BOSTON — Former Red Sox pitcher and ESPN baseball analyst Curt Schilling has been fired from his position as an analyst for ESPN following comments he made on social media earlier this week regarding the bills going through several states to require people to use the bathroom of their assigned gender. The bill impacts the transgender community, because many of those individuals prefer to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify.
In a statement, ESPN said, “ESPN is an inclusive company. Curt Schilling has been advised that his conduct was unacceptable and his employment with ESPN has been terminated.”
According to WFXT and the New York Daily News, Schilling posted a comment on his Facebook page that said “A man is a man no matter what they call themselves. I don’t care what they are, who the sleep with, men’s room was designed for the penis, women’s not so much. Now you need laws telling us differently? Pathetic.”
Schilling also shared a photo with a a man with a wig and women’s clothes with the words, “Let him in! To the restroom with your daughter or else you’re a narrow minded, judgmental, unloving, racist bigot who needs to die!!!”
He later deleted the post.
The analyst later reacted to the controversy with a blog post. “If you get offended by ANYTHING in this post, that’s your fault, all yours. And for you people too dense to understand this one very important thing. My opinion, 100% mine, and only mine. I don’t represent anyone but myself here, on Facebook, on Twitter, anywhere.”
Schilling was suspended from ESPN’s broadcasts from August to October 2015 for another social media posting.
Schilling was initially sidelined on Aug. 25 for re-posting a meme on Twitter that reads: “It’s said only 5-10 percent of Muslims are extremists. In 1940, only 7 percent of Germans were Nazis. How’d that go?” on a red-tinted photo of Adolf Hitler. The post also appeared on his Facebook page.
Transgender individual’s access to public bathrooms has been a simmering issue for years. In recent months it has been in the spotlight following North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, after it was passed by the North Carolina legislature. The law blocks transgender individuals from using public bathrooms that match their gender identity and stops cities from passing anti-discrimination ordinances to protect gay and transgender people.
A federal appeals court sided Tuesday with a transgender teen’s arguments that a Virginia school board violated Title IX by forbidding him from using the boys’ restroom. The appeals court’s interpretation of the federal education law directly affects the law in North Carolina.
