“Biology is not bigotry” Sam Ponder, ESPN commentator, tweeted as her response

Sam Ponder, the ESPN host, was the subject of a highly unfavourable article written over the weekend by USA Today journalist Nancy Armour. In it, Armour referred to Ponder’s plea for “fairness in sports”—that is, for biological men to be barred from participating in women’s sports—as “plain old bigotry.”

In addition to viciously criticising Ponder for her viewpoint, which coincides with that of the vast majority of Americans, Armour’s idiotic column was also reposted by Ponder’s ESPN coworker, Sarah Spain.

Since sending the post that angered Armour, Ponder had been largely quiet on social media. Ponder tweeted the following on May 25:

“I barely said anything publicly [about] this issue & I’ve had so many [people message] me, stop me in the street to say thank you [and] tell me stories [about] girls who are afraid to speak up for fear of lost employment/being called hateful. It is not hateful to demand fairness in sports for girls.”

Armour launched her attack essay with that tweet. Since then, Ponder had only sent one tweet: an unconnected retweet of a tweet about Randy Moss, an ESPN colleague.

But Ponder did answer on Wednesday.

“Biology is not bigotry,” Ponder tweeted. “Loving people does not require the absence of boundaries.”

Ponder conveyed a straightforward message as opposed to criticising Armour or Spain for calling her a “bigot,” as they had done.

Sam Ponder of ESPN responds to those who call her a “bigot” with a powerful message.

Her point is valid, by the way.

This notion that you are “transphobic” or “anti-trans” if you oppose biological guys playing in women’s sports (I can’t keep up with the language this week) is absurd.

Nobody is calling for trans individuals to be excluded from society or participation in sports. People merely desire boundaries to maintain fairness.

And that makes perfect sense.

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