TWIBS: Sage Steel Tells Riley Gaines Her Transphobia Was SILENCED at ESPN
Steele, who once issued a public apology for her anti-vax comments and attacks on Barack Obama’s blackness, told a podcast that her transphobia was also being stifled.
by Alyssa Steinsiek
Red alert! Red alert! We’ve got a woman being censored! We’ve got a woman being canceled!
Believe it or not, ESPN’s SportsCenter has been accused of CRUELLY SUPPRESSING a cisgender woman who was merely trying to speak her truth to power! That’s right, baby, Sage Steele, former noon host of SportsCenter and SportsCenter on the Road until October of 2021, when she was allegedly suspended for talking shit on some dweeb’s podcast, now says she was also SILENCED over the exceedingly banal thoughts she has about the trans girlies!
“I was asked to stop tweeting about it,” Steele told my arch-nemesis, beach bum Riley Gaines, talking about Lia Thomas. “I was asked to stop doing anything, saying anything about it on social media because I was offending others at the company.”
Of course she’s rending her garments over Lia Thomas and praising the Gainester! Hasn’t been a great year for material about trans girls in sports, has it ladies? No real standouts, I guess. I mean, Lia Thomas isn’t even an athlete anymore. Why are you still talking about her, you ghouls?! [At least they saved women’s chess from its only trans player -ed]
Here’s the backstory: On Wednesday, Steele turned up on the Riley Gaines Nightmare Hour over at Outkick. In case you aren’t aware, Outkick is a sports blog that focuses the brunt of its time and energy on being transphobic. Gaines has found herself a cozy little home there talking about how uggo girls with broad shoulders and monster hogs are taking women’s sports out back and waxing it with a twelve gauge shell to the dome.
Full disclosure: I haven’t listened to this week’s episode of No Pains no Gaines… no, sorry, In Pain With Gaines… that isn’t right either… okay, it’s: Gaines for Girls.
For girls, huh?
Same hat, babygirl.
Anyway, I haven’t listened to this week’s episode of Gaines for Girls because I love myself and cherish my sanity, and it’s almost new years and there’s just no amount of money anybody could pay me to justify that caliber of head-to-brick transfusion.
Fortunately, one of the morning zoo daddy dipshits over at Outkick posted a short clip for us to scrutinize:
Right off the bat we’ve got Gaines misgendering Lia twice in three seconds. You might be inclined to think she’s always been about that mean language lifestyle, but back when she was just a student commenting on a race she tied for fifth in, she repeatedly gendered Lia correctly!
And as you can see from that lovely throwback article from earlier in the year, that isn’t the only thing Riles has changed her tune about.
Words never die, girl. Food for thought!
Gaines and Steele commiserate about how much empathy they have for a cis woman doing a voiceover for a news piece about Lia, and how awful it must have been for that woman—who they point out is a mother—before Steele says maybe my favorite thing I’ve heard in this whole debacle:
“These are men in the room who are saying, ‘What are we doing?’”
She throws this out there like I’m supposed to give a shit what cis men think about trans people.
Why are you trying to appeal to the authority of manhood? That doesn’t sound very grrl power to me! Do you need a man to validate your bigotry? Something between my ears is about to pop and free me from these mortal shackles forever. Bring it on, blood vessel! Rupture!
You can do it! You’re the li’l aneurysm that could!
That’s as much of a spotlight as I wanna put on what Steele said. Here are some quick facts about why Steele was allegedly suspended from ESPN before leaving entirely, and what happened after:
On a September 29th, 2021 episode of the podcast Uncut With Jay Cutler, Steele said that she’s scared of the fed forcing people to be healthy via vaccine mandates—a thing that never succeeded, besides a mandate on healthcare workers in institutions receiving funds from Medicare and Medicaid that was upheld—before questioning Barack Obama’s blackness because he was raised by two white women, and capping it off by victim blaming women who faced harassment sports journalism by stating that they “know what [they’re] doing” when they dress a certain way. In the wake of this controversy, Steele issued a public apology for her comments.
In April of 2022, Steele publicly sued ESPN, alleging that she was suspended, sidelined and forced to issue “a humiliating public apology” for all the nasty shit she said that had nothing to do with Lia Thomas. For their part, ESPN insisted that they never suspended Steele, and denied sidelining her, pointing out that she retained a very important position hosting SportsCenter’s noon timeslot.
The suit was dismissed in October of 2022, and in August of this year Steele announced that she was leaving ESPN so that she could “exercise [her] first amendment rights more freely.”
Now, of course, she also claims that ESPN barred her from talking shit about Lia Thomas on air or on social media… but why should we believe that’s even kinda true? It sounds like she was willing to make up a bunch of shit to cast herself as a free speech crusader set upon by her evil employers at ESPN, but clearly that wasn’t the case.
Why should I believe she isn’t lying?
[If Steele’s story is true, it wouldn’t necessarily suggest a political lean at the network. ESPN excersized heavy control over the speech of reporters whose opinions leaned left, according to former employee Joel Anderson, who wrote about his experiences for Slate earlier this month -ed.]
My advice is this: Move on with your lives and attempt to do some real work, rather than focusing on a woman who hasn’t competed in athletics in over a year, you vapid soulless money grubbing cretins.
Here’s to covering even more annoying bigotry in 2024! Happy new year, folks!