Malcolm Gladwell Does a 180 on Trans Athletes

Three years ago, Malcolm Gladwell made an appearance at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, where he moderated a panel that discussed a "path forward for the inclusion" of transgender athletes in sports. Now, the 62-year-old Tipping Point author is flipping that narrative, revealing on a podcast this week that he felt "cowed" at the time into offering his support for trans athletes and now felt "ashamed" for doing so, per Them.

"If we did a replay of that exact panel at the Sloan conference this coming March ... it would be, I suspect, near unanimity in the room that trans athletes have no place in the female category," Gladwell said on a Tuesday episode of The Real Science of Sport. "I don't think there's any question." Newsweek notes the criticism and applause that Gladwell is now receiving thanks to his updated stance.

"For him to say he was too scared to say men don't belong in girls sports shows both how totalitarian the MSM is and how chicken s--- MSM journalists are," author Michael Shellenberger posted on X. "Rich people stop blaming their clinical desire to be loved on others challenge," the Bulwark's Tim Miller countered. "These guys weren't cowed into anything they said the en vogue thing then and they are saying the en vogue thing now. Zuck, Bezos, Dimon same story." Check out the Real Science podcast in full here.