The Sconi

The head of the League of American Voters (LAW) said that the “media is at odds with the views” of Wisconsin voters on the issue of boys playing in girls sports.

“The fact that ESPN tried to coerce Sage Steele into silence about protecting girl’s sports not only shows the media is corrupt,” Steve Cortes, president and founder of LAW, told The Sconi. “It shows that that the media is at odds with the views of voters in battleground states like Wisconsin, which our polling clearly shows.”

Steele, a former ESPN reporter, said last week on the "Gaines for Girls" podcast that, while at ESPN, she was "asked to stop tweeting" about the issue of boys playing in girls sports "because I was offending others at the company."

She left the company in August after settling a lawsuit with the network for being removed from the air "after her comments on political and social issues drew criticism," reported CNN. 

Cortes posted on X about Steele's comments, saying "sports media is, amazingly, perhaps the most woke of all the corrupt press" and that "battleground voters overwhelmingly want to protect girls sports."

LAW last week released a poll showing that 73 percent of Wisconsin voters oppose allowing biological males, who identify as females, to participate in girl's sports, reported The Sconi. The poll showed that 83 percent of voters with school aged children opposed allowing boys to play girls sports.

According to a memo prepared by North Star Opinion Research, which conducted the poll for the League of American Workers, 75 percent of independent voters say allowing boys to participate in girl's sports is "unfair" and 45 percent of Democrats are opposed to allowing it.

The poll also said that 69 percent of voters without school-aged children in their homes though allowing boys to play in girl's sports was "unfair."  

The issue of boys participating in girl's sports has been in the Wisconsin news recently, with Green Bay Area Public School District parents "voicing their concerns about a transgender athlete potentially participating in a girls' sport," reported Fox 11 News. 

“A lot of these girls are specifically quitting this team because they're concerned for their safety,” said parent Ryan Gusick. Fox 11 reported "the parents say girls are leaving with welts and bruises they've never received before." 

The Wisconsin General Assembly passed three bills pertaining to this issue in October 2023. AB-377 and AB-378 would mandate athletes to compete on sports teams corresponding to their biological sex for K-12 and UW/tech colleges respectively. 

However, Governor Evers has pledged to veto "every one" of these bills, reported Advocate.

Cortes, who founded LAW in 2022 with the mission of promoting "policies to protect the priorities of laborers," was a spokesman and advisor to President Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns. He previously traded global currencies and interest rates for 25 years for large international hedge funds. He has been an on-air broadcaster for CNBC, Fox News, and CNN.