Member of supposed “middle way” group on trans inclusion deadnames and misgenders trans athletes

Donna De Varona is a member of the Women's Sports Policy Group which claims to offer a “middle way” on trans inclusion in sports

Special Programs LGBTQ

Written by Alex Paterson

Published 01/19/22 2:02 PM EST

During the January 18 edition of Fox News’ America Reports, Women’s Sports Policy Working Group member Donna De Varona misgendered two college swimmers and also deadnamed one of them.

Deadnaming and misgendering are forms of harassment that involve using a trans person’s prior name against their wishes or referring to them as the incorrect gender. Misidentifying trans people goes against best-practice journalistic standards.

De Varona is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, member of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee board of directors, and past president of the Women’s Sports Foundation. She is also a member of the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, which claims to “affirm the legal permissibility of separate girls’ and women’s competitive sport teams while including all trans girls and trans women under the girls’ and women’s sports umbrella." Despite a mission statement that claims to support a “middle way” and says that “we reject both the effort to exclude trans girls and trans women from girls’ and women’s sport,” an op-ed written by several of the group’s members was cited in Arkansas’ trans athlete ban legislation, which passed in 2021. LGBTQ advocates have criticized the group as “a whole other way to target trans youth.”

On Fox, De Varona misidentified Lia Thomas and Iszac Henig, National Collegiate Athletic Association swimmers who compete for the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University, respectively. Thomas is a trans woman and Henig is a trans man. Both athletes compete on their college’s women’s swim team under NCAA rules governing the participation of trans athletes (Henig has put off hormone replacement therapy for the time being).

Right-wing media have subjected Thomas to an anti-trans hate campaign since she broke several records during a swim meet in December. From December 3 through January 12, Fox News aired 32 segments on Thomas’ swim career. Throughout Fox’s coverage of the story, hosts and guests spewed dehumanizing rhetoric about Thomas and went so far as to assert that “this is like everyone has taken a crazy pill and no one wants to admit that this is wrong.”

Despite De Varona’s hollow claim that “we have to look at science-based research and not promote policies that wind up demonizing somebody like Lia or traumatizing the women that were on her team,” De Varona and Fox News host John Roberts misidentified both Henig and Thomas several times during the January 18 segment.

(In accordance with the Trans Journalists Association style guide, Media Matters has replaced incorrect references to Thomas’ and Henig’s genders in brackets in the transcript below. For example, if a transcript incorrectly refers to someone as a “woman” we change that language to say "[man].")

From the January 18, 2022, edition of Fox News' America Reports With John Roberts & Sandra Smith

JOHN ROBERTS (HOST): You’re talking about Lia Thomas from the University of Pennsylvania, who has been dominating the field in the pool — let’s just put up some of her statistics from a December meet. In the 200 freestyle, she won by seven seconds. In the 500 freestyle, she won by 14 seconds. The 1650 freestyle, she won by 38 seconds. She’s also qualified for the NCAA championships in March. She's been receiving testosterone suppression since 2019, but she's — she was competing as a — as a man until 2020. At the last meet, though, she also lost a couple of races to a [man] who is transitioning to a man, a transgender individual as well. This is all very, very complicated.

DONNA DE VARONA (WOMEN'S SPORTS POLICY WORKING GROUP): Well, it doesn't have to be. I mean, [Izsac] is the [man] transitioning to a man. [He] did remove [his] breasts. [He] decides that [he] wants to compete in the women's category because [he] can win. Whereas Lia Thomas has decided after three years of competing as a man and has been transitioning, according to the policy, the faulty NCAA policy, as competing as a woman, and I don't think it's been a pleasant experience for everyone. I mean, some educators say well we have to understand the transgender journey and I think we all do. But again, biology in sport, women's sport, does not equate gender identity.

...

DE VARONA: Well you know, sports adapts. If you look at the Paralympic model or the Special Olympic model, there are categories. And, by the way, sports is — discriminates. If you are — I wish I could have been an ice skater or a gymnast. I don't have the body to do that. I found swimming and I swam in a women's category head to head, but I also swam in an area before Title IX. So when I reached the age of 17 while the men all went off to college and benefited from the values that sport give you about learning about competition, fair play, and networking, and helps project you into great jobs in the future, we in my generation had to quit. So for 50 years we have been protecting Title IX and the danger is if we equate biological sex with gender identification in our laws, we could eradicate the laws that protect the separate sex category in sport. There are ways to handicap. We do it in golf. We just have to dig deeper. And we have to look at science-based research and not promote policies that wind up demonizing somebody like Lia or traumatizing the women that were on her team.

Member of supposed “middle way” group on trans inclusion deadnames and misgenders trans athletes

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