Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) appeared on Fox News this weekend with a warning straight out of a moral panic playbook: according to the 70-year-old former football coach, “woke globalists” are somehow coercing children into becoming transgender athletes — specifically to infiltrate and dominate women’s sports.
“We have entire men’s teams across this country now that are turning trans — women’s teams —they’re turning trans,” Tuberville claimed on Sunday Morning Futures, hosted by guest Jackie DeAngelis. “That’s going to be a situation where it’s going to pick up speed because these woke globalists are pushing these kids to say, ‘if you can’t compete in men’s sports, let’s just transition and say you’re a woman and participate in women’s sports.’”
Tuberville offered no evidence to support this sweeping claim, which echoes decades-old rhetoric once used to demonize gay people during the culture wars of the 1980s and 90s. Back then, it was “the gay agenda” turning your kids. Now, it’s “woke globalists.” New label, same boogeyman.
The senator’s comments followed the recent failure of his bill, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which aimed to restrict transgender athletes from participating in women’s and girls’ sports. The bill fell short in the Senate earlier this month, receiving just 51 of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. Not a single Democrat supported the legislation.
The bill sought to codify a Trump-era executive order — reinstated in February — that would strip federal Title IX funding from schools that allow trans girls and women to compete in sports aligned with their gender identity.
Tuberville has made this issue a cornerstone of his platform, repeating familiar talking points that conflate individual transgender athletes with a widespread, coordinated assault on women’s sports. “Men should not be competing in women’s sports at any level,” he told The Daily Wire, invoking highly publicized (and often misrepresented) anecdotes as justification. “We were all deeply disturbed last summer to see videos of men boxing against women in the Olympics. This is not only dangerous but it is incredibly unfair to the young women who have trained their whole lives to compete.”
There is no verifiable instance of “entire men’s teams” suddenly transitioning en masse for athletic advantage — a scenario that sounds less like reality and more like a rejected sci-fi plotline or a satirical Onion headline. Actual data shows that transgender athletes remain an extremely small minority of overall participants, and sports governing bodies typically have strict guidelines for inclusion that involve hormone levels and timeframes.
What’s really happening? A complex national debate about how to balance inclusivity, fairness, and individual rights. But nuance rarely makes for good political theater.
Tuberville, however, isn’t backing down. He recently tried to sway moderate Democrats in swing states, citing a Pew Research poll that found 66% of U.S. adults favor requiring athletes to compete according to their sex assigned at birth. He claims this supports his stance — though critics argue that public opinion should not override the civil rights of marginalized youth.
His message is clear: he wants to see his bill become law before the 2028 Summer Olympics, saying, “Whether in little league or the Olympics, it’s unsafe, it’s unfair, and it’s just plain wrong.”
The Bottom Line
For trans athletes and their allies, however, the message rings eerily familiar. Once again, the identity and autonomy of young people — particularly trans youth — are being politicized under the guise of “protecting” others. The myth of a coordinated “woke globalist” plot is not new, just rebranded.
And while Tuberville’s rhetoric may energize a certain voter base, for many others, it evokes a troubling sense of déjà vu — back to a time when fear-mongering about “the gays” was used to justify discrimination.
We’ve seen this movie before. And we remember how it ends.
