Curt Schilling is daring ESPN to fire him at this point.
The former ace pitcher, who won two World Series with the Boston Red Sox, shared an anti-transgender meme, which since has been deleted, on his Facebook page Tuesday. The photo likely is in response to a recent North Carolina bill’s attempt to overturn local LGBT anti-discrimination laws and make it legal to force transgender people to use the public restrooms for the sex on their birth certificates.
And here’s a screenshot of Schilling’s comment on the post, via Outsports’ Cyd Zeigler.
Schilling’s post is problematic because it perpetuates the false idea that trans people attack children and other people in public restrooms, and the photo simply is a horrible way to portray the transgender community. And even though Schilling deleted the post, he wrote a blog post Tuesday claiming he never posted it and doubled down on his views:
“You frauds out there ranting and screaming about my ‘opinions’ (even if it isn’t) and comments are screaming for “tolerance” and “acceptance” while you refuse to do and be either.
“YOU’RE the ones making it the issue. I don’t care, if you ask me about any of the topics it’s likely (much to the chagrin of many) I’ll answer with my opinion.
“There are things I have deeply held beliefs in, things I have that are core to who I am, things I am passionate about. If you ask me about them it’s likely I’ll give you a passionate answer, whether you like that answer or not is completely up to you. I am not going to give you answers to make sure you like what I say, let the rest of the insecure world do that.”
ESPN already suspended Schilling about seven months ago for a tweet that compared extremist Muslims to Nazis, so it should be interesting to see how the network handles this one. As Outsports pointed out, one of ESPN’s MLB editors, Christina Kahrl, is transgender, and the company has expressed support of the LGBT community many times before.
Thumbnail photo via Howard Smith/USA TODAY Sports Images
