Kirk Herbstreit backs off transgender athlete take

Kirk Herbstreit got pretty riled up on a podcast appearance last week when the topic of transgender athletes’ participation in sports came up. But in a new interview, the ESPN and Prime Video analyst looked to set the record straight on his opinion, as well as his defiant comments in which he stated he didn’t “give a s***” about fan response to his beliefs.

Following up on comments he made on X and in a follow-up conversation on Outkick’s Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich , Herbstreit said in an interview on SI Media with Jimmy Traina released Thursday that his frustration when asked about whether transgender athletes should be able to compete in organized sports originally stemmed from America “being so divided” and “conspiracy theories that aren’t true” among college football fans.

“I am an introverted guy, but when you push my buttons, you can light a fuse and get me to get kind of excited with things I’m passionate about,” Herbstreit told Traina. “I think the reason I said I don’t give a s*** is I get so frustrated with the country and being so divided and not liking each other and people just not getting along and people lashing out. And in the college football community, people creating conspiracy theories that aren’t true or attacking me.”

Herbstreit originally referred to a question on X from a follower on whether “men belong in women’s sports,” a disingenuous question that has once again become a talking point in sports media following the attention around Algerian boxer Imane Khelif at this year’s Olympics. “Time for influential men in sports media to stand up,” the user wrote to Herbstreit, to which he responded, “of course not. Ridiculous question.”

On the podcast with Dakich later, Herbstreit doubled down, saying, “I’ve been biting my tongue on a lot of topics for three years,” before adding that “if I had a daughter, I’d probably be way more outspoken about the discussion on the topic.”

Of the response to his views on transgender athletes, Herbstreit stated he does not “give a s***” before acknowledging his temper does sometimes get the best of him and that “it’s almost like there are two different sets of rules and if you have a view that’s a little bit more traditional,” it’s not accepted.

Speaking with Traina, Herbstreit said in this case, his temper boiled over because he so often is the subject of football fans’ ire.

“I get tired of being a piñata, I get tired of being a punching bag. I have to bite my lip, because it’s hard to defend yourself when people are accusing you of something you didn’t do,” he added. “And I think that’s probably what I was referring to as much as anything is, you’ve got to have thick skin, and I do. But everybody … you get to a point when people misrepresent what you’re doing, and what you intended to do and you’re kind of like, ‘Man, I’m over it.'”

Still, Herbstreit confirmed to Traina that after he waded into the transgender athlete debate, nobody from ESPN reached out to him.

“I wasn’t referring to the boxer or any of that,” Herbstreit said. “The question was ‘Should men be in women’s sports?’, and I just said no. That’s it.”

That original question from an X user is not an accurate depiction of the debate around transgender athletes, given that at the professional level, significant regulations are already in place regarding hormone levels and more.

But regardless, Herbstreit is free to have and express his opinion. Especially if his bosses at ESPN don’t care, there’s nobody stopping the football analyst from weighing in on this issue.

Herbstreit instead appears to be reacting to the backlash he received, which unfortunately for him comes with the territory. And while the idea of backlash does extend over to his football opinions, it’s hard to see the link he is making between “conspiracy theories” about his allegiances as a former Ohio State quarterback and moral pushback by people who don’t agree with him about gender.

It appears that Herbstreit simply regrets some of what he said to Dakich and wants to turn the temperature down.

As for his fellow ESPN football analyst Dan Orlovsky, who also drew backlash after posting and deleting the phrase “protect our daughters” on X during the conversation around Khelif at the Paris Olympics, Herbstreit unsurprisingly came to his defense.

“No one really knows except for Dan what his intentions were, why [the post] was up, why it was down,” Herbstreit said. “All you can go by is Dan is a dad, he’s a husband, he loves football, he’s a great guy. He’s going to say things, do things like all of us. None of us are perfect, none of us do everything exactly the way we always intended. It doesn’t mean he’s up to anything, it doesn’t mean he’s whatever they’re trying to paint him to be. He’s a good person.”

Once again, Orlovsky may in fact be a righteous guy, but that doesn’t save him — or Herbstreit — from people reacting strongly against what they say when they choose to speak out about controversial issues . The average fan online doesn’t have the benefit of a personal relationship with anyone in sports media to fall back when evaluating their character. They have to go by what these people say on social media or in interviews, and in this case, Herbstreit and Orlovsky both appeared to take a position that may be in the minority for the average X user or media consumer.

While Herbstreit went out on a limb to say he doesn’t give a s*** about looking like the bad guy and made it clear ESPN wasn’t mad at him for his stance, based on this follow-up interview, it seems like Herbstreit does in fact care quite a bit what people think of him.

[ SI Media with Jimmy Traina on YouTube ]

The post Kirk Herbstreit backs off strong take on transgender athletes appeared first on Awful Announcing .