On May 11, several local USA Today newspapers ran an article by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) titled, “Is transgender inclusion more important than women’s sports?” In the piece, Kennedy criticizes biological men playing women’s sports.
However, by May 14, Kennedy’s office noticed the links to his op-ed were broken.
Per a Fox News Digital review, Kennedy’s office inquired about the broken links but did not hear back. His office sent another follow-up email on May 20, to which a reporter for Gannett’s Louisiana paper confirmed to the team that the outlet had deleted the article.
“The editors took it down after determining that it didn’t meet the company’s standards because of some inflammatory speech,” the reporter told Kennedy’s office.
Confused, Kennedy’s team asked for clarification. The reporter then connected Kennedy’s office to Misty Castile, an executive editor.
Castile told the office there was a “concern” about the lack of citations in the piece. However, Fox News Digital received the original article and noted 17 different citations, well above average for a USA Today op-ed.
When confronted, Castile walked back the citations claim.
Castile then shared with Kennedy’s office that the “standards department” removed the article. According to Fox News, the department took issue with the article’s analogy to New Orleans Pelicans forward Zion Williamson.
In the article, Kennedy compared trans female athletes to Williamson joining a youth basketball league “simply because he identified as a 12-year-old.” Kennedy noted that “no middle school boys” would be able to stop the NBA star from winning and would “probably end up injured if they tried.”
The analogy fits. It’s amusing and effective.
Yet the standards department said the comparison was “inflammatory” and “mocking how someone identifies is not acceptable.”
The outlet also claimed Kennedy’s use of the terms “biological male” and “biological female” goes “against our standards,” claiming they were “loaded language.”
“Should the Senator wish to resubmit the editorial without the loaded language, we would be happy to consider it,” Castile wrote.
Translation: if the Senator succumbs to the thought police and adopts leftist language, USA Today will run his piece.
Kennedy told Fox News Digital in a statement that “USA TODAY Network apparently does not like the way I express myself.”
In other words, someone had their feelings hurt and the USA Today standards department supports men competing with women in athletic competition.
“Most people don’t support allowing biological men to participate in women’s sports because they think that will bastardize sports, skew the results, and hurt women. Other people disagree,” Kennedy continued.
“Gannett should simply report the two sides and not try to silence the position it disagrees with.”
If you hadn’t noticed, the corporate press only allows one side of the trans-athlete debate to be shared: the side the country most opposes.
A Gallup poll in August found that 69 percent of Americans believe transgender athletes should only be allowed to play on sports teams that match their birth gender.
Parents of both political affiliations understand the risks of allowing men to compete against females in athletic competition. Kennedy tried to shed further light on those concerns in his op-ed.
Now, trans athletes are only a small part of the evil transgenderism equation. Transgenderism is a precursor to pain, depression, and suicide. And sicko organizations like GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign are profiting from it.
That said, allowing men to play sports with women is wrong. It’s illogical. The two genders, and there are only two, were separated for a reason. There are obvious biological differences between males and females.
The fact there’s even a real debate about trans athletes shows how far we’ve spiraled as a society. And how much our legacy media is to blame for that.
