Ex-ESPN star shares stance on transgender athletes in girls' and women's sports

Former ESPN star Jeannine Edwards made her stance on transgender athletes competing in girls’ and women’s sports clear in an interview on Tuesday.

Edwards appeared on OutKick’s "Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich" and said she couldn’t believe there was a debate about the issue in sports.

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"I cannot believe that we have even gotten to this point," Edwards said. "I mean 50 years of Title IX and all those decades of working up to that and getting to that point where women could have equal access, equal opportunity, equal benefits, but they need to be in their own niche. Because let’s face it, men have 60% more muscle mass, they’ve got a heck of a lot more bone density and bone mass, larger lung capacity, larger oxygen consumption capacity. It doesn’t matter whether you are taking hormones or not. 

"It doesn’t matter whether you say you identify as a female, I’m sorry your physiology of your body as a man is much different than that of the body of a woman. So, to me, this a no-brainer and I don’t understand why some people on the left think that is a cause that is going to be a winner for them just as I don’t believe that this immigration issue and deporting these criminal aliens, I don’t think that’s a winning issue for them either."

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The New Jersey native was an ESPN and ABC Sports broadcaster from the mid-1990s to the mid-2010s.

A New York Times/Ipsos Survey released in January showed that the vast majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, don't think transgender athletes should be permitted to compete in women's sports.

Of the 2,128 people polled, 79% said biological males who identify as women should not be allowed to participate in women's sports.

Of the 1,025 people who identified as Democrats or leaning Democratic, 67% said transgender athletes should not be allowed to compete with women. Among 1,022 Republicans, that number was 94%.

Fox News’ Ryan Canfield and Jackson Thompson contributed to this report.

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