Malcolm Gladwell — the well-respected liberal journalist, author, and public speaker — revealed that while he had long opposed the participation of biological men in women’s sports, he was afraid to admit it publicly. He made the remarks during a Tuesday appearance on The Real Science of Sport podcast, hosted by sports scientist Professor Ross Tucker and sports journalist Mike Finch.
Tucker explained that in 2022, he served as one of three panelists in a discussion on transgender participation in women’s sports at the Sloan Conference, the annual analytics event held at MIT in Boston. Gladwell served as the moderator.
[Transcript via National Review.]
Gladwell told Tucker, “They stacked the panel. They stacked against you, Ross. They put a trans athlete and a trans advocate and you on the panel. … My suspicion is that 90 percent of the people in the audience were on your side, but 5 percent of the audience was willing to admit it.”
“My recollection of it is that everything I said was met with deathly silence, and everything the other two said got cheered,” Tucker replied.
Recalling the event, Gladwell said:
I think there was a hardcore of people who were ideologically committed to the position. … One was that it was a particular moment which has passed. If we did a replay of that exact panel at the Sloan conference this coming March, it runs in exactly the opposite direction.And it would be, I suspect, near unanimity in the room that trans athletes have no place in in the female category. I don’t think there’s any question. I just think it was a strange — I mean I felt I mean I was — the reason I’m ashamed of my performance on that panel [is] because I share your position 100 percent, and I was cowed. The idea of saying anything on this issue — I was in I believe in retrospect — in a dishonest way. I was . . . I was objective in a dishonest way.
Referring to the trans athlete on the panel, Gladwell noted:
At one point they turned to you, Ross, and they said, “Ross, you have to let us win.” And it was at that moment that I realized this position has gone, this argument has gone to the furthest extreme. What the trans movement is not asking for — they’re not asking for, you know, a place at the table. They’re not asking to be treated with respect and dignity. What they’re asking is for no one to question the considerable physical, physiological advantage they bring to the sport, and no one to question — if they’re gonna win these races by five seconds, suck it up! That’s what they were asking, right?
Gladwell continued:
If a really good Caster Semanya (South African middle-distance runner) comes along, who can run 147, what they’re saying is you just have to like — so they win by ten meters. So, they win by 15. Well, I mean, you would win by almost 100 meters, right? What they’re saying is you should have to live with that. And that when I heard that, I was like, “This is nuts.” And yet I didn’t say anything.
[The full interview can be viewed below. It begins with the discussion of transgenders in women’s sports.]
I’ve often wondered whether liberals genuinely believe the nonsense that comes out of their mouths or if they’re just toeing the party line to avoid being canceled. Sadly, I suspect it’s often the latter.
What’s remarkable is that someone of Gladwell’s stature — a man who has reached the pinnacle of his profession — would still be afraid to speak his mind on this issue.
And while it’s encouraging that Gladwell is finally setting the record straight, the timing matters. He is speaking up now, when public support for biological males in women’s sports has already begun to wane. That is not the kind of courage history remembers. Real courage would have been taking a stand in 2022, when the cultural tide was still running strong in the other direction. Imagine the impact if Gladwell had spoken those words at the Sloan Conference, challenging the progressive orthodoxy in real-time. That would have been a moment of true conviction, not just safe commentary after the shift had already begun.
J.K. Rowling wasn’t terribly impressed by Gladwell’s confession either. Weighing in on social media, she wrote: “Changing sides years late, and only after you’ve realised the non-elite opposition is winning, isn’t a mark of integrity but of arse-covering.”
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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