Jemele Hill Apologizes After Backlash over Transphobic Social Media Post

Jemele Hill
Getty Images/Getty Images for Essence
Warner Todd Huston

Former ESPN host and current Atlantic writer Jemele Hill, has come under attack for a ten-year-old tweet that many are calling “transphobic.”

Twitter users found several tweets from 2009 in which the former ESPN personality was dismissive of transgenderism and homosexuality.

This is the same Jemele Hill who several years later went hammer and tong against Milwaukee Brewers relief pitcher Josh Hader for racist and homophobic tweets he posted when he was a kid in high school.

In her screed against Hader and those who supported him in 2018, Hill sneered, “Realize that when you chalk Hader’s remarks up to youth and immaturity or worse, and give him an over-the-top applause for God knows what, you’re simultaneously telling the people hurt by his remarks that their feelings of resentment and skepticism don’t matter.”

But by contrast, Hader was a 16-year-old kid when he wrote his untoward tweets. Hill, though, was in her 30s when she wrote the above transphobic and anti-gay social media entries.

The old tweets resurfaced after Hill attacked Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy. The Internet sports commentator reposted Hill’s anti-trans comments during a terse exchange after Hill criticized him for being a “racist.”

Still, the Atlantic writer has now deleted the old tweets and apologized. She also proclaimed her support for the trans community.

“Let me address this,” she tweeted on Monday. “I saw some folks circulating this tweet from 2009 in my TL after I criticized Barstool’s Dave Portnoy for a racist skit that went viral yesterday. Let me explain why I kept this tweet up when it was brought to my attention

“I kept the tweet up because I welcomed the opportunity to apologize and to show growth,” she added. “See, unlike some people, I’m not defensive about my moments of failure. I learn from them and own it.

“I don’t care about Dave Portnoy or any of the other Barstool sycophants RT’ing this into my TL, like it’s some gotcha moment,” she concluded. “I care about the trans community I belittled and offended. If they don’t see me as an ally because of this, it’s my job to show them that I am.”

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