Ep. 256: The Devastating Ripple Effect of Anti-Trans Policies in Sport
In this episode, Lindsay Gibbs and Jessica Luther talk about the most recent attack on trans women in sports through the new restrictions from FINA, the international water sports governing body. But first, they discuss their favorite time of year...Wimbledon!
Then, Lindsay and Jess break down FINA's latest restrictions on transgender athletes, including UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas, how recent changes in NCAA and IOC policy are paving the way for new anti-trans rules and how trans-exclusionary groups are using Title IX to fear monger support for anti-trans legislation. They also talk about how these harm children most of all.
Following this discussion, you'll hear a preview of Shireen Ahmed's interview with Canadian basketball star Laeticia Amihere about winning the NCAA Title with the South Carolina Gamecocks and her dreams of the WNBA draft. Then, they burn the worst of sports this week on the Burn Pile. Next, they celebrate those shining a light in sports, like Torchbearers of the Week, Coco Gauff, Megan Rapinoe, Brianna Turner and all of the athletes speaking out against the overturning of Roe v. Wade. To donate to your local abortion fund visit the National Network of Abortion Funds.
They wrap up the show with What's Good and What We're Watching in sports this week.
This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.
Links
FINA trans swim policy shows 'equal but separate' is actually exclusion: https://www.cbc.ca/sports/fina-transgender-swim-opinion-shireen-ahmed-1.6495697
Lia Thomas and the trepidation of trans excellence: https://www.powerplays.news/p/lia-thomas-and-the-trepidation-of
IOC provides framework for international federations to develop their own eligibility criteria for transgender, intersex athletes: https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/32645620/ioc-provides-framework-international-federations-develop-their-own-eligibility-criteria-transgender-intersex-athletes
(From 2020) The battle over Title IX and who gets to be a woman in sports: inside the raging national debate https://www.espn.com/espnw/story/_/id/29347507/the-battle-title-ix-gets-woman-sports-raging-national-debate
New Biden Rules Would Bar Discrimination Against Transgender Students: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/us/politics/biden-transgender-students-discrimination.html
Transgender players can choose men's or women's team - German FA: https://www.espn.co.uk/football/germany-ger/story/4689992/transgender-players-can-choose-mens-or-womens-team-german-fa
Transcript
Livia: Hi, Burn It All Down. I'm a longtime listener, and on the board of the Tampa Bay abortion fund. I want to share some thoughts about the end of Roe. I am worried about non-binary, trans and women athletes. I am worried that if a player playing for the Dallas Wings needs an abortion after six weeks, that they will have to travel out of state and miss time playing for their team in a highly public profession. I'm worried that a player for the Orlando Pride won't find out they're pregnant until 15 weeks past their last period, when it will be too late for them to get an abortion in Florida. I'm worried about the thousands of NCAA athletes who play in states where abortion will be severely restricted. I'm worried that healthcare plans for athletes won't cover abortion. I'm worried about non-binary and trans athletes, because abortion bans disproportionately harm trans and non-binary people. I urge everyone who is listening to donate to their local abortion fund, which can be found at the National Network of Abortion Funds’ website. Thank you, Livia.
Lindsay: Welcome to Burn It All Down. I'm Lindsay Gibbs, and I’ll be your host today. I'm joined by Jessica Luther. Hi, Jess.
Jessica: Hi, Linz.
Lindsay: You just heard a letter from flamethrower Livia, who sent in that message last month when we celebrated our five year anniversary here at Burn It All Down. We thought it was appropriate to replay that today, as we all reel from the Supreme Court's expected but nonetheless breathtakingly devastating decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. If you're looking to donate, wanna go ahead and direct you to the National Network of Abortion Funds at abortionfunds.org, and I hope everyone is taking care of themselves during this just excruciating time. In today's episode here, it's the last week of pride month. So, we're gonna continue on with our conversation that we had planned, which is related. It's about another attack on bodily autonomy – this time, the attack on trans women in sport. First, we do have kind of a housekeeping announcement. Jess?
Jessica: Yeah. So, Burn It All Down is going to go on our summer break. This will be our last chatty conversation episode for about six weeks. While we won't be doing these kind of episodes, we will still be bringing listeners interviews each week. And there will probably be a hot take here or there. There's also our extensive back catalog of episodes. We'll be back in mid-August, well rested and ready to go. Everyone, enjoy your summers.
Lindsay: Yes. Everything is awful right now. We know it’s gonna be a serious episode. But it's me and Jess running things today, and it's the first day of Wimbledon. So we have to take a–
Jessica: It just started.
Lindsay: It’s my favorite time of year! I'm trying to find joy. What are you looking forward to?
Jessica: I woke up this morning, turned it on. And there he was, Novak Djokovic on my screen. So, he's back. Federer's not around. I feel like maybe we've seen the last of Roger Federer. But Andy Murray's back, hopefully for more than one round. [laughs]
Lindsay: Yeah!
Jessica: Did you see…Ttell me if I'm wrong, but I saw that CoCo Vandeweghe is a lucky loser? [laughs]
Lindsay: I did not. I did not see that.
Jessica: I was like, that's not a name I've seen in a long time. I like our other Coco better.
Lindsay: Yeah. Yeah. But you know, I think CoCo’s been working…I don't know. I think she's been dealing with lots of injuries, so I don't know.
Jessica: Ons Jabeur was on a tear this morning.
Lindsay: Oh really?
Jessica: She won her first set in 24 minutes.
Lindsay: Oh, good. Good. Because last time I woke up and she was already out of the French Open like day one. So that was very disappointing. But we just need to take a moment. So, Serena's back playing singles. It's been a year since she's played. Keeping expectations limited.
Jessica: Literally.
Lindsay: Literally a year, except last week. Who did she team up with, and how joyous was it?
Jessica: Ons Jabeur. If you have not seen the clips of them together playing doubles, you must go search those out right now.
Lindsay: Yeah. But it was just so cool to see like these two trail blazers, right? And the fact that Serena picked Ons to be her partner in this comeback was just really special. Like, it was really cool.
Jessica: Ons had that great quote, something, “from now on, don’t ask to be my doubles partner unless you've won 20 grand slam titles.” [laughter]
Lindsay: Perfect. She's perfect. And she's up to #2 in the world in singles I believe, this week, Ons is.
Jessica: It'll be interesting to see if Iga can keep it rolling on grass the way that she has the first half of this year. You never know. And I'm excited for Coco Gauff. I wanna see how she does, because she's also just been rolling.
Lindsay: Yeah, she had such a great French Open. One of the controversies early on is that so Ash Barty won last year, Ash Barty obviously is retired, and so there's this thing where the defending champion for men kicks off Centre Court day one. And then the defending champion for women usually kicks off Centre Court for day two, which is like, not nearly as special of an honor, but whatever. [laughs] They should definitely alternate that years. But there was because, you know, we don't have the defending champion, it was question mark about like what was gonna happen. And everyone agreed that it should be Simona Halep who won in 2019, but then because of the pandemic, there was none in 2020. In 2021, she was injured and wasn't here. So everyone was like, Simona Halep should get her chance to open Wimbledon, like, get that honor that the pandemic stole from her. And then they gave it to Iga, which, I understand giving it to Iga. They have Simona scheduled on Centre Court later that day. So like, what are you doing? [laughs] Like, just give it to Simona. Like, Iga has not won Wimbledon yet. So, you know, it's just weird. Anyways. That's the low stakes controversy that I’ve been paying attention to.
Jessica: There's always something though. It's amazing. It's like they search it out. I don't know.
Lindsay: Yeah. But of course a big thing in Wimbledon, they did ban all Russian and Belarusian players from Wimbledon this year. So, people like #1 men's player in the world, Medvedev, can't play Wimbledon this year, and Victoria Azarenka can't play Wimbledon. Svitolina can't play Wimbledon this year. And the ATP and WTA tours were upset about this and didn't think that this was fair. So they took away ranking points from Wimbledon. So there's still the money, of course. But you know, this is pretty unprecedented in sports. It's been a while, so it's very different.
Jessica: There were a lot of people dropping out citing injury, which is probably true. I assume they're all injured all the time. But there was a part of me that was like, they're not gonna get points from this. So if you are at all injured and if grass is not your thing, this would be the year to just sit out.
Lindsay: I don't think as many people withdrew as we expected.
Jessica: Yeah. That is true.
Lindsay: Like, I think the only person who openly said that they might is Naomi Osaka kind of admitted that not having points was not a motivator. But she's been dealing with an Achilles injury anyway. So it's unlikely that, you know, she's not healthy. So, Jess, what if we stayed in a world where this is the biggest is like the thing that matters? [laughs]
Jessica: The only story. [laughs] That would be amazing.
Lindsay: So, the attack on trans women continues. FINA, which is the international federation that administers swimming and all water sports, last week announced that it has restricted transgender women from elite swimming competitions. It requires trans competitors to have completed their transition by the age of 12 to be able to compete in women's competitions. Twelve. It says they will spend the next six months working to establish an “open category” for trans women who transition after the age of 12. If you've read any comment section on any sort of post about trans women competing, there’s always these trolls being like, “give them their own separate category, we don't hate them, they just shouldn't be competing against the women.” That's literally what FINA is saying it's gonna do right now! It's just mind boggling.
And there's this quote from James Pearce, who's a spokesperson for the FINA president, that said, “This rule is not encouraging transition by the age of 12. It's just noting that if you transition after the start of puberty, you have an advantage, which is unfair. They're not saying you should transition by age 11. That's ridiculous. You can't transition by that age in most countries, and hopefully you wouldn't be encouraged to.” So, transition by age 12, they're openly acknowledging that that's like not feasible, right? And so it's just a ban. But Jess, your reaction.
Jessica: I mean, I don’t…It’s like, I don't even know what to say anymore to all this stuff. The idea of creating another category when one of the things we talk about constantly on this program is there are just very few trans athletes. Like, they're not asking for much space at all to begin with. And the idea that you'll create an entire other category is just…I don't know what to say to that. Our dear co-host Shireen Ahmed did write about this for the CBC, and FINA controls swimming, yes, but also diving, water polo, artistic swimming, high diving, and open water swimming. So trans athletes are banned from all of those events, essentially. And then Shireen also pointed out that the policy from FINA violates the sixth principle of the Olympic charter, that states, “Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender, or otherwise, is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic movement.” Nor does the policy align with 2021 International Olympic Committee principles on human rights.
The IOC guidelines moved away from basing eligibility on testosterone levels and having individual sports decide. It's just, I don't know what to say to this other than what Shireen has said on this show and what she wrote, which is that selective inclusion is not inclusion at all. “Selective inclusion” – those two words cannot go together. And so it just feels like yet another move, an openly transphobic move that they're trying to couch in other language so that they can not get their feelings hurt when people point out that they're being transphobic.
Lindsay: Absolutely. And Anne Lieberman, the director of policy and programs at Athlete Ally, has called this deeply discriminatory, harmful, and unscientific. “These rules are not enforceable without seriously violating the privacy in human rights of any athlete looking to compete in the women's category.” Like, how are they gonna figure out whether or not people apply to this, right? Deeply invasive testing, starting at age 12. Another quote from Alejandra Caraballo – this is in a New York Times article, an instructor at Harvard Law School. And she says, “This is an incredibly discriminatory policy that is attempting to fix a problem that doesn't exist. This is the result of a moral panic because of Lia Thomas.” Which, exactly. This is ridiculous and it's violent in so many ways. And it's important to note that it's not just trans kids. Also intersex kids will be impacted by this. And I don't really know where the policing stops.
Jessica: Well, that's the thing, right? It's gonna be all girls and women who compete under the FINA banner, all of them are going to be up for scrutiny, whether or not they're cis or trans or intersex. Like, they're gonna have to somehow figure out if you're cis that you’re cis, and like it's wild to me that people have not put together that they are basically just inviting sex testing back in and some fucked up idea of “fairness.” Sorry. It makes me so angry.
Lindsay: No, it was interesting. I was actually talking to my mother about this, and you know, we never talked about it before, and I was kind of explaining obviously what I think about how this is bullshit. And like, she just kind of watches the news and doesn't pay close attention, and she was like, well, there was the trans swimmer who won an Olympic medal, right? So this is how people are reading this.
Jessica: All of it.
Lindsay: They’re taking the hysteria of Lia Thomas winning NCAA, and it’s, “oh, well, she won the Olympics.” People aren't paying attention. That's how the hysteria is coming up. There are trans people winning gold medals at the highest levels – which, it would be fine if there were! Like, we welcome that. But you know, when I explained to her, I was like, no, no, that was NCAAs. You know, she was shocked. And she was a swimmer growing up and she was like, “You know, it's funny, I remember…I’m having these flashbacks to this young girl who was beating everyone when we were really young, she was really good, and she had these really broad shoulders. And I just remember all the other parents like gossiping and kind of like criticizing, questioning her broad shoulders.” She didn't remember, of course, I don't think like transgender was like in the consciousness, but I'm just thinking like, these are the type of things, right? Anyone who develops differently, and of course, especially Black and brown bodies. But I was 5’8" when I was 10 years old, you know? [laughs] I’m still 5’8”.
Jessica: Yeah, same.
Lindsay: And it's just like, these are the people who are going to be overly scrutinized. And this rule is just gonna empower that type of scrutiny to any mother, any Karen who's upset that their kid is not winning everything, right? Katie Ledecky, who we’ll mention in our torchbearers, had a very successful week at the FINA world championships, and under the comments on Facebook, a lot of people speculating what gender Katie Ledecky is, instead of celebrating her greatness, which is just what's going to continue to happen. And how did we get here? I think it's important to note that this is a cascading series of decisions that led to this FINA ban, but really a tipping point was the IOC policy change last year. Jess?
Jessica: Yeah. So, I read an article by the great Katie Barnes at ESPN that we’ll link to in the show notes, but essentially in November of 2021, the IOC announced that instead of an overall blanket policy for all the different federations of sport underneath them, each individual international federation could develop their own eligibility criteria. So, the previous policy uniform across sports, they used testosterone levels to determine eligibility. The new framework, which is basically a set of guidelines, suggests that each federation focuses on 10 principles and considers all 10 of them together as they're making their policy. So, the IOC wants federations to look at inclusion, prevention of harm, nondiscrimination, fairness, no presumption of advantage, evidence-based approach primacy of health and bodily autonomy, stakeholder-centered approach, right to privacy, and periodic reviews. But what this has done is left it to a group like FINA to just decide how they want to manage eligibility in their federation. And, wow, have they.
Lindsay: Yeah, just seriously. Yeah, there are all these principles. Yeah, there are all these guiding things, these things on paper that sound…Great?
Jessica: Yeah. If they were to do them.
Lindsay: They're just guidelines, right? These aren't enforceable things. It really was just passing the buck to these individual federations. And most of these individual federations just want to be told what to do about this, right? Like, they don't have their own researchers. Some of these federations are very small, very decentralized, you know, don't have like years of sex testing and all this data. And so they want just clear policy guidelines that they can just enforce, right? Like, that's the goal. That's like what they're asking for.
Jessica: And it's just like, what if you have an athlete who does multiple sports under different federation umbrellas? They don't care, is the thing. They don't care about trans athletes who might do multiple sporting events under different federations umbrellas, and having to navigate multiple sets of guidelines. They just don't care, is the answer.
Lindsay: Yeah. So, the IOC passing the buck of course trickle down in the NCAA. This is right around the time, right after Lia Thomas had success in meets. Of course, Lia Thomas, the transgender woman swimming for the University of Pennsylvania swim team. And after she had a lot of success in December, the NCAA basically changed its longstanding trans inclusion policy overnight, which its policy required I think like one year of hormone therapy and some doctor's notes. And for years it had been just fine. But on January 20th, the NCAA abruptly announced it had changed eligibility requirements. It no longer has a uniform policy. It cited the IOC’s guidance for that, [laughs] but rather is allowing each sport's national governing body to set its own eligibility requirements. And this policy put USA Swimming in charge of transgender eligibility in the sport, and less than two weeks after the NCAA's overhaul, USA Swimming announced on February 2nd that it too had a new policy for transgender athletes in place, one that was effective immediately.
The new policy require that transgender athletes who want to compete in women's events have testosterone levels less than five nanomoles per liter for 36 months before they're granted eligibility. This was a direct attempt to stop Lia Thomas from competing at NCAAs, which NCAA ended up, because it was like right before, the NCAA was like, no, we're not gonna implement this literally overnight, right? Like, she's competed all year under these categories. But you know, the IOC and NCAA policies worked fine for years. They weren't perfect by any means, but to just respond to this pearl clutching by saying we're gonna pass the buck to these smaller national governing bodies, it's just created the exact permission for widespread trans exclusion that it expected. And of course, it's time to look at other sports. Jess, what's going on elsewhere?
Jessica: Well, speaking of one of those smaller bodies under all of this: FIFA. [laughs]
Lindsay: The tiny governing body of FIFA, yeah. [laughs]
Jessica: Brenda wanted us to point out that FIFA has a transgender policy that's been doing just fine. There's been a trans player in Argentine women's football for two seasons, and incredibly it has not collapsed. [Lindsay laughs] Quite the contrary, it has started to recover from COVID damage. But as Lindsay mentioned, FIFA's one of the organizations that's told the New York Times that because of what FINA has done, that they are now looking to review their eligibility policies for transgender players. That is so upsetting. At the same time, in Germany, the German FA, the DFB, they just adopted a new rule which allows trans, intersex and non-binary players starting in the 2022-2023 season to freely choose between being entitled for the men's or women’s competition. And according to DFB, trans players will be allowed to temporarily stay in their team during and after transition and to self determine when to switch. So, it's absolutely possible to create one of these policies and see it through, even in these moments. And one wishes that the German FA would be the one leading the way here instead of FINA. But I fear that that is not true.
Lindsay: Yeah. And we also had this week, the global governing body for rugby league joins the growing list of governing bodies that have recently banned transgender women from playing in women's international matches until further notice. And that includes both FINA and the International Cycling Union. You know, rugby is, once again, it doesn't have a specific inclusion policy. It's just punting the ball down the road. It's saying it's “continuing to review and update rules, and will seek to use the upcoming rugby world cup to help develop a comprehensive inclusion policy.” You know, the world cup where they're now officially banning transgender women from! So, this is the quote. It says, “In reaching the position, the rugby league considered several relevant developments in world sport. Not the least of these was the IOC's publication of its November 2021 framework.”
So, once again, we go back to this IOC policy change, which some stakeholders tried to laud as being progressive. But the truth is that we are not at a place where every sport covering body is gonna make good decisions on this, because the reality of where we are now is so, so, so much worse. These individual groups are so much more susceptible to lobbying and hysteria from internally. It is not a coincidence that swimming has been leading the way on this when one of the primary people we talk about as pushing anti-trans policies in sports here in the United States is Nancy Hogshead-Makar with the Women’s Sports policy Working Group. She's a champion swimmer on the Olympic level. You know, that's not coincidental at all. Which I think kind of brings us to Title IX. We talked a little bit about this last week, but what a fucking whiplash of a week last week, kind of celebrating the 50th anniversary of Title IX while these trans bans and then Roe v. Wade are overturned. I mean, it's just fucking excruciating. But where are we with Title IX and trans inclusion, Jess?
Jessica: Where we are is that there's just so much rhetoric coming from anti-inclusion people trying to use fear mongering around Title IX, that like Title IX will somehow disappear. Or if, you know, a few trans athletes are allowed to play sports. I did think it was really fascinating, there was a TERF rally on Thursday, the 50th anniversary of Title IX, in DC, called “our body our sports.” That was supposed to be about “protecting women's sports,” which was just functioning as an anti-trans rally using Title IX's anniversary as the smokescreen for it. And I do think it's useful to point out that three of the groups listed behind this rally are the Heritage Foundation, which is this famously deeply conservative organization; the Family Research Council, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has deemed the Family Research Council a designated hate group because of all of its anti-LGBT work; and then the Alliance Defending Freedom, which spent so much resources fighting trans people's inclusion in all sorts of things, including sports.
Katie Barnes, again, wrote a great piece in 2020 – again, we'll link to in the show notes on our website – wrote about Connecticut and the fight there to keep trans girls out of high school sports, and the group leading the way suing the state of Connecticut was the ADF. And these are the three groups that helped sponsor this event. Like, we cannot let them co-opt Title IX and this language around Title IX in order to be transphobic. And I'm so nervous that it will work in the same way that these sports bans, all that language is gonna work too.
The other thing that happened on Thursday is that we finally got proposed guidance from the Department of Education around Title IX. So, Title IX, as we talked about last week, it's just a statute. It says the federal government is not gonna give money to educational institutions that discriminate against students based on sex. And so every administration basically gets to set guidelines for how to see that statute through. The Biden administration has published their new proposed guidelines. They're open for comments, and they go pretty hard, I will say, in defense of trans students under Title IX, should have equal access to education. That should be not controversial. And yet here we are.
I will say, the Department of Ed did not issue specific regulation around trans inclusion in sport. Apparently they're going to do a separate regulation on that sometimes soon. So, it's not clear what exactly that will be. And Paula Lavigne at ESPN did a Q&A with the education secretary, which I will say, I thought Paula's questions were great. I thought the secretary tried really hard not to answer any of them. And when she asked specifically about trans inclusion in sports, he kind of bounced around. He did say athletes who happen to be transgender deserve the same opportunities, but then wouldn't really lay out how they're supposed to access those opportunities under Title IX under the eyes of the Department of Ed. So, we're just still waiting, it feels like.
Lindsay: And it was just so disappointing, because once again, like, it was a great opportunity to make a statement, right? Like, on pride month, the 50th anniversary of Title IX. But once again, we see these institutions just…The fear mongering is working, right? It’s working at the highest levels, because on day one of Biden's presidency, like, literally day one, one of the things he did was to say that Title IX protected from discrimination based on gender identity. And if you'll remember, which you might not, because there was like a whole damn insurrection happening at the exact same time, but that was what really spearheaded these transphobic headlines. Like all of a sudden, everywhere is like “Biden ended women's sports today.” [laughs] You know, literally, that was a title of stuff at like the Federalist and bullshit.
That's when groups like the Women's Sports Policy Working Group started to mobilize. The backlash and the lobbying against it is clearly working, and that should be terrifying. And it's just so fucking disappointing and absolutely devastating. And there's no way to separate the impact this has on elite sports and on children wanting to play with their friends right now. If you are putting forth a discriminatory ban, you are sending a message to trans children that they cannot play sports, that they're not welcome to play sports with their friends.
Jessica: I do think bringing it back to the kids is always one of the best things to do. I mean, we are mainly talking about children here. And it's only a few of them in the scheme of sports. And I just don't understand what this is worth in the end, just so some people can play some games and just let these kids fucking play.
Lindsay: Yeah. And finally, we wanna end with our friend Katie Barnes, who did a wonderful interview with Lia Thomas and, you know, let's just finish by listening to Lia.
Katie Barnes: What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about you, specifically?
Lia Thomas: The biggest misconception I think is the reason why I transitioned, where people will say, oh, she just transitioned so she would have an advantage so she could win. I transitioned to be happy, to be true to myself.
Katie Barnes: What reaction do you have toward other folks who feel that, you know, you shouldn't be able to compete?
Lia Thomas: Trans women competing in women's sports does not threaten women's sports as a whole, because trans women are a very small minority of all athletes, and the NCAA rules regarding trans women competing in women's sports have been around for 10+ years and we haven't seen any massive wave of trans women dominating.
Katie Barnes: When you think of all you have endured in and out of the pool, was it worth it?
Lia Thomas: I think so.I would say, yes, I've been able to do the sport that I love as my authentic self.
Lindsay: For this week's interview, Shireen talks with Canadian basketball star Laeticia Amihere about playing with Team Canada at the Tokyo Olympics, and winning the NCAA title with the South Carolina Gamecocks.
Laeticia Amihere: Going to South Carolina, I mean, it's not a small thing. Like, you go to South Carolina because you wanna go to the league, you wanna be able to be in the top contenders. So actually this year, winning a championship was one of the best moments of my life. So, I'm excited to actually just win another championship and go through that season. And then, you know, the draft is gonna come. But I'm just excited to have this team this year
Lindsay: Burn pile time. Although once again, this is an episode that you can kind of throw the entire thing into the burn pile. But look, we're going on break here, and I just wanna say it's been 130 days since Brittney Griner has been wrongfully detained in Russia. This past week was her anniversary with her wife, and the American embassy was supposed to have arranged a phone call between the two of them. Her wife, Cherelle Griner, has not talked to Brittney this entire time. There have been some emails and handwritten notes, but no direct communication. And that was supposed to have happened last Sunday. Instead, Cherelle Griner never got the call. Didn't know what was happening. Turns out, Brittney Griner did try to call her wife 11 times through the American embassy, but they never connected since the phone line at the embassy was not staffed on the weekend.
Jessica: Oh my god.
Lindsay: I cannot fucking not fucking process it. Brittney Griner called a number 11 times over a period of several hours, a number she'd been given at the US embassy in Moscow, which the couple had been told would then patch the call through to Cherelle in Phoenix. But each time the call went unanswered because the desk of the embassy where the phone rang was apparently unstaffed on Saturday. Cherelle Griner told the AP, “I was distraught. I was hurt. I was done, fed up. It knocked me out. I wasn't well. I'm still not well. I find it unacceptable, and I have zero trust in our government. If I can't trust you to catch a Saturday call outside of business hours, how can I trust you to actually be negotiating on my wife's behalf to come home? Because that's a much bigger ask than to catch a Saturday call.” The US government has apologized for the error. They said they're working on rescheduling the call so it actually happens.
Jessica: Geez.
Lindsay: But as Cherelle Griner said, this phone call had been scheduled for almost two weeks with a weekend date. Like, it's just fucking time to end this. I do not envy the people negotiating. I know it's tough. But it is fucking time to bring Brittney Griner home. So let's throw that phone call snafu and this entire thing onto the burn pile burn. Burn.
Jessica: Burn.
Lindsay: Jess, you've got a burn pile MVP here.
Jessica: Yeah, I was gonna say, guess who's back? Back again. It's Daniel Snyder, the owner of the Washington Commanders NFL team, and a man who cannot seem to get off of this burn pile. But he deserves it. So who are we to deny him of this honor? So this was quite the week for Daniel Snyder. In the midst of everything else, this man still had a news cycle around him. Let's start with Tuesday, January 21st, when the Washington Post's Will Hobson reported, “An employee of Washington's NFL team accused owner Daniel Snyder of sexually harassing and assaulting her in April, 2009, three months before the team agreed to pay the woman $1.6 million as part of a confidential settlement.” So, we knew about the settlement before. I believe I talked about it the last time that I threw Daniel Snyder on the burn pile, metaphorically. But it wasn't clear the time what exactly the settlement was for. But now we know for sure.
“The woman accused Snyder of asking her for sex, groping her, and attempting to remove her clothes. She said it happened in a private partitioned area at the back of one of the team's private planes during a return flight from a work trip to Las Vegas.” Of course, Snyder denies all of this and he also, you know, paid her $1.6 million, though he says that was a request from an insurance company to get this thing settled, whatever the fuck that means. The NFL's general counsel investigated this woman's report and determined she couldn't have been telling the truth because no one on the plane saw or heard anything distressing, and they determined that she lied since she claimed that she had an impeccable personal and professional reputation. The general counsel found that to be easily disproven because, I shit you not, she wore “revealing clothing and flirted with other men” on the trip to Las Vegas. What a league.
The NFL reinvestigated this in 2020, but we don't know what they found out, because Roger Goodell won't fucking tell anyone. That was Tuesday, everybody. On Wednesday, June 22nd, we found out from an investigation by Congress's house committee on oversight and reform that, and I'm going to quote from the Washington Post here, “Snyder and members of his legal team conducted a shadow investigation and created a 100 slide dossier with emails, text messages, telephone records, and social media posts from journalists, victims, and witnesses who had made credible public accusations of harassment against the Commanders. The dossier included Washington Post reporters who had detailed sexual harassment allegations within the team's workplace, and attorneys Lisa Banks and Debra Katz, who represent more than 40 former team employees.”
Lindsay: Jesus Christ! [laughs]
Jessica: Right. Okay, so that was Wednesday. And on Thursday, June 23rd, we found out that Snyder just didn't show up to talk to Congress, and so Congress is expected to serve him with a subpoena to give a sworn deposition to the committee this week. Depositions are done privately, but the committee can make them public, as the Washington Post pointed out, they have already made 700 pages of documentation available from this investigation. So, we’d probably get to see that deposition at some point in time. To this I say, good luck to this motherfucker. It's wild that this man still owns an NFL team and that it appears he'll just keep owning one. That, in the midst of all of this unfolding over the last few years, the NFL allowed him and his family to become the sole owners of this team. It feels like through every step of this we learn over and over and over again that white men with lots of money in sports can just do whatever the fuck they want to whomever they want to do it to. And I'm just tired of it. So, burn.
Lindsay: Burn.
Lindsay: All right. We got a lot of torchbearers this week because, you know, we need to be celebrating. And we're gonna be off for a while. Jess, kick us off.
Jessica: Yeah, Coach Yo, a former Burn It All Down guest, an Ole Miss head basketball coach, is now an assistant coach on The Bahamas men's national basketball team, making her the first woman to coach with the team.
Lindsay: So exciting. Nour El Sherbini, who is from Egypt, won the 2021-22 world tour squash final by defeating world number one, Nouran Gohar, at the championships in Cairo.
Jessica: Danielle O'Toole is the first ever AUX softball champion. She scored a total of 1,436 points to take the title in this special expansion season of Athletes Unlimited softball, which featured a condensed two week schedule and lots of double headers.
Lindsay: Sydney McLaughlin, the Olympic champion in the 400 meter hurdles, broke her own world record this past weekend at the US track and field championships, running the race in 51.41 seconds, five hundredths of a second faster than her time in Tokyo.
Jessica: Susannah Scaroni broke the wheelchair world record in the 10k, which is 6.2 miles, by more than a minute at the Boston Athletic Association's 10k. She finished in 21 minutes and 56 seconds. This would be a remarkable feat all on its own, but Scaroni, weeks after winning gold Tokyo, was rear-ended by a car while she was training. She fractured three vertebrae, and for four months was in a back brace that limited most of her upper body movement. She only started training again in January of this year. That is an incredible story. Congratulations, Susannah.
Lindsay: Oh my god. That's remarkable. Katie Ledecky swept all four of her events at the FINA world championships. The 400 free, the 1500 free, the 4x200 freestyle relay, and the 800 meters – the last of which she has now won eight consecutive times. She now has 22 world championship medals, 19 of them gold. The most of any woman.
Jessica: Ingee Chun won the women's PGA championship with a five under par score at the congressional golf club. The victory delivered Chun $1.35 million, the second largest winner's check in LPGA tour history.
Lindsay: Can I get eight drumroll, please?
[drumroll]
Our torchbearers this week are all of the athletes using their voices to speak out against the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. There have been many, which is a good thing that there are too many to name individually. But we really wanna specifically highlight the voices of who you're gonna hear from now: Coco Gauff, the tennis star.
Coco Gauff: I mean, I'm obviously disappointed about the decision made. And you know, just really, for me, I mean, obviously I feel bad for future women and women now, but I also feel bad for those who protested for this I don't even know how many years ago, but protested for this and are alive to see that decision to be reversed. I feel like we're almost going backwards.
Lindsay: Megan Rapinoe, soccer.
Megan Rapinoe: We know that this will disproportionately affect poor women, Black women, brown women, immigrants, women in abusive relationships, women who have been raped, women and girls who have been raped by family members, who, you know what? Maybe just didn't make the best choice. And that's no reason to be forced to have a pregnancy. It will completely exacerbate so many of the existing inequalities that we have in our country. It doesn't keep not one single person safer. It doesn't keep not one single child safer, certainly. And it does not keep one single inclusive term woman safer. We know that the lack of abortion does not stop people from having abortions. It stops people from having safe abortions. I just can't understate how sad and how cruel this is.
Lindsay: And Brianna Turner, from basketball.
Brianna Turner: People have a right to their body, to their spaces. And to see this taken away from millions of women, millions of trans men, millions of non-binary people. It's not okay. We cannot force people to give birth. We live in a country that has no universal healthcare, really bad maternity leave options. I mean, we just had a formula shortage. And you're asking…And you're telling people in some states? I know up the states are telling people “We don't care, have the child.” It's ridiculous. It's just ridiculous. It's crazy. Bad job, Supreme Court.
Lindsay: Jess, what's good?
Jessica: [laughs] It was funny, I was prepping last night and I turned to Aaron, and I was like, what's good? Please help me with this. [Lindsay laughs] Which is a little unfair, because like, it's such a weird moment where there are nice things on a personal level and just everything around it is on fire. This weekend, my family went to an event here in Austin and volunteered. It was a pride event for queer people of color in Austin. And I just loved it. I loved that community and just being in there, everyone was so happy to be there, and it was just such an inclusive space. And it was inside so it was air conditioned. And I just got to walk around and smile at people and like, it was a blast. My family is headed to Atlanta soon to see our family that lives there. They're big Atlanta United fans, MLS team. They’re season ticket holders. Austin will be playing in Atlanta, so we're going to that match as a mixed cheering family. We will be the people in the green jerseys amidst the red fan base. So, it should be interesting.
And then I did watch Dream On, the documentary about the ’96 team, which I have written about how much that team meant to me as a 15 year old that summer. I saw them play at some point that summer. As Lindsay has said, it is a phenomenal documentary just as a documentary, but then just my own personal relationship to that team and how much it meant to me. And I just love Lisa Leslie. Cried pretty hard at the end, I won't lie. I don't know it. It's wonderful. You can catch it on ESPN+ now if you haven't seen it. And then we also watched Apple TV+ has a new show with Maya Rudolph called Loot where she's basically playing a character who's like Jeff Bezos's ex-wife who just has a bunch of money, this rich woman who she's trying to figure out who she is now and give the money away. And I just would watch Maya Rudolph in anything. She makes me deeply happy and she's such a good actress and she makes a character who's very hard to root for…Honestly, you do relate to her. And so that's quite the feat.
And also, Linz, I'm just gonna whisper that this break from Burn It All Down is good for me. [laughter] I obviously love Burn It All Down more than really anything else in my life, but it is nice when we take a break to just have a few weeks where you're not thinking of the podcast, and [whispers] I will be looking forward to that.
Lindsay: Yeah. I was gonna mention it if you didn’t, Jess. [Jessica laughs] So I think it's okay. You know, it's good to miss things. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's good to have a chance to miss things. Summer, as you can see by the fact that it's just me and Jess here, it's already it's difficult to schedule [laughs] even just our podcast recordings. Scheduling them every week becomes an event in itself during the summer. So, we will miss you all. You will hear from us and I'm gonna get a couple of us together to do a Patreon episode on Dream On, because I wanna talk about it as well. I've been texting everyone, being like, “It's so good! Watch it now so I can talk to someone about it!” [laughs]
Jessica: As someone who got that text message, it's true.
Lindsay: But I did like a very quick day trip over the weekend to the Blue Ridge Parkway to just meet with a friend and like walk around the lake and have lunch and then drive two hours back. [laughs] But it was nice to do. It was nice to be outside. It was nice to see my friend Caitlin and it was a nice little change of pace. Listen, I love drama and pettiness in women's sports. Like, Tina Charles suddenly like divorcing with the Phoenix Mercury, and then the team being like, “We're all we need!” Like, the Mercury having a big comeback win immediately, and their social media account like tweeting, “We're all we need.”
Like, I wish Tina Charles the best. I wish everybody the best. But like, this is good, normal drama, that if it was happening in men's sports would lead a thousand SportsCenter segments. And it is okay if we have some responsible speculation, friends. So, things like that, things like the love lives and messiness on Instagram. It's helping me right now, because I've gotta pay attention to sports. So when they gimme some less super serious stuff, it's good. So yeah, I'm gonna enjoy the break. I'm gonna enjoy…There’s a lot of women's sports going on. That's what's good.
Lindsay: What we're watching? I cannot…I’m not gonna name every single thing we're gonna watch over the next six weeks. I love you all, but– [laughs]
Jessica: Wimbledon!
Lindsay: I’m just gonna say Wimbledon. [laughs]
Jessica: NWSL! WNBA!
Lindsay: Lots of international friendlies, lots of good stuff. And you know, really, I'm just so excited for Wimbledon. I'm gonna put it on right when we finish this.
That's it for this episode of Burn It All Down. This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our web and social media wizard. And we're part of the Blue Wire podcast network. You can follow Burn It All Down on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Listen, subscribe and rate the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, TuneIn, and I'm sure other apps as well. For show links and transcripts, check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com, and you will find a link to our merch at the Bonfire store. I'm wearing some of our merch right now.
Thank you to our patrons, your support means the world. And if you wanna become a sustaining donor to our show, visit patreon.com/burnitalldown. Remember, if we haven't it mentioned enough, we're going on a summer break. We will drop interviews for the next six weeks. And then we'll be back with regular episodes in mid August. You know, as we say, burn on and not out. And that's exactly what we're trying to do here. [laughs] So we're following our own advice. So much love to you all, and take care of yourself, because we need you to fight.