The Megyn Kelly Show - May 30, 2023


Destruction of Women's Sports Over Trans Ideology, and Target Backlash Grows, with Michael Knowles, Inga Thompson, and Hannah Arensman | Ep. 561


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 36 minutes

Words per minute

178.71773

Word count

17,160

Sentence count

1,204

Harmful content

Misogyny

84

sentences flagged

Hate speech

81

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In our second hour, we have an exclusive interview with two very well-known female cyclists appearing together for the first time. One is a legend in the sport who has recently begun speaking out about transgender ideology hurting actual women in cycling. And another is an up-and-coming cyclist who just retired at age 24 from cycling because she keeps facing biological men in her sport.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.480 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
00:00:11.780 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Tuesday. I hope you
00:00:16.640 and your family had a great Memorial Day weekend. If you have not yet had the chance, please,
00:00:22.240 please check out yesterday's show with Jason Redman. What an extraordinary man who's served
00:00:27.960 our country so honorably and paid such a high price, he and his family, but the story is totally
00:00:34.100 inspirational. He's the guy, he's the Navy SEAL who, after getting shot in the face, when they told
00:00:40.600 him his face was shot off, posted the sign outside of his hospital room saying, don't come in here
00:00:46.960 feeling sorry for me. This is a place of optimism. The sign went completely viral. He's legendary.
00:00:54.460 His message of positivity is legendary. He's got a lot of thoughts about where our U.S. military
00:00:58.680 is today, and it's well worth your time to meet and get to know Jason Redman. Oh, it just makes
00:01:04.440 you feel proud of America and to be an American. But today, I want to tell you that in our second
00:01:10.260 hour, we have an exclusive interview with two very well-known female cyclists appearing 0.99
00:01:15.320 together for the first time. One is absolutely a legend in the sport who has recently begun
00:01:20.380 speaking out about transgender ideology hurting actual women in the sport of cycling. This is a
00:01:25.980 woman who is third, I think, a couple of times in the Tour de France, U.S. Olympian national champion.
00:01:32.640 I mean, everybody knows this woman. And then another, an up-and-comer who we have reported on
00:01:37.860 on this show, who just retired at age 24 from cycling because she keeps facing biological men in her 0.57
00:01:46.040 sport. Men who are crushing the sport of cycling because, oh, they're men. Yeah, that's what it is.
00:01:53.060 But we begin today with the news and our friend Michael Knowles, host of The Michael Knowles Show
00:01:58.340 on The Daily Wire. Michael, welcome back. How are you doing? How was your holiday?
00:02:02.280 The holiday was wonderful, Megan. I did basically nothing at all other than lie on a couch and have
00:02:08.740 my little children crawl all over me. So it was wonderful and wonderful to be back with you as always.
00:02:14.000 Oh, it's great to see you. Same. I didn't do much of anything. My husband took our daughter to a
00:02:19.100 soccer tournament. My mom came for a visit, Michael. My mom is hilarious. Hurricane Linda
00:02:23.640 is always fun. Just listen. I tweeted this out yesterday, but just listening to my mother play
00:02:29.080 sorry and trouble with my two boys was just a gift from God. She's so funny. She's so snarky. She was
00:02:38.060 holding back on the swearing because that's not her thing, but she was threatening them. She was accusing 0.83
00:02:42.660 them. She said they cheated. It was really a thing of beauty. That's a music to my ears,
00:02:49.080 to be honest. That's wonderful. It's truly in the midst of this absolute chaos. You mentioned
00:02:56.080 the transgender cycling. We've got the edifices of our society falling down all around us. We no 1.00
00:03:01.820 longer know what a man is. We've got this brutal presidential primary. It is just lovely to take
00:03:06.420 one last breath, say, ah, things can be normal within the confines of my home.
00:03:10.840 And then you open the door and you see absolute madness.
00:03:14.600 Yes. The best line I overheard was from my mother to my nine-year-old and 13-year-old,
00:03:21.900 I'm not going to give you the finger, but I want to.
00:03:24.420 So setting great lessons in restraint and prudence. Yeah, exactly. All right. So this is where I want
00:03:33.640 to start today. Target. Target is still in the mix of it because of its pride. We're going to go
00:03:38.860 through this all next month. June is pride month. And while this was never really a problematic thing, 0.93
00:03:44.400 now that they folded in the T on the LGBTQ, whatever, it's getting problematic because now
00:03:50.440 you're talking about a very harmful, weird, different kind of messaging on baby onesies than
00:03:56.920 we've ever seen before. I mean, it's one thing, you know, I have two friends who are lesbians and 1.00
00:04:01.180 they're married and Dave Rubin was just on the show on Friday. He's a gay man in a gay marriage.
00:04:05.980 I can understand why they might want to put their child in a, you know, a shirt with a rainbow. I can.
00:04:11.720 You go to the tea place and you start saying, ask me my pronouns on the little onesie of a baby.
00:04:17.560 We have a problem. Yeah. I'm, I would also object to that in a target store. And I realize there are
00:04:22.280 people who are to the right of me on this issue and wouldn't want the rainbow either. So it's
00:04:26.760 causing massive problems for target. They've lost billions in their market share and people are going
00:04:32.440 in target after target and complaining about these displays being front and center. Right. When you
00:04:36.120 first walk in that leads me to Canadian actress, Rochelle. She's, I think it's French. L E F E V R E. 0.98
00:04:48.680 L E F E V R E. L E F E V R E.
00:04:52.520 L E F E V R E. Thank you. It's like Brett Favre.
00:04:58.200 She's very, very angry, very angry. If you don't know who this is, I take you back to the Twilight
00:05:03.080 series of movies. She was in the big first one and she was in the second one and she ran around
00:05:09.280 trying to kill Kristen Stewart's character most of the time. Here's just a little refresher on who 0.98
00:05:13.900 this actress is. The humans were tracking us, but we let them east. You should be safe.
00:05:20.380 I'm the one with the wicked curve ball. I think it best if you leave.
00:05:29.660 That was her in better days. Now she's very angry that target in just a few of its stores in the 0.74
00:05:36.620 South has responded to the outcry by moving the displays to the back of the store. They didn't pull
00:05:41.780 the displays. The displays are not gone. It didn't happen nationwide. Like some of us would like
00:05:46.420 just a couple of stores in the more conservative parts of the country. And she freaked out. So she
00:05:51.660 posted on Twitter, this long thing about how she has a seven year old non-binary child, Michael.
00:06:02.620 And she says the following, uh, actually, I think we have a, well, we have a clip of what she said.
00:06:07.500 Look at this. So I just walked into target and the, um, right behind me here where you see all these
00:06:16.980 lovely swimsuits. That's where the pride display used to be. And I came in here two days ago and my
00:06:24.040 seven year old who's non-binary saw it and said, look, mom, it's pride. Look, they're going to celebrate
00:06:31.220 me. And because some people complained and, um, throw some stuff to the ground or I don't know
00:06:38.900 what happened. They have moved to the pride section to the back of the store. So the next time my seven
00:06:45.620 year old comes to target or rather, I can't bring them here anymore, at least for the entire month of
00:06:51.380 June, because if they walk in and all the other people who walk in and go, where'd it go are going
00:07:00.140 to realize that they are being successful in trying to erase them. We could do so much better
00:07:10.220 than this. We're not supposed to negotiate with terrorists. OMG thoughts on that. I think most seven
00:07:17.360 year olds who walk into target, uh, are more concerned with getting a cookie at the Starbucks
00:07:22.240 kiosk than they are as to how radical the LGBT pride setup is. That would be my guess. But you point
00:07:30.120 out, Megan, a really important point, which is that the pride display is going to be a totalizing 0.93
00:07:37.880 phenomenon. It's going to include stuff for adults. It's going to include baby onesies. It's going to be
00:07:44.340 in every single store around the country. It's going to go on for a month. It's really going to
00:07:48.140 go on for more than a month because we're technically not in pride month yet, right?
00:07:51.900 Pride month is June. We're in May. So there's pride month. There's pre-pride month. There's going to be 0.99
00:07:56.560 post-pride month. But then by the way, October is LGBTQ history month. So it's not pride month. 0.60
00:08:03.100 There's another one though. And so it's going to be right now, it's about a quarter of the year.
00:08:06.800 It's going to be a third of the year. It's going to be half the year by the time we're all
00:08:09.600 through. And you're also really insightful and beautiful and smart and charming, Megan.
00:08:15.200 Oh, I love this part. Thank you.
00:08:17.400 You're really insightful on this point about the onesies, that the onesies are not for the babies.
00:08:23.240 The onesies, like all onesies, are for the parents. You want to dress your kid up in something that
00:08:28.520 reflects some aspect of your identity and your desires and who you are. And so now that we've
00:08:34.360 redefined marriage, now that you've got same-sex male couples and same-sex female couples defined
00:08:40.400 as marriage, adopting children, creating children through in vitro fertilization, you're going to 0.71
00:08:45.060 want to see baby clothing that reflects that ideology as well. I say this as someone who grew up in New
00:08:50.980 York. I lived in LA. I'm a graduate of the gayest university on the face of the earth. Okay. A 0.98
00:08:56.140 disproportionate number of my loved ones identify as gay and all sorts of different sexual identities.
00:09:02.820 But this is inevitably going to be the consequence of redefining sexuality and human nature. I know a
00:09:11.280 lot of people want to try to chop the T off of the LGB, but ultimately you're probably going to end up
00:09:17.320 with the T regardless because the premise of LGB is that men and women are pretty much interchangeable
00:09:24.140 and two men is the same thing as two women is the same thing as a man and a woman. And so if you,
00:09:29.480 if you accept that premise- When it comes to parenting and family, you mean
00:09:32.820 Yes, exactly. When it comes to the definition of marriage, let's say. So if you accept that,
00:09:37.380 that premise in society, then it's not a huge leap to say that a man can basically be a woman 0.96
00:09:43.340 or a woman can basically be a man. And it doesn't mean you're hateful. If you point this out,
00:09:48.240 it doesn't mean you don't like people or anything like that, but you cannot in society simultaneously
00:09:54.560 have mutually contradictory ideas. So you can't establish them as a fact of our law. You see
00:10:01.180 this, especially with the bathrooms, either women get their own bathroom or they don't get their own 1.00
00:10:05.300 bathroom. And you, you kind of got to pick one. This is why I think that the pride month celebrations 1.00
00:10:11.240 have become so mandatory is either our society is going to accept all of the ideology that goes along
00:10:19.920 with the modern rainbow or it's not. But if we do accept it, then we're going to have it for
00:10:25.360 everybody. It's going to be in every store. It's not just Target. It's going to be in Kohl's. It's
00:10:28.900 going to be on your Bud Light can. It's going to be everywhere for a month and maybe two months and
00:10:34.040 maybe three months. And it's not just going to be for the adults. It's going to be for the onesies.
00:10:37.940 And so the common people, the vast majority of Americans don't like this stuff, including plenty
00:10:43.520 of people who would identify as gay. And they say, okay, the onesies were taken a little bit far here,
00:10:47.340 get it out of my Target store. But the problem is that the elites, the people who control
00:10:52.060 the corporations, the people who control the political order and the universities and the
00:10:55.680 media and all the rest of this, they're totally bought in on this liberalizing ideology. And so
00:11:00.700 that's where the tension is going to come. And right now the elites still have most of the political
00:11:04.820 power. See, I don't agree that the tea was the inevitable outcome of the LGB. I think a lot of the LGB
00:11:11.320 folks are with you and me on this issue. Like enough, stop. Like they're trying, they're speaking of
00:11:17.320 erasure. She's saying, oh, she's been, you know, they, her child, they has been erased by Target
00:11:22.760 moving the display to the back of the store. Okay. Um, as, as one of the people on, on Instagram
00:11:28.820 responding to this was like, if your child feels erased as a human, because they moved to display,
00:11:33.180 you're doing things wrong. You got to reevaluate your parenthood sister. Good point. Right. Um,
00:11:38.040 but I think we had, I mean, look, I was born in the seventies and I remember my sister dated a guy who
00:11:44.500 came out as gay, unfortunately for my sister, um, in, let's say it was, must've been 1986 around
00:11:50.200 there. And it was shocking back then. So it was 86 was still absolutely shocking for somebody to
00:11:55.920 come out as gay. Uh, it was still had a big stigma to it. Maybe, maybe the society wasn't totally
00:12:02.140 shocked, but it still had a big stigma. But anyway, then we got past that. We had the nineties, we had
00:12:06.460 the aughts and we kind of got to a place where we were managed to remove much of the stigma of being
00:12:11.580 gay or lesbian. Trans didn't pop up. Trans wasn't immediately accepted. I think it happened because 0.97
00:12:18.580 of it happened in smaller pockets. People were tolerant and then people with an agenda stepped
00:12:23.760 in and exploited, you know, like the medical community who had dollars in their eyeballs and
00:12:29.240 was like, Oh my God, you know, we, we see some of these tapes. Thanks to your colleague, Matt Walsh
00:12:33.220 at the daily wire, you know, who realized they could make tons of money off of this. And then woke
00:12:38.200 school teachers who decided to shove it into curriculum, which is the battle Ron DeSantis is
00:12:42.340 fighting down in Florida to get it out of curriculum. I really think it's not a natural
00:12:48.380 outcome of those other two things. And that's why for me, I can easily draw a line between the LGB
00:12:53.220 and everything that comes after it, which is very different, which is very political and which I think
00:12:58.300 is in its own league when it comes to perniciousness and children.
00:13:02.540 Sure. I agree with almost all of that, Megan. And I think you're totally right. I mean,
00:13:07.100 you mentioned our pal, Dave Rubin, who identifies as gay, he's in a gay marriage and all the rest of
00:13:12.500 it. But he says, look, all this crazy trans stuff, this has gone way too far. A lot of this stuff is, 1.00
00:13:17.480 so he's obviously much more reasonable on these issues. And there are plenty of people just like
00:13:22.220 Dave who say, yeah, we don't want to trans the kids or anything like that. The problem is not
00:13:27.340 the people. The problem is that ideas have consequences. And so I totally grant that there
00:13:35.040 are people who want to say, all right, we can go this far in redefining sexuality and human nature,
00:13:40.480 but we're going to stop right here. Just seems to me that the problem is going to be that if you
00:13:45.080 accept certain premises about the malleability of sex, that's going to open the floodgates to other
00:13:50.260 options. And then those floodgates are going to be exploited by those cynical actors that you're
00:13:55.540 talking about, many of whom just want to make a buck, many of whom want to upend the political
00:14:01.680 order for all sorts of other reasons. And so they're going to do that. And the problem is if
00:14:06.140 you, if you redefine something like marriage, for example, then you've taken away the limiting
00:14:10.260 principle. And so I remember in the Obergefell decision, when the conservatives dissented in
00:14:16.160 redefining marriage, they asked, well, what's the limiting principle here? Why is it that we're going
00:14:21.320 to just cut it off at two people of any sex? What about- Oh, there was all sorts of crazy pushback
00:14:28.080 on that at the time. Like, what do you say? Oh, now they're saying that gay marriage is going to
00:14:31.380 lead to bestiality. I remember these debates when it happened. Keep going.
00:14:35.120 Yeah. So the issue is what is that limiting principle? And if we're now in a position where,
00:14:40.720 yes, right away, you didn't see the transing of the children and the pride flags in every single
00:14:46.500 corner of society. Well, eventually that did happen. And so there's got to be some pushback
00:14:51.640 and the pushback is going to have to answer this question of what is a man? What is a woman? And
00:14:57.220 what are we going to exalt in our society? Because the other aspect here is religious. You know,
00:15:03.840 pride month is really just a kind of liturgical month in the religion of liberalism. And we have
00:15:09.460 woman month, we have black history month. And of course, those are not really about black people or
00:15:14.820 women, but they're about a very left-wing ideological view of them. And now you have 1.00
00:15:18.820 gay month in June. But everybody's got to assent to that. Everybody's got to get down 1.00
00:15:25.140 and accept it on their knees prayerfully, or you can be ostracized from society. This is why the
00:15:31.260 corporations are doing it as well, by the way, because they know that if a corporation does not
00:15:35.760 have its pride display, it's going to be targeted by GARM. It's going to be targeted by the ESG movement.
00:15:43.340 It's going to have its access to capital cut off. It's going to have its access to social media
00:15:49.360 platforms cut off. And so they just have to go along to get along. And so I'm sure there are a
00:15:55.480 lot of people who want to say, okay, this is the line and we go no further. But it reminds me in a
00:16:00.420 way of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who's now running a presidential campaign as a 1960s liberal Democrat.
00:16:07.220 From today's perspective, he seems rather conservative. And he says, well, why did
00:16:11.900 liberalism have to go any further than it did in the 60s? But the answer, I think, is that
00:16:16.980 ideas have consequences and you can't just tell history to stop.
00:16:21.780 You know, I hear you. I do. For me, I am able to draw the line after LGB. I really am.
00:16:29.460 Like, we've lived harmoniously with LGB for a long, long time. And I am happy to live harmoniously
00:16:37.420 with T as well and let them do their thing as adults, as long as they don't, you know, hurt
00:16:42.400 others and as long as they stay out of my spaces. Like, get out. I agree with you. Get out of the
00:16:47.380 women's bathroom. Get out of the women's locker room. Get out of the gynecologist's office. There 1.00
00:16:52.980 was a piece today. No, it was over the weekend by USA Today columnist Nancy Armour. Nancy Armour
00:17:01.300 is up in arms over ESPN's Sam Ponder, who spoke out for fairness in sport, saying we shouldn't
00:17:09.080 allow. I mean, she didn't say this explicitly, but basically said she's come around on the issue of
00:17:13.620 girls sports and not allowing trans kids to come in and take over and win all the titles in the 0.99
00:17:18.220 girls sports. It's always the male who comes into the girls sport and wins. 0.51
00:17:22.360 And Nancy's very upset with Sam Ponder because Sam Ponder wasn't tweeting and writing notes about
00:17:28.400 other Title IX fights that apparently Nancy has written about. So Sam Ponder, you see,
00:17:34.920 is a hypocrite because she's taken up this fight but didn't take up all the others. But Nancy Armour, 0.98
00:17:41.040 she's not a hypocrite for taking up the others but ignoring this one. See, it only works one way.
00:17:45.980 And in Nancy's little article in USA Today, she brings yours truly into it, saying,
00:17:52.540 dig a little deeper into Ponder's timeline. And it's clear her hostility toward transgender women, 0.53
00:17:59.340 by the way, there's no hostility by Sam Ponder, none at all. It's about sports,
00:18:02.720 goes far beyond their participation in sports. In January, she replied, yes, thank you,
00:18:08.000 to Megyn Kelly's screed about a transgender woman going to the gynecologist, quoting me,
00:18:12.700 you can't just become a woman and take all of our things, Kelly ranted. Nancy goes on, 1.00
00:18:17.880 I'm at a loss to see how a transgender woman going to a gynecologist takes anything away from 1.00
00:18:22.000 anyone or how it's any of Kelly's or Ponder's business. Well, Nancy, I'm an actual woman who
00:18:26.360 goes to a gynecologist, so it is my business. As far as I can tell, Nancy has no children of her
00:18:31.480 own, no daughter to protect. And I'll tell you something, Nancy has a way of firing you up 1.00
00:18:35.820 about this issue. And Sam Ponder lives her life in the area of sports and coverage of them and sees
00:18:42.060 firsthand every day. And I think she's a mother too. But as far as a gynecologist, this is the
00:18:47.820 thing that bothers me. So it's fine. The left will cancel you for culturally appropriating
00:18:53.480 a taco, but it's totally fine for a man to culturally appropriate everything there is to
00:19:00.740 appropriate about a woman from building a fake vagina to then going to a gynecologist's office, 1.00
00:19:07.000 which no man needs and making the rest of us sit there and wait. I'm if I go into my
00:19:12.200 gynecologist's office and I see some dude with a beard and I've got to wait to go in. I'm never
00:19:17.900 going back there again. It's bullshit. Those visits in particular, the breast doctor, the mammogram,
00:19:24.160 the gynecologist, those are already tense visits for most women. They're already tense.
00:19:28.220 You know, there's like 50 percent of the things you could die of are waiting for you in these two
00:19:32.780 exam rooms. And we don't need it complicated by a man sitting there in yet another woman's space, 0.98
00:19:39.520 Nancy. So this is what happens, right? It's like you get people like this trying to call everybody
00:19:45.720 a transphobe, Sam Ponder, old Nancy in her judgmental corner for people like you, for people
00:19:51.460 like me who actually find the nerve to say no, to draw that, to find even for me, right? I'm to the
00:19:57.140 left of you on this, but to finally find my own line and say no.
00:20:02.200 I love, Megan, how it's always the leftists who tell us it takes a village. That's the title of
00:20:08.880 Hillary Clinton's memoir, who when it comes to our private property and many of our private
00:20:13.600 decisions, they say, no, we're all part of society. You can't have your gun. We're all part
00:20:18.040 of society. No, you can't educate your child. No, you can't keep your money. No, you can't live in your
00:20:23.800 zoning area of your neighborhood. No, you can't build this part of your house. No, you can't do
00:20:27.780 this, that, or the other thing. But then when it comes to transgenderism or whatever the social fad
00:20:34.360 du jour is, they say, well, how does it affect you? How does it affect you, Megan, if there's a burly
00:20:39.720 fellow with a beard waiting in the gynecologist office who's going to make you wait? And the answer
00:20:44.000 to this, of course, is because we live in society. Because man is the social creature. We don't live as
00:20:51.440 floating atoms somewhere in the middle of the sea. We interact with one another and we're in
00:20:56.920 political community. And I don't think it's too much to ask if you're a woman to be able to go
00:21:01.580 to the gynecologist's office without having to pretend that some big husky guy is a woman. 0.81
00:21:07.000 And I don't think it's too much to ask to say that in a public school where parents are footing the
00:21:13.420 bill and we're sending our kids, that the child not be exposed to gay porn in the form of gender
00:21:20.040 queer by Maya Kebabie to cite just one book. And I don't think it's too much to ask even to say that
00:21:25.160 when we're walking around our town square or our shops or our whole culture, we're not just
00:21:30.060 constantly inundated by this absurd transgender propaganda all the way down to three month old 1.00
00:21:36.940 onesies. We live in society. We're supposed to have a self-government here. Why can't we set
00:21:43.220 standards and norms that are standard and normal? Have we lost that right? The only right that we have
00:21:48.660 now is to set standards and norms that are abnormal, that involve a big fella in your 0.99
00:21:52.920 gynecologist's office. No, it only moves in that one direction. It's crazy.
00:21:57.400 And Michael, let me tell you something. When you go in for a mammogram, you know, I had to start
00:22:00.960 getting them, I think, at 45. I can't remember when I started getting them. But you go in there
00:22:04.060 and that's always a scary one, right? Because you're there to look for cancer. I mean, that's the
00:22:08.700 only reason. You go to the GYN for a lot of reasons, but you go there to catch. So you go and you put
00:22:13.860 on your little robe and then they have you sit in a little like waiting area. This is where I go
00:22:18.680 in New York. You have to sit in this little waiting area. It's a small little room and there's maybe
00:22:22.760 four or five other women also wearing a little robe. We're all there for the same reason. And
00:22:26.160 there's a tension. There's a bonding. There's something kind of lovely about it, to be honest
00:22:30.060 with you, because it's like we're all there for the same thing. We're all hoping for the same
00:22:33.240 result. We're all a little scared we're going to get something else. And then they call you out one
00:22:37.640 by one. You go get the test and then you've got to go back into the waiting room until you get
00:22:41.620 called in by the radiologist who will tell you what the results were. So the whole thing is a
00:22:44.940 little tense. And I do not want to see fucking sorry man sitting in there with me and my fellow
00:22:53.160 women who actually do have things to worry about, who don't. It's hard enough to get in for these 1.00
00:22:58.480 visits to the best doctors and go through all this stuff and deal with the insurance, all that.
00:23:02.720 It's absurd to pretend like what is how does it affect your life? It affects my life in very
00:23:09.020 vulnerable situations in which I already feel unsteady, Nancy. And so if people like Sam Ponder
00:23:15.860 and you and me don't speak out because of these nasty USA Today pieces or what have you, we lose.
00:23:22.420 We've been losing too long because those of us who didn't draw the line at the LGB, the B, whatever,
00:23:27.420 and the T, sorry, LGB. The QIA element of P. Yeah. We finally found our line. And now they're 0.94
00:23:34.320 basically like, well, Campbell's nose, you're done. Now you're a bigot. You don't get any credit for
00:23:39.680 your priors. I want to say two things. Well, think about Megan. The big case, one of the big cases
00:23:45.500 that established this right to transgenderism as a matter of civil rights law, it was the Harris
00:23:50.360 Funeral Homes case. Everyone talks about the Bostock decision, which changed the interpretation
00:23:54.980 of Title VII to now say that the protections on the basis of sex now don't protect sex. They protect
00:24:01.180 sexual orientation and gender identity, which obviously undermines that.
00:24:04.340 In the workplace only.
00:24:05.780 There was the Harris Funeral Homes case. And that case centered around whether a man
00:24:10.280 who works at a funeral home can be made to dress in respectful, somber garb as a man,
00:24:17.260 because a man who worked at a funeral home decided he wanted to put on a skirt one day because he
00:24:21.060 wanted to pretend to be a woman. And the owner of that funeral home said, hey, man, I don't know what
00:24:25.820 you're going through and I'm not judging or anything like that. But this is a funeral home.
00:24:30.700 People are mourning. People are really vulnerable and upset when they come in here. And we're not
00:24:36.820 going to make it about us and we're not going to make it about our fantasies and delusions
00:24:40.340 or anything else. We're going to be respectful and behave in a way that is normal and reverent
00:24:45.800 and somber for this occasion. And the Supreme Court got to pick. Who gets to decide? The community,
00:24:51.520 the people mourning, tradition, standards, or a man who wants to put on a miniskirt while families
00:24:58.380 are trying to grieve their loved ones. And unfortunately, the Supreme Court chose the
00:25:02.400 ladder. And now we've got a regime of tyrannical self-expression that has corroded anything even
00:25:09.000 resembling a coherent society. My God, can you imagine? I mean, look, this hit the news today.
00:25:14.980 We cut us out of it. Sound on tape. This is a little girl. This is off of a woman's TikTok who posts 0.98
00:25:23.100 a lot about the trans issues. And we traced it back to the original TikTok, which was by a patron down
00:25:29.380 at Disney who did not seem offended by it. But hey, to each their own. I am. Look at what this
00:25:34.620 woman found when she went into, if you ever been to Disney, you can go into like the Cinderella castle
00:25:40.300 and you can give your daughter like the princess experience where she can pay $450. Didn't do it
00:25:47.080 for some Cinderella or princess-esque dress. And normally you meet with Cinderella or one of her
00:25:54.660 helpers who welcomes you and your daughter as you walk into the shop. Look what's happening here.
00:25:59.880 This is at the one out in Florida, Disneyland. Watch. In California.
00:26:05.920 So my name's Nick. I'm listening audience. I got a list of princesses. I'm here to shop you around.
00:26:09.480 This guy's got a mustache. Yeah. Can we re-rack it? Start it again. What was his name? Nick?
00:26:17.080 His name is Nick. And he's a man. He's literally in the princess gear. Watch it again.
00:26:27.940 So my name's Nick. I'm a fairy godmother as a princesses. I'm here to shop you around and make
00:26:31.940 all your selections for the day. I'm your fairy godmother. Okay. He's got a mustache. He's a
00:26:40.080 clear man. And his name is Nick. Michael, can you imagine? Reason number 42,073 to not take your
00:26:53.780 children to Disneyland would be encountering big, burly, mustachioed, pretty little princess.
00:26:59.760 It's a really telling episode. And it's a great way to view the whole culture at this point,
00:27:05.580 which is that this guy woke up in the morning and said, you know what? My appearance as princess
00:27:12.440 whatever at Disneyland, it's about me. It's not about the kids. It's not about the parents who
00:27:18.220 shout out a gazillion dollars to take their kids on this once in a lifetime memorable. It's just about
00:27:23.000 me. And that's how so many people are viewing society today. It's the way that people view systems
00:27:31.280 of government. It's the way people view even the law. Is the law, is human nature, is biology,
00:27:39.140 is education, is it about something outside of ourselves? The truth, the moral order, science,
00:27:46.420 you name it. Or is it just about me, me, me, and whatever I want to do? A man wrapped up in himself
00:27:52.860 makes a very small package indeed. I guess that fellow made a relatively burly package. But as a matter
00:27:59.160 of society, it's very, very small. And it will diminish anything even resembling a kind of a
00:28:07.560 society. And then we're all just living sort of selfishly for ourselves rather than what you're
00:28:13.100 supposed to do at the very least at Disneyland, which is give people a magical sort of experience
00:28:17.740 that is about somebody else. I mean, like I've been there. I've been to the Disney World with my
00:28:24.680 kids a couple of times. I can't imagine walking. I mean, I would turn around and walk out. And I
00:28:29.700 resent being put in that position because I have no wish to be rude to a trans person's face or to
00:28:36.420 make him feel bad about his dysphoria. I really don't. But I don't buy into their ideology. I don't 0.87
00:28:44.180 believe a man can be a woman. And I believe a princess is a female who doesn't have a beard and
00:28:50.400 a mustache. And most are not named Nick. And like, I wouldn't want my child exposed to it. Same as I
00:28:56.600 don't want them exposed to the target thing. Same as I don't want them exposed. Now, Kohl's is K-O-H-L-S 0.99
00:29:02.560 is involved in a controversy of its own, Michael, where they've got the pride display, including for
00:29:07.380 infants and young children, including, like I was saying earlier, an infant shirt that reads,
00:29:13.980 ask me my pronouns, ask me my pronouns in Kohl's. Like everyone's submitting to this nonsense. We're
00:29:21.020 we're not going to stop it with just Bud Light. That helped. But it and what we're doing to target
00:29:26.200 helps, too. But it's got to be all of them. They all have to feel some pain so that there's a
00:29:30.920 counterbalance to that enormous weight you were talking about from the DEI community and the
00:29:34.480 corporate equity index. We certainly do. You'll remember that when Transheiser Bush first made this
00:29:40.380 step with the Dylan Mulvaney beer can, you'll remember that part of the crisis communications
00:29:45.560 effort was to say, oh, it was this random VP of marketing, Alyssa Hershenfeld or something like
00:29:51.380 that. And it was she went rogue and we had nothing to do with this. And of course, that isn't true.
00:29:57.020 These decisions to embrace LGBTism and transgender ideology and all the rest of it were made at much,
00:30:03.060 much higher levels of AB InBev. And they were made across platforms. They were made in collusion with
00:30:08.700 GARM and the World Economic Forum and all sorts of industry standard setting groups. And so they
00:30:15.180 allowed this VP of marketing to take the fall. But this is a much deeper problem. And so, yes,
00:30:20.140 obviously, you've got to replace these executives. You've got to you've got to recognize that personnel
00:30:24.780 is policy. And so we have to put the right people in these positions. But we also just need to reorient
00:30:31.520 the way that we view truth and law and and government and society, because right now we're
00:30:39.660 just locked in this battle of the wills, which is you've got the normal people on one hand saying
00:30:44.760 men shouldn't dress up as pretty little princesses at Disneyland and men shouldn't go into the girls 1.00
00:30:50.220 bathroom and they shouldn't dress up in skirts at funeral homes. And then on the other side, 1.00
00:30:54.000 you've got the leftists who say, yes, they should. And we damn well will do it because that's what we
00:30:59.200 want to do. And in a battle of wills, you're just going to see ever escalating tensions that are
00:31:03.800 one day going to explode. I guess they already have exploded a few times and it's going to get
00:31:07.600 worse. That's not the only way that we have to run society, though. In fact, that's not the way
00:31:12.260 that any flourishing society has ever been run. It's not just a battle of wills. It's also about
00:31:16.640 reason. That's the other thing that makes us human beings. And so when you've got two people who
00:31:20.900 disagree, the one guy says a man can't be a woman, the one guy says a man can be a woman, 0.98
00:31:24.780 then you can use your reason to point to objective truth and say, oh, no, actually,
00:31:29.540 hey, brother, no, you're just wrong about that. You're actually not a woman. And it's actually
00:31:34.420 not right for you to dress up like a pretty little princess. And it's not right for you to take
00:31:38.460 the girls' trophies and go into their locker rooms and all the rest of it. And here's why. Here are my
00:31:43.220 arguments from philosophy and from theology. And here's my examples from history. And here's my
00:31:48.600 argument from the civil law. And you just go and make a reasonable argument. You don't need to be
00:31:52.020 filled with hatred. You don't need to yell. You don't need to scream. You don't need to smash any
00:31:55.000 windows to do that. As our society neglects reason and discards truth and says that there's
00:32:01.740 really nothing beyond what I want to do and I'm damn well going to get it. As we do that, then our
00:32:07.400 society is going to become less and less reasonable. We're going to descend into cacophony. We're not
00:32:11.580 even going to be able to understand one another in the words that we're using. And frankly, we're already
00:32:16.560 pretty far down that path. I mean, it's amazing as if Disney hasn't taken a big enough beating on its
00:32:23.260 stock price. And Disney Plus is in serious danger. The Wall Street Journal recently had a report on
00:32:28.540 that thanks to its wokeness. And that's, you know, separate and apart from its legal fights with Ron
00:32:33.520 DeSantis. This is not the answer, Disney. I got a little pro tip for you. This is not the way forward.
00:32:39.740 Um, I'm going to hold on to Transheiser Bush in many conversations. I really appreciated that one.
00:32:45.920 Stand by much more with Michael Knowles right after this quick break.
00:32:53.840 Michael, I want to talk to you now about the madness of crowds. A couple of
00:32:56.780 rando examples of people losing their ever loving minds that I want your take on.
00:33:01.120 This one we've got to start with. I got it from TMZ and it's spectacular.
00:33:05.020 Uh, we have friends. They're amazing. And the male, well, one, one of the guys is an expert on
00:33:11.980 beauty pageants. Like he can game it the way, um, somebody at a racehorse can game the racehorse,
00:33:17.860 you know, like this guy, these are the odds. It's a tough mutter, but they can't do, but that's how he
00:33:21.780 approaches the beauty pageant circuit. And I cannot wait to get his take on what happened in Brazil
00:33:26.160 as two contestants were down to the wire on not, I I'm not sure if they were, if it was for
00:33:31.520 Miss Brazil or for a local, hold on, I've got it. The tantrum took place on Saturday at the Miss
00:33:36.860 Gameato Grosso 2023 pageant. All right. So they're at the lower level still where the contest came
00:33:42.700 down to two finalists, Emmanuel Bellini from the municipality of Varzea Grande and Nathalie
00:33:51.040 Becker of Cuba. This is, I'm a hot mess. I don't speak Portuguese. In any event, here they are in the 1.00
00:33:59.380 crowning moment. I will describe what happens for the listening audience. It's all, I think in
00:34:04.840 Portuguese, and, um, wait for the big finish.
00:34:12.460 The one on the left wins. She bends over. She's so excited. She wants about to get the big crowd,
00:34:21.360 which is on stage. Oh, up comes a man, grabs it, smashes it into pieces. Now grabs the loser by the
00:34:27.620 wrist. Shepherds are off the stage. Picks up the crown again. Smashes it a second time.
00:34:35.460 Getting shepherded off by security. Yells at security. Very animated.
00:34:40.940 Grabs the loser again. Runner up, I guess I should say. And shepherds are off the screen.
00:34:45.460 It turns out they say that he is her husband. I got questions about whether that man actually has a
00:34:52.740 wife, but okay, they say that they're married and, uh, he's very, very upset. Michael, what did you
00:34:58.100 make of that? Well, I have an alternate theory, which is that that man is Kanye West and he was
00:35:03.740 going to let her finish, but he wanted to point out that Beyonce did have one of the greatest albums
00:35:07.780 of all time. I, I really like this. I'm real, I feel bad for the winner. I'm sure she got her tiara
00:35:14.760 eventually, but we are living. Megan, we're in this age where, where everyone is just so sad and
00:35:23.680 lame and clinical about love. There are people, boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives
00:35:28.880 who will refer to their beloved as their partner. And they'll say not even, not just two men or two
00:35:35.360 women. I mean, this is a boyfriend. It will say, Oh, this girl over here, she's my partner as though 0.92
00:35:40.380 they have an accounting firm or something together. They won't refer to love affairs. They'll talk about
00:35:44.680 the relationship that they're in. Like Cole Porter was singing, you know, let's do it. Let's,
00:35:49.280 let's enter into a relationship. It's so sad and clinical. And I want some fiery, hot blooded
00:35:57.020 Brazilian to get up there and say, no, I love this woman. Even though, as you point out, uh, that 0.98
00:36:02.120 remains perhaps a little bit dubious. Well, we'll get, well, listen, listen, guess what? Breaking news.
00:36:08.260 My, my team just informed me, this is broke. This is a gay pageant. It's an 1.00
00:36:14.540 LGBT thing. So, so first of all, my gaydar worked. Okay. It was number one. Second of
00:36:23.480 all, are those even women? I don't, I don't know what we just saw. 1.00
00:36:27.480 Hmm. Oh, you're right. Because, well, if it's a man and he goes up there and it is a
00:36:32.760 woman, then you think, okay, this homosexual man is setting an example for the heterosexual 0.97
00:36:38.560 man, especially up in the Anglo world who've gone so, uh, lame about all of this. Or is 1.00
00:36:44.380 it a, is it a, a gay man and a man dressed as a woman, a drag queen winning a beauty pageant?
00:36:50.600 And if so, then those drag queens are setting an example for gender roles that, uh, frankly, 1.00
00:36:56.900 we haven't seen in, in the West in a long time. Either way, fascinating.
00:37:00.500 Fascinating. All around sore losers. And, um, you know, congratulations to whoever it was that
00:37:06.120 actually won that pageant and not for nothing. But as we, as I circulated the story amongst our
00:37:10.500 team, I found out that Canadian Debbie, Debbie Murphy, who's been with me forever as my editorial
00:37:15.140 producer. Guess what? Debbie's from Ohio. She had a very checkered past, um, some pipe bombs in her 1.00
00:37:21.460 past. That's why she'd be going into news producing. She loves when I tell that story.
00:37:24.920 Actually, she had some highs and lows though, Michael, because it turns out Debbie revealed to me
00:37:28.580 something I never knew in all the 15, 16 years we've been together. She was little miss Hubbard,
00:37:34.340 little miss Hubbard. Here she is. She's the brunette getting the crown in this picture and 0.99
00:37:39.980 check out the side eye from the loser on screen. Yeah. But there were no little boys storming the
00:37:46.800 stage to snatch her tiara. One is happy. I asked her what happened? Like, did you go to miss
00:37:52.040 little miss Ohio after that? She said she did not participate. Her parents didn't want to make the
00:37:56.820 drive. You got the taste though, at least. Yeah. She needed a partner like, like the runner up had
00:38:04.740 in that Brazilian thing. Um, all right, here's another example. We go off to Sweden for the next 0.98
00:38:08.580 one where there's an, a big finale in one of those reality shows. It's basically they're dancing with
00:38:13.360 the stars. It's some dance show. Um, and what happened was there, as in many places, some crazy
00:38:18.560 climate activists stormed the dancers, you know, they've been like defiling art everywhere in,
00:38:24.400 in Sweden. They decided to storm the finale of the dancing, interrupting the pair that was out
00:38:30.280 there dancing and the jib operator. And for those of you not familiar with television, the jib is like
00:38:34.780 the big camera on a crane that's operated remotely usually. Um, and it's large and you stay the hell away
00:38:42.540 from it. If you're in a studio, the jib operator decided to take out the protesters. Look at this.
00:38:48.320 Yeah, they're releasing some sort of toxic something there. The jib operator get, get somebody down
00:38:58.200 and we'll see it from another angle. Look at this. Check it out. Wow. This is how it's done. Michael
00:39:09.760 Knowles. That is how it's done. I, I hope that that jib operator gets some sort of a prize because,
00:39:17.840 you know, when we're talking about game shows, you got to remember a rule of life in politics.
00:39:22.480 If you play stupid games, you will win stupid prizes. And I think those protesters learn that
00:39:27.980 firsthand. Yes, you, you will get hurt. Uh, you mess with the wrong people. And that leads me to the
00:39:33.240 madness of crowds right here in New York city. Well, I'm in Connecticut, but the background's New York,
00:39:37.040 um, where this lunatic law grad from Cooney, uh, city university of New York, who apparently was
00:39:45.560 at John Jay college of law and then transferred to Cooney. I mean, none of these is going to get
00:39:49.720 this person any very far in the legal profession based on what we just heard. Um, she decided she
00:39:55.940 spoke at the graduation. Mayor Adams was there. It was a nice occasion. He got booed because he
00:40:00.940 mentioned that he's a former cop. Okay. And now we understand exactly just how left that crowd
00:40:06.780 was who on earth is going to hire this woman. This is how she sees our country, uh, and others 1.00
00:40:11.720 in sought three. One of very few legal institutions created to recognize that the law is a manifestation
00:40:21.560 of white supremacy that continues to oppress and suppress people in this nation and around the
00:40:27.800 world. We joined this institution to be equipped with the necessary legal skills to protect our
00:40:33.740 communities, to protect the organizers fighting endlessly day in and out, working to lift the
00:40:40.180 facade of legal neutrality and confront the systems of oppression that wreck violence on them. Systems
00:40:45.920 of oppression created to feed an empire with a ravenous appetite for destruction and violence.
00:40:51.680 May the rage that fills this auditorium, may it be the fuel for the fight against capitalism,
00:40:56.740 imperialism and Zionism around the world. Okay. She wants to abolish ice. She has some very 0.94
00:41:04.860 unfortunate things to say about Israel to the point now where there are protests over her
00:41:09.380 and, um, calls to defund this publicly funded university where we're helping this person get
00:41:16.040 ahead in the law. And this is just an, a window into how people on law school campuses today feel
00:41:24.560 right about how they see the world. It's absolutely offensive. The headlines are about how this pro
00:41:30.600 Palestine student made all sorts of nasty comments about Jews, which is, is an expected story. It's 1.00
00:41:37.600 not newsworthy. It's not exactly man bites dog. But what I think is still newsworthy is what this woman
00:41:43.640 is saying about the law. She, she's saying that the CUNY uniquely recognizes that the law is just this facade
00:41:50.760 to uphold white supremacy and justice is all a big sham. And, and so she graduates from this law school.
00:41:58.200 She's never even learned the basic meaning of law and of justice. Law is an ordinance of reason for
00:42:03.820 the common good by the one who has care of the community and promulgate it. That's the most basic
00:42:07.860 definition you could get of law. Justice is a habit of virtue that inclines the will to give to each
00:42:13.720 and to all what they deserve. Again, this is pretty basic stuff. You don't need a law school education
00:42:19.020 to have that. And so we focus today on how so many things in our society are not what they seem.
00:42:26.160 We've been talking for a long time about how a lot of men are not the women that they present
00:42:31.140 themselves to be and vice versa. But, but this is the case with the law too. If this is what this girl 1.00
00:42:36.140 learned from law school, then she doesn't know a damn thing about the law. And a nation that doesn't 1.00
00:42:41.720 know anything about the law and doesn't know anything about justice is not going to be able to render
00:42:45.680 justice to anybody. Her name is Fatima Musa Mohammed. She's from Yemen, uh, by way of Queens. 0.94
00:42:53.860 And she views, yeah, this law school is one of the very few legal institutions created as you heard
00:42:58.540 in the soundbite to recognize that the law is a manifestation of white supremacy that continues
00:43:03.580 to oppress and suppress people in this nation. She's working to help people fight against systems
00:43:08.840 that were created to feed an empire with a ravenous appetite for destruction and violence. And on she 0.95
00:43:15.160 goes, calling the NYPD and the U.S. military fascists. That's, that's lovely. Um, over Memorial
00:43:22.180 Day weekend, though it happened May 12th. Um, yeah, NYPD is a fat. Those are fascists. U.S. military
00:43:27.380 fascists called on her peers to continue to the revolution against capitalism and racism across the
00:43:33.680 country. I mean, this is terrifying that this person's actually gotten a law degree. Doesn't mean she
00:43:37.940 passed the bar. We'll see if she can do that. Um, but this is, this is why we have, you know,
00:43:43.280 the crazy cases that we have and thank God for the bar as it exists now. And some of the justices
00:43:48.020 sitting there and judges who fight back against this nonsense. The vast majority of the federal
00:43:52.320 bench is not woke. Maybe some of the state bench, they're not woke and they're not going to tolerate
00:43:55.880 this nonsense. But think about this, Megan, think about what she's saying just about the law. And she
00:44:00.820 says the law just exists to uphold white supremacy. That's what the law is about. Okay, ladies. So what's 0.83
00:44:06.840 the alternative? What are you proposing? The only alternative to law is lawlessness. And, and that
00:44:13.520 is what she and her fellow radicals, and frankly, a lot of mainstream Democrat politicians have been
00:44:19.820 advocating in recent years. So it's, it's not a bug of, of the liberal system when you hear calls to
00:44:26.140 defund the police or abolish the police or empty out the prisons or, or any of the rest of it.
00:44:30.820 That's a feature of the program. The program is explicitly advocating for injustice now because
00:44:39.140 they don't believe in any such thing as justice. Meanwhile, you've got, you know, what is it? 11
00:44:44.800 people shot in Chicago over the weekend. Um, you know, violence breaking out in a terrible melee in
00:44:51.120 California, people hurt down in Florida, like the numbers are bad. So, I mean, to be so tone deaf
00:44:56.840 now to be attacking the police still as a bunch of fascists and the military still as a bunch of
00:45:03.740 fascists, like she's, she probably never going to have to deal with it, but others have, um, you had 0.90
00:45:08.540 DeSantis on Fox over the weekend, making an interesting comment. I thought about the military
00:45:12.980 in addition to going to Yale undergrad and Harvard law school. I think that's the order. Uh, he served,
00:45:19.120 he served in the, in the U S military, in the Navy. And, um, he had some thoughts on why we're having
00:45:24.140 such recruiting difficulties and some of the problems that we're seeing in our military.
00:45:27.460 Here's a bit of that in Sat One. I think the military that I see is different from the military
00:45:32.840 I served in. I see a lot of emphasis now on political ideologies, things like gender pronouns.
00:45:39.100 I see a lot about things like DEI. And I think that that's caused recruiting to, to plummet. I think
00:45:46.020 it's driven off a lot of warriors and I think morale is low. I remember being in Iraq and we were in
00:45:51.620 Fallujah and it was not going well. And yet people were still willing to sign up knowing they'd get 0.70
00:45:56.880 sent to Iraq because they believed in, that this was something special. And I think we've lost that
00:46:01.940 a little bit. Uh, and I think we really need to, uh, to rejuvenate the morale in the military. So we
00:46:07.080 will do that on day one and you will see very big changes, uh, in the services.
00:46:13.160 Michael, it's a good point. And it's from a vet, right? You forget that about DeSantis because you
00:46:17.260 hear so much about his current battles as governor, but he served the country honorably and good on him
00:46:21.260 for reminding people. You know, Megan, people are despairing of this primary. You've got those
00:46:29.180 who are on the DeSantis side who are just furious that Trump won't drop out and anoint the next
00:46:34.540 generation. Then you got people on the Trump side who were just furious that DeSantis won't wait his
00:46:39.640 turn and allow Trump to, to get a second term. And here I am. I feel as though I'm alone. I'm very
00:46:46.020 pro primary. I like these guys. They're, they've got thick skin. They're pretty tough. DeSantis,
00:46:52.940 he's a military vet. Donald Trump was, was born with the hide of a rhinoceros on him. Okay. These
00:46:58.040 are big, tough guys. They can battle it out. They're going to push each other in a more conservative
00:47:02.100 direction. We've got great options ahead. Bring it on, baby. I love it. Let's watch these two tough
00:47:08.800 guys hash it out. You are not alone. I am 100% with you. I think, I mean, either one of these obviously
00:47:14.860 would be a better choice than what we have right now, who's pushing the country to the far left.
00:47:19.120 And, you know, it's good for DeSantis to remind us of some of his firsthand insider knowledge on how
00:47:24.180 things used to be inside the military and the armed forces. As we know, Trump has a very different
00:47:28.300 history. He dodged many attempts to loop him in because of his bone spurs. So why not draw some
00:47:34.580 distinctions there, right? Between like, I did serve, I did so honorably, and I've learned a thing or two.
00:47:39.240 Michael, thank you so much. Looking for, I'll sit next to you with the open-minded primary and enjoying the
00:47:43.200 whole show as I always do when you are on. Thank you for coming on.
00:47:46.960 Thank you, Megan. Wonderful to be with you as always.
00:47:49.340 Coming up, two female cyclists speak out on gender ideology. 1.00
00:47:56.880 Transgender cyclists continue to take center stage in the debate for women's rights. This past week,
00:48:02.400 British cycling decided to ban all transgender, quote, women from competing in the female category.
00:48:09.320 That's great. British cycling is getting it right, saying, sorry, it's about fairness and we are not
00:48:17.400 going to let biological men compete against women in cycling. Great. That is a step in the right 1.00
00:48:22.640 direction. Joining us today to discuss how many others are making the opposite decision,
00:48:28.500 leaving women cyclists hanging on a thread, are two female cyclists and champions of their sport who 1.00
00:48:34.820 have witnessed what trans athletes competing against biological women does to female sports.
00:48:40.060 Inga Thompson is a retired American road cyclist and a badass one, too. A 10-time national champion, 1.00
00:48:45.480 three-time Olympian, two-time podium finisher at the Women's Tour de France. Also with us today,
00:48:50.460 Hannah Arendsman. She's a 35-time national cyclocross champion who announced recently she was retiring from
00:48:57.420 the sport at just 24 years old over this issue. Ladies, thank you so much for being here and welcome
00:49:04.780 to the show. Thank you for having us. Yes, thank you. And I know you've never met officially, but we're
00:49:12.180 chatting in the pregame. And, you know, it's been interesting to me because I know, Inga, you've been
00:49:17.060 out there talking about Hannah saying, this is such a shame. Like, we lost yet another young, promising
00:49:23.500 female cyclists because people are too afraid to speak out about this issue because they understand 0.99
00:49:29.180 very well there will be penalties. So let's just start there. You had, I mean, your career has just
00:49:35.840 been absolutely stunning, amazing. Lance Armstrong was singing your praises to me recently. I told the
00:49:40.660 audience that. So what made you finally speak out about this issue, understanding there could be
00:49:47.680 blowback. Well, when I first started this, I had ultimate compassion for the transgender athletes 0.84
00:49:54.420 and I still do. And when this first started, it was for transgender women who had gone through
00:50:00.900 sexual reassignment surgery. And I had believed the, the, the science that they put forth where they
00:50:07.020 said, oh, this is fair. And, and I was a believer. And then we started kind of seeing the abuse of it
00:50:13.620 with people self-ID and then realizing the science that they put forth for this to get passed was,
00:50:20.900 uh, eight athletes who are transgender women who self-reported. And so you have this, uh, study,
00:50:26.900 which had since shown to be flawed. This eight self-reported people said, Hey, yeah, we're a lot
00:50:32.460 weaker. And boom, in slides, the I use, uh, IOC slides in this new policy that transgender women can, 0.99
00:50:39.980 can compete. And, and from there, uh, then it turned into, you know, a few more years goes by
00:50:46.440 and they're realizing that these women are transgender women who have had gonadectomies
00:50:51.320 have serious health issues. So then it got, um, changed to, you can, uh, take up to 10 nanomoles per
00:50:58.860 liter of testosterone, which is like, you know, 10 times the amount that women have, and you can compete 0.57
00:51:04.280 with the women. They could get a therapeutic use exemption. And then we had self-ID came in. 0.54
00:51:10.540 And so you saw this slow domino effect of the women's sports being destroyed. And here we have
00:51:17.060 put forth 22 peer-reviewed studies that show that this is not fair. Like, well, we're not quite sure,
00:51:23.880 you know, first five, 10 study come out. Well, we're not sure. Oh, now there's 22 studies. Well,
00:51:28.860 no, we're really not sure. And yet the IOC accepted one flawed study and just threw it right
00:51:35.380 in. And you don't, you, and then the reality is you don't need studies. All you need is your eyes
00:51:40.500 in elementary school. We all figured out what has taken them 22 years or 22 peer-reviewed studies
00:51:49.000 go. Yeah, I don't know. And so here we have Xavier Begard, who is the, the, the medical commissioner
00:51:55.320 at the, um, uh, international cycling union, basically stating I've read all the studies,
00:52:02.540 but inclusion is more important than fairness. Right. And this is the person. And then there's
00:52:10.160 the medical director, Dr. Richard budget of the IOC, who says everyone agrees that trans women are
00:52:17.220 women. So that's at the Olympic level, trans women are women. And then you point out that at the cycling
00:52:22.180 level, you've got a similar attitude by the person in charge there. They they're totally on the side
00:52:26.880 of quote inclusivity without acknowledging the reality that that means unfairness. And in some
00:52:34.000 cases, lack of safety for actual women who are participating. Right. And yet they allowed a flawed 0.73
00:52:41.560 study and shoehorned it right through really easily. And we can give them 22 studies and they're not sure.
00:52:48.000 I mean, you can see right here that they have zero intention of doing anything for the women. So
00:52:54.520 like for the last five years, I have written letters to the IOC and the, uh, international Olympic
00:53:00.020 committee. And, and it's all the tactic is silence, ignore gaslight. Yeah, we'll get to that. And they
00:53:08.760 don't allow any women at the table to have a discussion about this. They will have in their medical 1.00
00:53:14.160 directors who believe that transgender women are women and they'll allow the transgender women to 0.78
00:53:19.980 come and state their case, but they will not allow the women to come in and state their case. And when 1.00
00:53:25.440 they do, if they're bringing in women athletes, if they were to speak up, they get canceled. So how are
00:53:33.420 we going to have fair representation when you have a woman athlete who all they want to do is to compete 1.00
00:53:40.560 and to step in front of all these people so far, we haven't seen it happen, but supposedly there's
00:53:45.940 going to be four women athletes, um, at the international cycling union to speak up, but.
00:53:52.020 Well, let's talk about this. And I want to tell the audience, you two just got canceled and we'll
00:53:55.580 talk about what happened to you, but let's talk about the, the, uh, international cycling unit union,
00:54:00.020 the ICU, because they've been terrible, terrible on this issue. And, you know, you were pointing out
00:54:05.540 maybe, you know, it used to be, maybe they allow the 10 nanomules, whatever of testosterone. Um,
00:54:11.080 then it was lowered to five in many places like California. We just saw those runners at the high
00:54:15.380 school level. You can have as much testosterone, testosterone as you want. They absolutely don't.
00:54:19.240 They require nothing for those trans girls. It's biological boys to run against, uh, natural born 1.00
00:54:25.560 girls. You don't have to do a thing. You can be in full, in the midst of full male puberty and crush 0.99
00:54:30.200 these girls, which is exactly what happened in that California race. We just covered foot race that is 1.00
00:54:34.100 running. Um, and nobody will say boo to you. So at the professional level, they've started to realize
00:54:39.140 they have to have some standards, but being past male puberty doesn't count against you. No problem
00:54:45.380 whatsoever. All that, you know, the strong legs, the, the femurs, the musculature, no, that's no
00:54:51.620 problem. No problem. So they only focus on the testosterone. So the UCI originally said, okay,
00:54:57.420 it's at five, this, this five nanomules on the testosterone. Then there was pushback and they lowered
00:55:01.960 it to 2.5 and it has to have been at 2.5 for two years. And you and others have been saying
00:55:07.820 newsflash that doesn't solve it. That's, that's not a fix. And now there's been more buzz amongst
00:55:15.300 women's cyclists about possibly boycotting the events where some of these trans cyclists are
00:55:21.360 going to show up. And then the UCI realized it was going to have to do something because some of its
00:55:25.960 biggest stars were saying, we're not going to show up at your biggest races. And that's a problem.
00:55:30.600 So you tell me, because it looked to me like you were not satisfied and go with the UCI's fig leaf
00:55:37.220 because they were like, we're going to have a meeting or have a meeting in August. And we're
00:55:41.300 going to invite a female cyclist, someone named Katerina. She's going to represent you ladies and 0.99
00:55:48.100 fear not. Well, the, the, the last, um, uh, cycle cost championships about a year and a half ago,
00:55:55.760 Katerina, who is our representative was wearing a trans flag wristband, which goes against policy.
00:56:01.980 You're not supposed to be promoting one side or the other. And she's got the trans wristband on. 0.87
00:56:07.600 And then I've had private zoom meetings with her where transgender women are women, 0.86
00:56:11.660 and they should be included. So now we have the, the, the woman's representative at the international 0.62
00:56:18.100 cycling union stating also trans women are women. And this is who is representing us. And the, um,
00:56:25.920 cycling professional association for the women haven't even been contacted for this meeting.
00:56:32.040 And, and, and these are the women representing the pro cyclists. And so they had to reach out.
00:56:37.880 Do we know how, like how a majority of the women, the female cyclists feel about this issue?
00:56:41.660 Uh, I think that the survey that they did was taken with only professional women cyclists and 93%
00:56:49.080 said they do not want to have women, uh, or transgender women in the women's field. And so
00:56:55.580 the, uh, international cycling union came back and they said, well, you know, we're really not going
00:57:00.680 to do this on the feelings of the woman, women, because that's not really right. We have to follow 0.85
00:57:05.520 the science, but it's like, hold on. So you're not going to let the women put their feelings out there, 1.00
00:57:10.580 but transgender women can get into the women's race based on their feelings. I mean, does, 0.68
00:57:17.160 does anybody not see the hypocrisy here? And then we have the medical director saying transgender women
00:57:23.300 are women. I mean, we don't even stand a chance. And this is why I'm advocating for, for protesting
00:57:29.520 because every effort that we've had to do with trying to work with the policy, trying to get a seat
00:57:36.480 at the table has all been stonewalled, gas lit. We can't get anywhere. So it's like, all right,
00:57:42.980 let's protest. And we are getting somewhere because two days after Austin Killips won Gila,
00:57:48.960 two days afterwards, the international cycling union said, we stand by our transgender policy.
00:57:55.100 And then we started calling for protest. Two days after that, it's like, well, maybe we will revisit this
00:58:00.940 and no women yet have been consulted. And so I want to go ahead with the protest. And we have
00:58:08.860 at the national championships coming up here, pro nationals, June 22nd to the 25th. And there's
00:58:16.300 some women in, in Scotland that are putting together a protest there. And I think we will be protesting
00:58:22.460 until this gets changed. And I know it'll probably start very small, but it'll grow. And somewhere
00:58:29.680 they have to listen to the women. There are many forms of protest, including what, what Hannah has
00:58:34.300 been doing. And I know, you know, as I said, you, you've been praising it. So Hannah, you, she mentioned,
00:58:40.820 Inga mentioned Austin Killips, who is a biological man who is winning in women's spaces in cycling.
00:58:48.480 And I know there was, we recently covered Austin Killips because Austin was involved in a race
00:58:54.200 that I don't think you participated in. Inga mentioned tour of the Gila. It's in New Mexico.
00:58:58.300 It happened on April 30th and it's an elite race. It's sanctioned by the UCI that we've been talking
00:59:04.040 about. And Killips won the race and won the $35,000 prize money for first place. The first time in the
00:59:12.180 race's history that the women's prize money equaled that of the men. And yet it went to a biological 0.73
00:59:18.240 man. Um, Killips only took up cycling like yesterday, 2019, 2019. Um, and now has been
00:59:28.380 crushing it in the women's racing. And my understanding is not only is Killips now a
00:59:33.360 candidate to make the U S Olympic team, our Olympic team, our female Olympic team, um, in Paris next
00:59:40.280 summer, but that you raced against Killips previously and Killips beat you. Is that right?
00:59:49.740 Killips beat you. And then there was a trans person right behind you as well. You were sandwiched in
00:59:53.820 between two, two biological men in a race that happened, uh, last December. Tell us about that.
00:59:59.800 Yeah. Um, he's been racing in the elite women's cyclocross field for about two years that I've been
01:00:09.280 aware of. And it was interesting. The first year he came out, he didn't do well at all. Like his
01:00:17.400 handling skills weren't the elite levels and, uh, he's a new rider kind of jumping in. Right. And then
01:00:29.280 within a year he was keeping up on strength alone. He's handling skills have improved a little bit,
01:00:35.300 but still running a lot of sections that us pro women ride. And that showed forth a lot at the Hartford 1.00
01:00:47.400 cyclocross nationals this last December where he and another guy raced in our field and they were
01:00:57.480 third and fifth in our, in our elite women's field. And yeah, it was just demoralizing when you have
01:01:06.360 two guys who have been deluding themselves, beat you like that when you've been working at it since
01:01:14.780 you were a kid. My, my understanding is I don't know that much about cycling, but you point out
01:01:19.120 the distinction between the tricky handling of the bike and the, in the tougher parts of the race
01:01:23.400 versus just sheer power, you know, just using your legs and getting, getting ahead. And my understanding
01:01:29.100 is that he, so his, this was no problem to him and being new to cycling because he could beat the
01:01:36.600 women in the power phases of the race. That's what, that's what you're saying. That his ineptitude 0.70
01:01:41.440 as a new professional cycler, uh, in the trickier parts of the race was no problem for him because
01:01:47.620 he had such an advantage over you when it came to the power pieces of the course.
01:01:52.260 Yes. Yes. And it's just, it's, you know, it's biology. If you look at a male body versus a female 0.86
01:01:59.680 body, you just look at their bone structure, their levers are longer and generally stronger,
01:02:05.540 bigger. And the muscles that they can build are a lot bigger too. And especially if they've gone
01:02:13.100 through puberty already, those effects never go away. Their heart is bigger. Their lungs are bigger,
01:02:20.060 which means they can get blood to their muscles quicker and oxygen to their muscles quicker,
01:02:25.360 and then get the waste away quicker so that they can recover faster. So it's,
01:02:31.340 there's no way to undo that. And you shouldn't undo that. That would be just to destroy human.
01:02:38.260 Like that would be terrible. Well now, um, at that race, cause we talked about this on the show, 1.00
01:02:44.340 not even knowing that you were coming on Hannah, that race in December, he was racing against you
01:02:50.240 in the women's category and you're the, you're the biker he pushed off course, right? We showed the 1.00
01:02:56.580 audience video of this. Are you that biker cyclist? All right. So let's, let's show the video
01:03:03.360 what's happening here. Can you explain it? So that is a very tricky off camber. You can't really see
01:03:09.240 it from the camera angle, but it's like a wall and you're riding across the side of it and it's all
01:03:14.200 muddy. It's very hard to ride, but if certain lines were grassy enough and grippy enough that you
01:03:20.120 could actually ride it. And Austin in the white is on a line there at the bottom of the hill.
01:03:27.940 And instead of cutting straight down the course, it seems that he stumbled and runs right into me.
01:03:35.440 I'm the rider in the red and the yellow. Um, I didn't really pay attention to it. Cause you're
01:03:40.180 like when you're in that situation, you just kind of focus. If you pay attention to the rider,
01:03:44.620 you're going to go down. So you got to pay attention to your line, stick your line and try to ride it
01:03:51.640 out, which thankfully I was able to, but it slowed me down a good bit. And you know, that kind of always
01:03:57.220 just knocks your focus a little bit. So it was a little frustrating cause you know, like you're
01:04:02.140 at professional field and you have like, that really wasn't a place where somebody should have
01:04:08.660 run into you, but I don't, I can't vouch for intentions. Um, I just, you know, it just seemed
01:04:16.120 like a kind of a clumsy, but is it the case that a new female cyclist probably never would have been 1.00
01:04:21.960 in this race and therefore wouldn't have placed you in that kind of danger? Because this is a guy
01:04:27.220 who's there only because of the power stretches and is inept on the more difficult technical stretches
01:04:32.940 endangering other cyclists like you. Somebody who has that much power in the women's field should 1.00
01:04:39.420 also have this handling to go along with it. Um, you wouldn't see a woman with that much strength 1.00
01:04:47.800 doing that, especially in cyclocross. They just wouldn't be able to keep up.
01:04:54.100 What is cyclocross? Can you explain that for those of us who don't follow?
01:04:56.740 Okay. So, um, if you think about road racing, that's just pavement, that's big field. You see
01:05:04.960 like the Tour de France is a classic version of a road race. And then you have mountain biking,
01:05:10.040 fat tire suspension, cyclocross was where those two meet in the middle. So you have a skinnier knobby
01:05:17.760 tire, no suspension, um, kind of looks like a road bike and you do these circuit courses generally in
01:05:25.560 parks and about eight to 12 minutes long. You can have mud, sand, you could be running up staircases.
01:05:33.240 You could be running, riding down those steep off camera Hills. It could be snowing. It could be
01:05:39.080 frozen ruts. So you're on and off the bike constantly. It's a great, big, fun party.
01:05:44.940 It's about an hour long race, just all out. It's a good time.
01:05:48.460 It's awesome. No wonder he wants in. Uh, so I presume there's a male division, uh, for people like
01:05:53.520 Austin, the, I understand that there is something called the cyclocross worlds. Uh, and, and that's,
01:06:02.360 do you believe that, you know, you could have made that I'm understanding as you, you, you were not
01:06:07.300 considered for that. Do you think you could have made that had you not been competing against these
01:06:11.280 two males? I kind of wonder, I can't say for sure, but they definitely have taken up slots from
01:06:19.960 women. They have taken opportunity from women. Hmm. It's so disheartening. So your concern Inga is 1.00
01:06:27.180 that people like Hannah, so Hannah decides she's going to retire. She's like, I'm at it. I'm done.
01:06:32.060 I'm not going to, what's the point. And that was her way of protesting. But your concern is
01:06:37.320 too few women are willing to do that. And they don't want to sacrifice their careers, understandably. 1.00
01:06:41.480 And even more so too few women will explain why they're really leaving. In fact, in race after race 1.00
01:06:47.300 in Inga, what we're seeing when these trans women, these biological men win is you see the next in 1.00
01:06:53.460 line, the actual woman say, Oh, I'm, I'm fine with it. Oh, it's okay. I I'm fine. You know, I, 0.93
01:07:00.120 yeah, I'm supportive. And your belief is that's BS. Yeah, they have to, because otherwise they lose
01:07:08.220 sponsorship. They get canceled by their teams. I mean, we've, we've watched a lot of these team sponsors
01:07:15.340 actively go after any of the women who might even try to speak up. They are told to be quiet.
01:07:21.620 And I mean, you saw what they did to me. This is what happens to any women that do speak up. We 1.00
01:07:27.640 watched what happened to Chloe Dygert, when she liked the tweet of a black woman that was about 0.97
01:07:34.380 protecting women's rape shelters, and they labeled her as racist. And I'm like, hold on, do you guys not
01:07:40.280 see the, that she liked a black woman's tweet, but you labeled her as racist? And this is what
01:07:46.760 they're willing to do anything and everything to silence. And so they'll take anything that an
01:07:51.240 athlete does and blow it out of proportion into something that, that it wasn't even. But as soon
01:07:57.500 as you start saying racist, Nazi, fascist, hoping that it will silence any woman. And, and it has worked,
01:08:06.700 I think up until now, where we have so many people speaking up now, like, uh, specifically, like
01:08:13.280 right now it's, it's a lot of the more right leaning, um, media left leaning still won't touch it.
01:08:20.960 Any bicycling media will not touch it, but they will in order to attack you. And, uh, I mean,
01:08:29.280 so you can just look at the advertisers all are all over you, what they pull their sponsorships
01:08:33.140 from you as a bike, as a cyclist. They will pull sponsorship. I mean, I'm, I'm going to go back
01:08:38.220 to Chloe Diger. I hate picking on her here, but did you see what Rafa did when Chloe Diger liked 1.00
01:08:44.900 Candace Owens tweet about protecting rape shelters? She, uh, Chloe was forced to put out an apology 1.00
01:08:51.080 and then keep, keep, keep rape shelters for women only don't allow for women only people. And she liked
01:08:58.660 and she liked to tweet by Candace Owens. Okay. And, and she was forced to put out an apology by her
01:09:05.040 team. And then Rafa came out and said, that was not enough of an apology. And basically sent her to
01:09:11.240 a Rafa is a clothing company and high end clothing company. And they came back and they said that
01:09:20.120 apology was not good enough. It was, it was not, it was not enough. We need you to apologize more.
01:09:25.760 Oh my God. Think, think, think about what happens to a young woman athlete when they go through this. 1.00
01:09:31.600 Like let's, let's look at our woman, a tennis player, just not too recently, a long ago, it may be a year
01:09:36.380 ago. Oh, um, Osana Osaka. Sorry. I can't remember her name right now. Naomi Osaka. Right. That talked
01:09:42.680 about her mental health and taking care of it. And yet here we have Rafa that says it's not enough. We
01:09:49.160 need another apology. And we want everybody to know that we're sending her to re-education camp. And I mean,
01:09:54.840 they drug this poor woman through, through the gutter. Thankfully, Chloe is as strong as she is, 0.98
01:10:01.040 but where would we be if, if it, if she had not been that strong and she had committed suicide from
01:10:07.700 the, the incredible onslaught and, and defamation that got levied against this poor athlete. I mean,
01:10:16.140 where are all the people screaming bloody murder about what you just did to a woman's mental health?
01:10:21.280 Where are the teammates to say, we don't need you, Rafa? We got a lot of sponsors. We stand with our
01:10:26.440 teammate in solidarity with her.
01:10:29.200 They, you can't do it or they all lose their sponsorship.
01:10:32.660 Oh my gosh, this is terrible.
01:10:34.060 Yeah. No, it's, it, it, it, it is beyond repulsive what is happening to women in sports. And I'm hoping
01:10:40.800 that in about 10 years, we will see this as one of the biggest tragedies and, and scandals
01:10:47.340 against women and against children is this ideology movement. And all of the people that
01:10:52.640 just didn't stand behind it and said nothing, but have action actively, actively attacked anybody
01:11:00.460 who speaks up. It's what, what has, what is your experience been, Hannah? First of all,
01:11:05.120 talk to us about the decision to peace out of the sport that you loved. And then whether you had
01:11:10.520 any blowback because you deigned to explain why.
01:11:16.620 So there were multiple reasons why I left the sport. It was definitely part of it. The biggest
01:11:23.580 thing that I want to focus on now that I'm out though, is that it is wrong. It is unfair
01:11:30.880 to have guys racing in the women's sports. I don't want to watch any more of the young athletes. 1.00
01:11:37.960 I helped mentor have to go through that or have to look forward, but not even look forward,
01:11:44.420 dread that if they get in the elite women's field one day, which would be a dream country 1.00
01:11:51.320 for them, that they don't get to race women. They have to race guys. And it's, it's sad to 0.55
01:11:58.220 think that something we fought so hard for, we have a great men's field. We have a great women's
01:12:04.180 field. Why are we trying to blend the two? Like there's no, there's no point to it. They're
01:12:10.700 not following science. So yeah, it's just a hope that people will wake up and realize that
01:12:23.440 this, this can't go on.
01:12:26.640 So has there, have you received any blowback or have people been respectful?
01:12:32.680 The day I went and did the first signing of that Supreme court brief, I put, had to put
01:12:41.820 all my social medias on private and just kind of just be like, you know what? There are just
01:12:47.840 people who are going to be saying some not life giving things. They're just going to say
01:12:51.740 some really vulgar things that I don't need to hear. No one needs to hear that and just
01:12:58.360 walk away from that art, which it's, it's as much as most people can do to anyone who
01:13:07.920 is outside the sport. But it's a big reason why nobody in the sport will say anything because
01:13:14.480 if your social media platform gets blasted like that, that's your biggest platform to
01:13:23.720 speak about your sponsors. Sponsors see that no one wants to touch you. If no one wants to
01:13:29.520 touch you, guess what? It's an expensive sport and you can't race. And I've also known some
01:13:34.780 ladies who would have loved to say something about it and they're afraid to lose their job. 1.00
01:13:40.100 pretty sure they would lose their job because even their workplace would have
01:13:45.680 been down on them for it. Like there's no freedom of speech for it.
01:13:52.460 Right. I mean, you're in a similar situation of Riley Gaines, who was forced to swim against Leah
01:13:57.260 Thomas and tied for third. And then they gave Leah the trophy. They wanted the picture with Leah,
01:14:02.340 not with Riley and Riley. You know, people have accused her of Katie Porter. I think accused her of,
01:14:08.720 oh, it's all about you. And Riley's saying, I I'm supposed to be, I think it was in dentistry
01:14:12.900 school right now, or dental to be a dental hygienist. I I'm not, I didn't mean to become
01:14:17.320 an activist. I just wanted to help the women coming after me who aren't in a position to speak out
01:14:24.060 now that I am, but still you saw what happened to her at that San Francisco state university.
01:14:29.080 I mean, that's probably what would happen to you, Hannah, if you went on a college tour and just
01:14:32.980 in the kind, respectful manner that you speak, told your story that they would do the same to you
01:14:40.020 because you're not even allowed to, when you have standing to object, lodge that objection.
01:14:45.400 Even those words, your feelings are too offensive to be spoken, to be expressed. And that leads me
01:14:51.480 back to you, Inga. So you, you went on Fox and raised some of these issues and said, despite the 22
01:14:59.240 studies, they don't listen, they don't listen to testimonials. It's, you know, this UCI review where
01:15:05.160 we're going to have a new result in August is a farce. And you said, I'm calling for female cyclists 1.00
01:15:11.740 to, to protest, you know, maybe take a knee, um, do what you can for fans to come and make their
01:15:19.160 voices heard for coaches to try to protect their players. And very soon thereafter, the Siniska
01:15:27.500 cycling board, which is a France based American pro women's cycling team. So it's an American team,
01:15:34.000 but it's based in France. I mean, they, you were on their board. They parted ways with you
01:15:39.740 and how, what they wrote was so disgusting. I mean, I'm glad you can laugh about it now because I'm sure
01:15:48.220 it was very jarring when you saw this organization. How long had you been working with them? First of all,
01:15:54.280 just to set the scene. Well, the reason why I'm laughing about it is back in November, when I
01:16:00.540 joined Siniska, I told them my stance that I'm very, very outspoken. And Jeff Jones, who bankrolls
01:16:07.420 the team and the other co-owner, Chris Katosky, agreed with my position. And I have the email chain
01:16:14.060 to back this up. And in one of the emails that said they would be breaking windows and writing in
01:16:20.300 the streets if they were women. And they were very supportive of me. And, and so when the Riley
01:16:27.400 Gaines incident happened, I was asked to advocate more and to advocate louder. And I said, I don't
01:16:35.120 think that would be good for me to be on the board of Siniska if, if I did that. And so we had an
01:16:41.580 agreement. And once again, these are in emails, had an agreement that I would step down from Siniska
01:16:46.060 and advocate more loudly. And, and, and that's what I did. And so really nice email letter about
01:16:55.040 wanting to advocate more. And then within about two weeks, here comes Chris Katosky
01:17:00.200 putting out this hateful that I was dehumanizing and demagoguery and, and bullying that I was a
01:17:10.320 bullying. And I'm like, hold on a second. So you mean that it's dehumanizing for me to speak out to
01:17:17.420 protect women? Um, I think it's actually dehumanizing for, for men to be competing against
01:17:23.380 women, uh, demagoguery that's on the political side. I'm going to argue that one and say, this is 1.00
01:17:29.160 a human rights issue. This is a sports issue. It's about fairness. And I said, so, and bullying
01:17:36.040 when I'm speaking up for women's sports is this is just dawning on me now. Cause I'm an outsider.
01:17:42.600 They spun it like they had fired you. You're what you're saying is you voluntarily left with their,
01:17:50.960 with a handshake to go work on your advocacy without them saying, get out. You're terrible.
01:17:57.840 You no longer represent because the way they spun it in the media is Inga sucks. She's a transphobe. 1.00
01:18:03.020 Bye. This is I'm, I'm learning this for the first time. Yeah, no, I mean, if, if anything,
01:18:09.980 I mean, I really liked Jeff Jones. Um, he paid me to step aside and go speak up more because he was
01:18:17.180 so upset about what happened to Riley games. And, and when Chris Katosky wrote this letter,
01:18:23.340 even Jeff Jones came back and said, what the explicative did you write this for? We had an
01:18:30.120 agreement. She, she honored her agreement to quietly walk away. And now you're going to,
01:18:36.160 to do this to her. I mean, there was a mirror. You let me tell the audience what, what they said
01:18:41.940 just, and then, and then you continue. Um, so they know what they did. This is a couple of choice
01:18:46.040 pull, pull quotes. Um, the statement said, if shared in the absence of politics,
01:18:51.780 Inga's knowledge and experience would benefit many and advanced cycling for everyone. However,
01:18:55.560 she's decided to dedicate her time to excluding people that are otherwise and currently eligible
01:19:00.140 to compete in UCI events. She has also attempted to use our team as a platform for her political
01:19:05.120 activity. Uh, development teams state, uh, the team states that due to associations with Inga,
01:19:11.500 some lost media exposure, some respected cycling journalists refused to cover the team while
01:19:17.280 qualified and competent people have declined job offers out of fear of crossing or appearing to align
01:19:22.240 themselves with her. Meaning you, uh, Ms. Thompson's departure resolves a troubling conflict of
01:19:28.600 interest. Sineska is an apolitical organization and her campaign and methods, uh, are not, and will
01:19:34.760 never be Sineska's mission. Here's the final to be clear. She's entitled to her opinions and advocacy,
01:19:40.140 but her methods and personal attacks are inconsistent with our mission to advance opportunities for women.
01:19:46.540 Those methods well-documented on Ms. Thompson's social media presence include
01:19:50.860 dehumanization of transgender people, spreading misinformation, demagoguery, and personal attacks
01:19:56.820 on anyone who opposes her views. Our mission has been, and always will be that of advancing
01:20:01.220 women at all levels of cycling and doing so in a framework of equality, fairness, and intolerance.
01:20:08.780 Despite the negativity fostered by Ms. Thompson, we are succeeding and we will push forward faster
01:20:15.080 without her. I just, I just, I just start laughing. My standing up for women and fairness for women's
01:20:26.400 sports, women's rights issues, um, putting forth scientific studies. Um, I'm, I'm just going to sit 1.00
01:20:39.640 there and laugh. I mean, what a great spin job, but it is. Those must be the methods that are
01:20:43.700 inconsistent with Sineska's mission. Well, if they're there for women, then what I find interesting 0.96
01:20:50.300 with Sineska is they had two women on there, two highly decorated women Olympians, me and Marion 0.73
01:20:57.240 Clinier and Marion, multiple world championships, multiple Olympics. And then you have me with my
01:21:03.540 credentials. We're the only two women Olympian there. We're the only one with international pro
01:21:07.900 experience. And we both were removed from the team for standing up for women's rights. While Sineska
01:21:15.100 talks about being there for women and the two men who own the team are there for women. And yet they
01:21:23.040 turn around and they pull this stunt. What I think happened was that if that, that, that they became
01:21:31.800 cowards and they folded to the transgender advocacy crowd. If you do not go out there and flog yourself 1.00
01:21:39.160 a hundred times and put out a statement against Inga Thompson, we will forever cancel you. We will go
01:21:46.200 after you. We will make sure you, I mean, I don't know what happened behind the scenes, but I see that
01:21:51.400 Sineska had to flog themselves publicly and, and, and denounce me in order to,
01:21:58.760 I don't know, throw up their credentials. This is, but this is a message because if, if they can do
01:22:05.840 this to you, people need to understand, you know, what a goddess you are in this sport is if they can
01:22:10.820 do this to you, they can certainly do it to women who have less power, less name recognition in, 1.00
01:22:16.080 in your sport. And that's the point. My understanding is that when you got this letter,
01:22:23.380 you first thought it was a private correspondence, which was bad enough, but is it true that you did
01:22:28.000 not realize they had publicly released this? Yeah. The first hour I kind of had my jaw on the ground.
01:22:36.140 I'm like, all right, it's public within the group. And then the next thing I know that it was a public
01:22:41.440 statement. I'm like, Oh, this isn't going to go well for them. They, anybody who puts out a statement
01:22:46.940 like that right out of the gate, also no sponsor is going to touch them because you do not do that
01:22:53.760 to a board member. And if you have private correspondence that shows differently, knowing
01:23:01.440 that I can expose that and show that they are in fact lying, what sponsor is going to touch them?
01:23:07.940 And, and I mean, they, yeah, when they did that, they're, they're, they're banking on being so
01:23:17.240 inclusive, quote unquote, of everybody who's not a biological woman that they'll just get a pass for 1.00
01:23:22.860 treating you like this. But it's, it's even worse than we're outlining because it, forgive me for
01:23:28.440 raising this, but you had just been through a terrible health scare and, and real issue. And they
01:23:35.400 knew about it and they couldn't have cared less what this was going to do to you, to your mental
01:23:40.260 health, to your reputation. It was all about them and their virtue signaling.
01:23:45.280 Yeah. I mean, I, I had just come off of a double mastectomy from cancer and I wasn't five weeks out
01:23:51.800 and went to, uh, um, a sponsorship fundraising dinner and had, um, Adam Giles, who's also on the
01:23:59.680 board of director, try to threaten to chest bump me and, and said that they couldn't get sponsors
01:24:09.240 because of me and they couldn't get interviews or, uh, press to sponsor them because of me.
01:24:15.540 And, you know, and we have Jeff Jones standing there just going, Adam, stop, Adam, stop.
01:24:20.700 And, and, and, and physically getting into my space, knowing that I have just gone through a
01:24:28.220 double mastectomy. I mean, the, the extent that Sinesco will go to, to silence anybody who speaks
01:24:36.020 up is, is beyond the pale. And, and I, I will leave Jeff Jones out of this one and focus in on Chris
01:24:42.900 Katowski and Adam Giles as to an active, active, um, intimidation and silencing campaign. And
01:24:51.800 sorry, didn't work. Didn't, didn't, didn't work at all. All it did for me is, is give me more resolve.
01:24:59.100 And I really truly think that they thought that this last stunt would silence me. Like that will
01:25:05.840 get her out of here. And I'm like, Nope, Nope. Sorry. Not going to happen.
01:25:09.560 The other thing, and I can't help, but wonder in our first hour, we were talking about how
01:25:13.560 I do have an objection to trans people coming into my gynecologist's office or my mammogram 1.00
01:25:20.740 office. You have to wait long enough to get in for these appointments. They're stressful enough.
01:25:24.340 I don't want to walk in there and have to wait behind a biological man who has no business going 1.00
01:25:28.220 to a gynecologist or getting a mammogram, right? It's just not something I want to deal with at these
01:25:33.220 precarious moments. And I hear about your story where you were diagnosed with cancer. You had a double
01:25:38.080 mastectomy, extremely traumatic and unique for the most part to women, to women. It is very possible.
01:25:46.300 It's very remotely possible for men to have breast cancer, but it's, it's extremely rare. Um, and I
01:25:52.320 just wonder whether I, how there couldn't be more compassion and open-mindedness to a woman going 0.96
01:25:58.220 through a uniquely woman's issue that cuts right to one's mortality as a result of being a woman 0.89
01:26:04.320 trying to advocate for other women who are feeling helpless, who are not empowered in the other ways
01:26:10.460 that you were and, and responding in this way. Yeah. And well, when you looked at during COVID,
01:26:17.520 I saw again and again and again, uh, transgender women who wanted breast augmentation felt like 0.98
01:26:27.080 they're not committing suicide. If they didn't have breast augmentation was more important than women 1.00
01:26:33.200 going through cancer. And I remember being upset at that point during COVID, not, not even
01:26:39.280 comprehending the fact that I would actually be living that. Um, and it, and it was pretty interesting
01:26:46.240 being in, you know, in the plastic, you're in the office and having transgender women in there that 1.00
01:26:53.740 were coming in for breast augmentation. And I'm going in there to have a double mastectomy. 0.95
01:26:57.780 And it felt very surreal to be in that same space with, it, it was really tough to stomach because
01:27:08.440 this is a female issue. And, and when you think about them also as, you know, transgender women
01:27:17.100 asking for gynecological exams and asking for gynecologist just to have more understanding of
01:27:23.900 their issues, it's like, no, you need to go to your, your reconstructive, reconstructive surgeon
01:27:28.000 for that, or the person who did your sexual reassignment surgery, but to be demanding to
01:27:32.840 go into gynecologist offices for, for validation is as ludicrous as being in a women's sports for 0.99
01:27:40.420 validation. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I wrote down one of your lines, I, which I loved, and it was from one
01:27:46.920 of the articles in which you spoke, but I have it here someplace, but it was, um, we do not need to
01:27:51.140 participate in your dysphoria. We do not need to participate in your dysphoria. And it's just so 0.98
01:27:56.920 reductionist to even suggest that when we go into the gynecologist, it's all about some hole.
01:28:02.360 They have absolutely no clue what happens when you go into a gynecologist, what gets examined,
01:28:07.200 what they're testing for from ovarian cancer to other GYN issues that a lot of women suffer from 0.72
01:28:12.940 that can be very painful to pregnancies. I mean, we could go down the list, right? None of which
01:28:18.400 any one of these people will ever suffer, but we have to pretend because in God, they do want us
01:28:24.000 to participate in their dysphoria. Yeah. And, and they want us to validate them. And so here, 0.68
01:28:29.760 here's how you kind of, I have a distinction here. I believe that there are a very, very,
01:28:34.880 very few true transgender women and they're, and I know quite a few and they are quietly living their 0.99
01:28:41.480 lives, but this opens up this loophole to autogynephilia, which we call AGP, which is the
01:28:48.860 sexual fetishization of wanting to be a woman. And part of this is they need everybody around them to
01:28:56.320 validate their dysphoria. And there was a time that I was willing to, to go along with this and 0.71
01:29:03.940 anymore. It's like, no, if, if you were asking me to validate your dysphoria, then I really don't 0.56
01:29:09.680 think you have dysphoria. You have autogynephilia and, and it's not on my shoulders. What's that? 0.75
01:29:17.060 All the more reason why you shouldn't be here. Yeah. And it, and it shouldn't fall on women's 1.00
01:29:21.920 shoulders to try for men to try to figure out their gender dysphoria. They have it great. Go,
01:29:28.800 go to your support group, go to your therapist, go elsewhere, but it is not on women to have to carry 1.00
01:29:35.760 the issues of men. And think about it. I mean, sorry to take it to the worst place, but it's
01:29:40.840 happening. So you're there and you are worried about your breast cancer. And now you have to sit
01:29:48.560 in a small room with someone who is getting off on being in that space. That is a new development
01:29:56.440 in American life. That is never something we had to worry about. To sit in the office with,
01:30:02.680 in the same office that I'm in going in for breast cancer. And it is really hard to get an
01:30:10.420 appointment to get in there. I mean, I, I did everything possible to rush it through as soon
01:30:14.680 as possible so that it wouldn't metastasize. And, and, and thankfully I did, but I mean,
01:30:20.760 I had to, I had to squeak. And then the other funny thing was, you know, issues about, well,
01:30:25.580 we'll only give you one. And I'm like, no, I want to double. Well, you know, we don't really
01:30:30.400 want to do that. And it was like, no, I really think I'll go for double. It's like, yeah,
01:30:34.980 but that seems a little bit extreme. And I'm like, hold on. But if I, if I identified as a
01:30:40.520 transgender man, you take them off like that. So if we have any issues, then I'm just going to 0.98
01:30:45.100 self-declare here. The doctor's like, okay. You can resume your racing career over in the man's
01:30:52.300 lane. Of course, that's never the way it goes. Never goes the other. All right. Let's take a quick
01:30:55.860 break and come right back. Thank you so much for this open, honest discussion. It's an honor to
01:31:00.060 have you both here. So it's not easy to speak out, um, but speak out. We must no matter where
01:31:08.460 we are to protect our women in support and support them. Or if you're in the sport to try what
01:31:14.520 happened over in great Britain is inspirational. The British cycling association changed the rules
01:31:20.040 to say, no, no men, no biological men, period. You're out. And this caused quite the kerfuffle.
01:31:25.700 Someone named Emily Bridges, who about two minutes ago was Zach Bridges setting national junior men's
01:31:31.860 records over there, um, came out as trans only in 2020, but it raced in men's events while
01:31:38.080 transitioning. So it was a man, a successful man in biking, and then transitioned over. And it has been
01:31:43.520 a woman for two minutes. And the Brit said, we are not racing against bridges. And the British
01:31:49.500 cycling association agreed and changed the rule. And now bridges reaction is this is a violent act
01:31:55.680 when the government expresses admiration towards Ron DeSantis is fascist state, which kidnaps children
01:32:01.260 and is itching to pass legislation to ban us from public life. It is a violent act, uh, and goes on to
01:32:07.880 say the British cycling group is furthering a genocide against us, a genocide. So far they're standing by
01:32:15.580 their position, British cycling, us cycling, totally different. They're allowing it 2.5 nanomoles of
01:32:21.540 testosterone in 24 months as that, even if you've gone through male puberty, that's where the UCI,
01:32:26.440 the cycling group is. The IOC is terrible. Is it going to change? What do you think, Hannah,
01:32:32.540 as somebody who's connected to a lot of these racers still, is it, is a American cycling going to have to
01:32:38.160 change? Yeah, I hope so. The USAC will probably change after a lot of the bigger organizations have
01:32:48.680 changed. They're very concerned about their, um, monetary gain. Um, and so they will do whatever is the
01:33:01.600 popular opinion. The Olympic committee you're talking about. Mm-hmm. And do you think this kill-ups is going
01:33:07.480 to get on it? This, this person who transitioned in 2019 and is now racing as a female in your race?
01:33:13.840 Uh, on the Olympics? Yeah. Uh, depends if rules are made to make women's sports for women 1.00
01:33:23.420 only, then no. But if this continues, if, if, uh, it continues that men who have been taking hormones
01:33:33.380 can indeed join the women's field, then yes, I think it is very possible for Austin to get on the 1.00
01:33:40.300 Olympic team. Mm-hmm. I mean, that's, that's in a way, Inga, it could help your cause. You know,
01:33:45.500 I think if Americans see that same as they saw Leah Thomas, it could help. What we're looking at right
01:33:51.220 now is when, after Austin Killips won a tour of the Gila and they were riding just a, a simple road
01:33:58.740 bike. We did the numbers on this one with quite a few people. I won't bring up their names. And
01:34:06.940 if they ride the same way and they go to the, the pro nationals coming up here in the end of June,
01:34:13.360 there's a very good chance that Austin Killips will win the individual time trial. If that happens,
01:34:20.020 they become an automatic onto, um, the world championships. And they also become, um,
01:34:26.360 on the long team for next year's Olympics. So we're looking at a potentially in cycling,
01:34:33.100 or at least on the road, Austin Killips displacing, um, some very highly decorated women 0.99
01:34:39.660 from the world championships and from potentially from the Olympics.
01:34:44.420 So in the time we have left, what, what can we do? How can, how can we help you? How can we help
01:34:48.940 support you? We are looking at protesting at pro nationals, June 22nd to the 25th in Knoxville.
01:34:56.360 Tennessee, Tennessee, go to my website. Um, I'm going to start posting more on their, um, coming
01:35:03.020 right up and wear a t-shirt that says 100% woman at the events at any women's races. 0.99
01:35:11.740 And for the cyclists, what should they do? Um, I'm asking them to take a knee. I'm asking for all
01:35:18.640 of the support staff around to wear a t-shirt that says 100% woman. The, with the athletes really
01:35:24.800 can't speak up. So we need the support staff anywhere and around to wear this t-shirt to
01:35:31.220 talk to the sponsors and cause it's only going to get louder. And you know what? The athletes can 0.53
01:35:36.480 speak out. They can speak out anonymously, at least if they don't want to do it, you know,
01:35:41.040 with their name, they can do it anonymously. Go to Inga Thompson foundation.org. Inga Thompson
01:35:45.460 foundation.org. All the best, Hannah and Inga. Thank you so much. Thank you, Megan. And I'll speak
01:35:52.620 to all of you more tomorrow. What a story. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show.
01:35:58.260 No BS, no agenda and no fear.