Reacting to President Donald Trump signing an executive order against biological men competing in women's sports as transgenders, MSNBC host Katy Tur falsely claimed the number is "just so infinitesimally small, and you're just talking about a handful of kids."
The Women's Sports Policy Working Group, formed by a group including many female Olympians and tennis stars like Chris Evert and Martina Navratrilova, offers an opposing set of facts:
After tracking incursions into girls’ and women’s sports spaces for nine months, we abandoned this project — but not our commitment to girls and women — because there are simply too many male victories. Fortunately, HeCheated.org has now created a robust tally. As of September 2024, they’ve logged 5,149 males in women’s sports, and you can sort by sport, level, place, etc.
After covering some of President Trump's comments at the signing ceremony, Tur turned to liberal Purdue University professor Cheryl Cooky and began by asking about the issue of how many transgenders there are taking part in women's sports, leading Cooky to immediately dismiss the issue:
KATY TUR: I'm just curious. What are the actual numbers on this? How many -- how many instances of transgender girls were playing in women's sports?
CHERYL COOKY, PURDUE UNIVERSITY: Yeah, I think this is really -- the ban is -- or I should say the executive order is really a solution in search of a problem.
After the two recalled data finding that there are only a tiny number of men competing on women's teams as transgenders, Tur suggested an ulterior motive by Republicans:
The numbers are really small, and I point that out because it became such a big campaign issue, it made it seem like it was happening everywhere, and that every, you know, girl's team was at risk of either having unfair competition or, as the President just said, being beat up by somebody. I'm struggling to understand, unless it's just pure politics at play, why there is so much attention on an issue that is just so infinitesimally small, and you're just talking about a handful of kids. You're really just targeting a handful of kids.
As she agreed with the MSNBC host, Cooky misdirected by bringing up other issues and claiming that they are more important problems:
Yeah, and I think the point that you're making is spot on, right, that the bans aren't about transgender participation. This isn't about saving women's sports or protecting girls and women in sports. And if so, then we really should be focusing on the actual issues that are threats to girls and women in sports -- such as the lack of access and opportunity, the lack of funding, the lack of media coverage, sexual abuse and harassment in sports spaces, right? The ban itself, I think, is part of a larger context by which there's an effort to reassert conventional and traditional gender norms in society.
She added: "This is part of a larger attack on bodily autonomy for women and for folks who identify as women."
Tur theorized that Republicans just want to exploit "social fears" as she then wrapped up the segment:
Yeah, it feels like a proxy to politically capitalize on a social issue, social fears, and discomfort in this country. Again, Donald Trump signing this executive order. Cheryl Cooky, thanks so much for joining us and helping us understand just the broad data on this. I think it's important context that everybody could use.
Transcript follows:
MSNBC's Katy Tur Reports
February 5, 2025
3:54 p.m. Eastern
KATY TUR: I'm just curious. What are the actual numbers on this? How many -- how many instances of transgender girls were playing in women's sports?
CHERYL COOKY, PURDUE UNIVERSITY: Yeah, I think this is really -- the ban is -- or I should say the executive order is really a solution in search of a problem.
(...)
TUR: The numbers are really small, and I point that out because it became such a big campaign issue, it made it seem like it was happening everywhere, and that every, you know, girl's team was at risk of either having unfair competition or, as the President just said, being beat up by somebody. I'm struggling to understand, unless it's just pure politics at play, why there is so much attention on an issue that is just so infinitesimally small, and you're just talking about a handful of kids. You're really just targeting a handful of kids.
COOKY: Yeah, and I think the point that you're making is spot on, right, that the bans aren't about transgender participation. This isn't about saving women's sports or protecting girls and women in sports. And if so, then we really should be focusing on the actual issues that are threats to girls and women in sports -- such as the lack of access and opportunity, the lack of funding, the lack of media coverage, sexual abuse and harassment in sports spaces, right? The ban itself, I think, is part of a larger context by which there's an effort to reassert conventional and traditional gender norms in society.
This is part of a larger attack on bodily autonomy for women and for folks who identify as women, and so really for me as a scholar who studies sports, it's such an interesting sight for thinking through the days in which sport isn't necessarily reflecting gender as it exists in our society, but sport really plays a powerful role in sort of constituting gender, right? So the reassertion of biological difference between men and women can really happen in a space of sports because it is sex-segregated.
TUR: Yeah, it feels like a proxy to politically capitalize on a social issue, social fears, and discomfort in this country. Again, Donald Trump signing this executive order. Cheryl Cooky, thanks so much for joining us and helping us understand just the broad data on this. I think it's important context that everybody could use.
