairness in sports isn't just limited to sex. We segment competitions based on weight, age, and size of schools all the time. We don't let heavyweight boxers fight fly weights, we don't permit the largest school in a city or state to play against the smallest for state titles. And we don't let grown men compete in children's sports.

Because all of us recognize how unfair that would be.

Age, much like, sex is a biological reality.

I have coached my sons in little league baseball and basketball for years. If I decided to identify as a ten year old for one of our games, hate to brag, but I would dominate these games. I would be one of the best ten year old baseball or basketball players you have ever seen. Our team would crush the other ten year old team. The only problem is, I'm 42. So I'm not actually a ten year old athlete.

If I tried to play in a little league game and cited as justification the fact that I felt like a ten year old boy on the inside, all of you would rightfully ridicule the idea of me being trans-age. There is no way I'd be able to play as a little leaguer. My age is a biological reality whether I want to acknowledge it or not.

Think this analogy is too much?

Okay, let's use race instead of age as an example.

Remember Rachel Dolezal, the white woman who pretended to be black and was head of an NAACP chapter, in Washington state? As soon as people found out she was white, Dolezal was ridiculed, labeled a racist, and forced to give up her role with the NAACP. Dolezal, we were told, had no right to pick her race.

So by the logic of left wingers, it's racist to pick your race, indeed it's worthy of ridicule, yet it's somehow heroic to pick your gender?

What in the world kind of sense does that make?

If you had to pick which is more significant to your life, your gender or your race, would anyone reading this right now pick their race? I doubt it. Because it's way more significant to change your gender than to change your race.

Yet we've somehow arrived at a place where choosing your non-biological gender is heroic and choosing your race is racist.

At a bare minimum, shouldn't we apply the same standards here for both race and gender?

The reason why we've arrived here, where a biological man is threatening to become the women's all time record holder in college athletics swimming, is because adults are acting like children, because identity politics has overrun sanity. And the reason why almost no one is willing to even have this conversation -- or even write columns about the issue -- is because we've created such a censorious atmosphere online that being willing to say a man shouldn't be competing against a woman is considered transphobic.

Are you kidding me?

I don't care what gender you are, what sex you are, who you sleep with, who you marry, or what race you are.

But I do care about logic.

And sanity.

And setting precedents that make sense in the years ahead.

Allowing a biological man to become the greatest collegiate swimmer of all time -- to shatter records women have spent generations creating -- is absolutely insane.

The fact that almost no one in the world of sports is willing to utter this truth with their own name attached to it is even scarier, however, than this insanity.

Boys are girls.

Truth is fiction.

Up is down.

Some animals are more equal than others.

It's time for the adults to reclaim the public arena, facts matter and no matter how much he might wish otherwise a boy who decides to become a girl, is not a girl.

And he's certainly not the greatest women's swimmer of all time either, no matter what the record books say.




























































Written by
Clay Travis is the founder of the fastest growing national multimedia platform, OutKick, that produces and distributes engaging content across sports and pop culture to millions of fans across the country. OutKick was created by Travis in 2011 and sold to the Fox Corporation in 2021. One of the most electrifying and outspoken personalities in the industry, Travis hosts OutKick The Show where he provides his unfiltered opinion on the most compelling headlines throughout sports, culture, and politics. He also makes regular appearances on FOX News Media as a contributor providing analysis on a variety of subjects ranging from sports news to the cultural landscape. Throughout the college football season, Travis is on Big Noon Kickoff for Fox Sports breaking down the game and the latest storylines. Additionally, Travis serves as a co-host of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, a three-hour conservative radio talk program syndicated across Premiere Networks radio stations nationwide. Previously, he launched OutKick The Coverage on Fox Sports Radio that included interviews and listener interactions and was on Fox Sports Bet for four years. Additionally, Travis started an iHeartRadio Original Podcast called Wins & Losses that featured in-depth conversations with the biggest names in sports. Travis is a graduate of George Washington University as well as Vanderbilt Law School. Based in Nashville, he is the author of Dixieland Delight, On Rocky Top, and Republicans Buy Sneakers Too.