Back in May of this year, Sirius/XM’s Dino Costa used his Twitter account to refer to Against Me! vocalist/guitarist Laura Jean Grace — formerly Tom Gabel — as “it”. Though Costa’s Twitter account has since been protected — a curious move for a broadcaster who routinely boasts he’s unafraid of controversy —- there’s no evidence The Yonkers Cowboy ever apologized or faced discipline for the remark. In slight contrast is Washington DC’s ESPN 980 and their handling of “The Sports Reporters”‘s Steve Czaban (above), Andy Pollin and Chris Knoche. Of Czaban calling 50 year old transsexual junior college basketball hopeful Gabrielle Ludwig, “it”, the station’s VP of Programming Chuck Sapienz promised, “such intolerance and insensitivity will never be tolerated by this company.” DC Sports Bog’s Dan Steinberg handles the transcription duties :
“That’s a man, baby,” Chris Knoche said near the beginning of the discussion.
“This photo won’t help you if you’re in the car, but let me give you the reaction of Knoche and Czabe: tattooed, big biceps,” Andy Pollin said.
“Oh my God,” Knoche said. “That could be a Russian chick….So how does this work? You lose testicles and gain eligibility?”
“This combines the worst of both worlds,” Steve Czaban said. “One, granting out of age eligibility, which should never happen….I think all college athletics should have an age limit, and it should be something like 25. That’s No. 1. No. 2, the whole gender-bender thing. You know, whatever you’ve got to do to scratch that inner itch or quell those inner demons, that’s fine. But don’t go playing sports then.”
“I completely agree,” Knoche said.
“And don’t go playing sports, saying but I’ve got the rights of everyone else,” Czaban continued. “Yeah, you’ve got to the rights to live as a human being with other people respecting you and everything else, but athletics is different. And a man’s body and a man’s DNA is different than a woman’s. That’s why we have separate leagues for separate genders.”
“I don’t care how loose the rules are in that junior college league, that’s just not supposed to happen,” Knoche said.
“I mean, if Knoche had eligibility, he would not give up his testicles to go play women’s basketball,” Pollin joked. “He’d think about it, though.”
“So what’s the net-net of the story, because I’m not gonna read it,” Czaban asked.
“The net-net is she/he has had a lot of problems in his/her life….” Pollin said.
“I think it is the politically correct term,” Czaban said.
Out Sports’ Cyd Zeigler Jr. heard Czaban and Pollin’s on-air apology Monday and called it, “among the least sincere non-apologies in history” (“the only things they’re really be sorry for are being caught, and also how overly sensitive the faggots and the trannies are these days”).
Shame.
It sounds like they were in the middle of a legitimate discussion of an interesting and controversial topic when they decided to act like bigots and invalidate any and all constructive process made to that point.