Oh boy, here we go again. Senator John Fetterman has officially entered the chat on one of the most controversial topics in American politics today: transgender athletes in women’s sports. And, in true Fetterman fashion, he’s taking a stance that’s not just unpopular with most voters—but downright baffling in its logic.
During an appearance on The Bulwark Podcast, Fetterman made it clear that he’s standing by his position, even as polling shows the vast majority of Americans—across party lines—oppose biological men competing in female sports. But his most jaw-dropping remark? Saying he’s “not afraid” if his own daughter, a 13-year-old basketball player, gets “mowed down” by a biological male athlete.
Pause. Let that sink in.
This is a U.S. senator, a father, openly admitting that he’s okay with policies that could put his daughter—and thousands of other girls—at a physical disadvantage, if not at risk of injury. And the context here matters. Just days before, President Donald Trump addressed the nation about his executive order banning biological men from women’s sports, bringing as his guest Payton McNabb—a young woman who suffered a traumatic brain injury when a transgender athlete spiked a volleyball into her face with the kind of force no female player could match.
Yet, Fetterman shrugs.
“I’m not dumb,” he insisted, acknowledging that the issue is politically unpopular. But then he followed it up with the claim that transgender participation in sports should be handled at the local level—despite the fact that it affects national policies, scholarships, competitive fairness, and, let’s be honest, basic common sense.
Fetterman’s remarks didn’t exist in a vacuum. Polls show Americans overwhelmingly reject allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports. A New York Times/Ipsos survey found 80% of Americans oppose it, while a Harvard CAPS Harris poll from February reported 69% support banning men who identify as women from competing against girls. Even among Democrats, the issue is splitting the party—50% backed the ban.
But none of that seems to matter to Fetterman, who appears more concerned with proving his ideological commitment than protecting fairness in women’s athletics. Conservative commentator Dana Loesch summed up the double standard perfectly during an appearance on The Ingraham Angle, pointing out that “if a man who wants to be a woman feels uncomfortable in men’s changing spaces, he’s accommodated. But if a woman feels uncomfortable about a man in women’s changing spaces, then she’s called a bigot.”
That right there is the heart of the issue. Women are being told to accept the loss of their spaces, their competitions, and in some cases, their safety—all to accommodate a progressive ideology that the majority of Americans don’t support.