Ex-ESPN star Charly Arnolt SLAMS network for trans coverage and on-air tribute to Lia Thomas

Ex-ESPN reporter Charly Arnolt has criticized her former employer for allegedly contradicting their “no politics” rule — a month after the network aired a tribute to transgender swimmer Lia Thomas during Women’s Month.

Arnolt announced earlier this week that she would be leaving the Worldwide Leader for OutKick, speaking to Fox News about her struggles with her previous company – where she felt “suffocated” and “uncomfortable” due to the company culture.

“ESPN has been very determined to keep politics out of their programming, but you just saw at the end of last month that they paid tribute to Lia Thomas during Women’s Month,” Arnolt saidthrough the NY Post.

“That’s why it doesn’t exactly seem like they’re keeping politics out of it altogether. But I must give my compliments [Sage Steele and Sam Ponder] for standing up for these women who are sadly losing so much of the success they worked so hard for.

“I think there are a lot of women who are uncomfortable standing up for women’s rights because they don’t want to be seen as politically incorrect, because it’s really crazy where this world and this conversation has gone,” Arnolt later said.

University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas and Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines react after tied for 5th in the 2022 200 freestyle final

Thomas has sparked controversy in the college sports world after becoming the first transgender athlete to win a Division 1 national title in women’s swimming.

Thomas previously competed in the men’s division at the University of Pennsylvania before transferring.

And former college swimmer Riley Gaines, who competed with Thomas, has spoken out against a ruling by the Biden administration that would ban US schools and colleges from banning trans athletes from women’s sports.

That encouraged Steele and Ponder, Arnolt’s now former colleagues, to also voice their views on the matter.

Ponder tweeted, “This would take away so many opportunities for biological women and girls in sports. It is a shame that we have to fight for the integrity of Title IX in 2023 and the reason why it was needed in the first place.”

And Steele added, “This is heartbreaking, maddening and really hard to watch. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and be relieved that this was all just a ridiculous, comical, nonsensical dream….”

Thomas recently appeared in a video claiming that Biden’s proposal did not provide enough protection for trans athletes.

In the 87-second clip, Thomas noted that Biden’s planned change gave high schools the authority to ban trans athletes from competing on the condition of fair competition.

Lia Thomas [was] said, “It breaks my heart to see trans kids miss out on opportunities.” Replace that with the word woman – does it still break Thomas’s heart to see women miss out on opportunities?’ Gaines asked rhetorically on Piers Morgan Uncensored.

‘Cause that’s exactly what’s happening. From my experience competing against Lia Thomas at the National Championships, I saw firsthand women miss out on opportunities. I watched women fail to become All-Americans and miss those eighth and 16th places by one place because they were displaced by a man.

“This, of course, goes against everything Title IX was created to protect and now we have the Biden administration, the people in the White House, actively working to rewrite Title IX.”

Ultimately, Arnolt sees the handling of Thomas’s situation as a worrying trend.

“It’s a very slippery slope because if you look, this is swimming, where we’ve seen a transgender person break into the women’s world, but there are so many sports that are much more aggressive than swimming, which are team sports. Think football or basketball. [If] even an average male athlete enters that world, what is going to happen to women? It will be a very dangerous landscape.’