Sports Illustrated eager to please wokesters by featuring transwoman in swimsuit issue

July 10, 2020

Valentina Sampaio, a Brazilian transgender model, is the first to transgender woman to grace the issue in what most mainstream media outlets are calling a "breakthrough" for the transgender community. It’s a breakthrough alright, but not the good kind. By putting a transgender model in this issue, Sports Illustrated puts political correctness above femininity, and is well on its way to becoming anti-woman.

Putting a trans woman in the swimsuit issue is nonsensical. For starters, putting a transgender woman inside an issue known for highlighting gorgeous women is like selling ice cream made without milk or sugar: Is there really such a thing? Sure, the notion that a transgender woman is simply a male who has transitioned to female either socially, hormonally, or medically, has started to become commonplace, if not popular, thanks to the mainstream media. But it’s simply nonsensical, anti-science, and impossible: Men cannot become women and women cannot become men. No amount of surgeries, hormone replacements, or hyped-up PR campaigns GLAAD broadcasts can make it so.

The concept that a transgender woman exists is a phrase fabricated to fit a movement without any anchors or real talking points save "gender identity." It is pure gaslighting to put a man, living as a woman, in the pages of a magazine known for celebrating a woman’s alluring sexuality. It is false advertising, because there is no such thing as truly transitioning from male to female, as these handful of detransitioners will tell you in this incredible piece just published in The Sunday Times.

When photographer Laura Dodsworth began interviewing and photographing women who had transitioned from female to male then regretted it, she found all would undo it if they could, and all still believed they were fully woman, despite whatever hormonal or surgical changes they had forced their body to undergo. Likewise, a man who chooses to model as a woman is no more woman than a man in costume, or the product of a chef's efforts to concoct ice cream without the ingredients. Anything else counterfeit posing as the real thing. When you think that the intended audience for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is nearly entirely male, the entire debacle becomes that much more absurd.

A trans woman in the swimsuit issue is anti-woman and anti-feminist. Placing a male living as a female in a magazine historically lauding a woman’s beauty, sex appeal, and modeling accolades, is anti-woman and an affront to femininity. To start with, Sampaio quite literally took another woman’s spot. This "Good Morning America" clip about Sampaio claimed the model had lost "jobs because of her gender identity." This might well be the case but what about the female models looking for jobs meant for women?

I’m surprised feminists aren’t up in arms. They should be. This contradicts everything the feminist movement has stood for in terms of the workforce. In this case, another female model who has worked her rear end off to get a spread in Sports Illustrated will have to wait another year when things aren’t so woke because transgender female has taken her place. What’s more anti-woman than that?

The move is also deliberately anti-woman and anti-feminine, if you’ll allow Sports Illustrated to momentarily reduce women down to their sexuality. As a curvy woman myself, that’s actually what I appreciated about the annual issue: Finally, I saw women with big hips like me (though a heck of a lot prettier) ogled and adored.

Who can forget Tyra Banks, Christy Teigen, Kate Upton, and plus-size beauty, Ashley Graham, when their gorgeous, envious, curves filled the pages? For a moment, those of us who have breasts, narrow waists (well, at least before babies), and larger hips, have felt vindicated, appreciated, even beautiful. For all that the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue lacks in modesty, it stands out to this curvy woman, that it made up for it as one of the remaining beacons of appreciation for a feminine woman, her beautiful curves, and the sexuality women can and should own with pride. Make no mistake, these women don’t feel objectified—they love it, they live for it, and don’t let anyone tell you differently.

While of course women have all different figures—some more lean and athletic, others more full and curvaceous—this issue of the Sports Illustrated magazine tends to highlight the curvier end of the female spectrum and a transgender woman of course, doesn’t just lack curves, but even the hidden parts of a woman, like her ovaries, that enable her to make and carry life. This too, is an affront to women at its most basic and complex.

Not only does this year’s issue feature a transgender woman, with the figure of an actual, young boy, but the three women that appear on the cover also have similarly boyish, lean, flat-chested figures. God made everyone unique and they certainly can’t help their figures or their breast size, but usually we can count on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue to lean into ultra-feminine curves. For some reason, I don’t think this was an editorial oversight.

May 8, 2019

December 28, 2018

A trans woman in the swimsuit issue is a nod to political correctness, nothing more. Putting a transgender female inside the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue was not about celebrating women, femininity, or an incredible modeling career: It was about looking woke in an era where political correctness reigns and the transgender movement is king.

In an interview, MJ Day, the editor of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue said "Everything about Valentina is remarkable, from her incredible beauty to her strength of character to her bravery to pioneer this conversation." "Pioneer this conversation" you say? What? That a man, too, can model with women and pass himself off as one without a riot ensuing?

It’s unfortunate to observe so many brands bend to the woke mob, but especially one like Sports Illustrated: They really don’t need to. They sell sports 99 percent of the year except when they sell curvy women. Placing a transgender female in the pages is merely virtue signaling to a tiny percentage of the population at the risk of alienating their entire, loyal, fan base, which is mostly made up of red-blooded males.

It’s not only a risky business decision, but a silly thing to do to gain political capital I can’t conceive that they need. That’s what political correctness will do in an era when virtue signaling is more valuable than optics, outcome, revenue, ad-buys and more. This could come back to bite Sports Illustrated and when it does, they’ll do what all experts in gaslighting do, shrug, and claim they’re the victim for standing up for a cause nobody wanted them to support.