‘Unfair to Women’: ESPN’s Sage Steele Blasts Court Ruling Forcing USA Powerlifting to Allow Trans Athletes

Sage Steele
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Warner Todd Huston

On Monday, ESPN anchor Sage Steele called a ruling by a Minnesota court “unfair to women” for forcing USA Powerlifting to allow men claiming to be transgender women to compete against natural-born women at its weightlifting competitions.

In her Twitter reply to Elon Musk, Steele also found “hypocrisy” in the court’s decision. “Yes. Unfair to women. And the irony of this decision being made during Women’s History Month……The hypocrisy continues…..,” she tweeted when Musk wrote, “This is extremely unfair to anyone with XX chromosomes!” Fox News reported.

Musk’s tweet and Steele’s reply come on the heels of a Minnesota judge’s ruling that USA Powerlifting’s rule banning biological men from competing against natural-born women violates a Minnesota state anti-discrimination law that maintains he can compete under his “chosen gender.”

Male-born JayCee Cooper, 34, claimed to have “transitioned” to being a woman in 2014 and that he takes an anti-androgen drug that decreases his testosterone levels. He claims this would allow him to compete as a woman under Olympics rules, so it should also be good enough for USA Powerlifting. However, he also said that keeping him from competing under his chosen gender violates the Minnesota Human Rights Act.

In Feb., District Court Judge Patrick Diamond, appointed to the bench by liberal Democrat Gov. Mark Dayton in 2012, ruled in favor of Cooper’s claims and ordered the sports authority to change its rules to allow Cooper to compete as a woman.

“By denying Cooper the right to participate in the female category, the category consistent with her self-identification, USAPL denied her the full and equal enjoyment of the services, support, and facilities USAPL offered its members,” Judge Diamond wrote in his ruling. “It separated Cooper and segregated her and, in doing so, failed to fully perform the contractual obligations it agreed to when it accepted Cooper’s money and issued Cooper a membership card.”

“Our position has been aimed at balancing the needs of cis- and transgender women whose capacities differ significantly in purely strength sports,” USA Powerlifting President Larry Maile said in a statement, according to Fox News.

Many agreed with Musk and Steele and decried the judge’s ruling:

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