ICYMI: Cyd Zeigler Offers ‘Regrets’ After Tweeting His Support for DeSantis

Dawn Ennis, Los Angeles Blade via the National LGBTQ Media Association

Read the full article online at thegavoice.com.

Let’s be clear: You cannot choose to be gay, trans, or any color of the rainbow, or even of race. But you can choose not to align with our enemies.

That is what has rocked the world of sports journalism like an 8.0 earthquake. A leading voice for out LGBTQ athletes, sports personnel and fans has chosen to side with the forces that have proposed, passed and enacted antiLGBTQ legislation, targeted children, their parents, teachers, healthcare providers and even drag performers; He’s “come out” on the side that financially supports extremist hate groups, domestic terrorists and transphobes here and abroad, via Twitter.

But Outsports editor Cyd Zeigler tweeted that he regrets not educating himself before sharing tweets that include the fact he registered as a Republican for the first time in decades, and seemed to endorse Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the architect of the “Don’t Say Trans or Gay” Laws now spreading across the U.S.

This all started on the day the Manhattan District Attorney announced an indictment of former president Donald Trump. That was also the day, and apparently the reason, that Zeigler tweeted his party switch.

“This completely insane butchering of Democracy and our justice system cannot stand,” he wrote. “Progressives and Democrats seeking to use the government to attack political foes must be stopped. Period.”

Zeigler is an author and the out gay cofounder of Outsports — a VoxMedia site dedicated to covering LGBTQ sports and encouraging closeted folks in that field to come out — where the motto is, “Courage Is Contagious.” It certainly took courage for Zeigler to betray the vast majority of the Outsports readership, and one has to wonder if he was really prepared for how contagious the backlash would be.

He did try to blunt that by first tweeting, “I don‘t like Donald Trump,” but then, less than an hour later, Zeigler publicly thanked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s likely rival for the 2024 GOP nomination, and shared the governor’s Twitter handle with his more than 10K followers. That move was widely seen as a tacit endorsement, despite declaring in another tweet that he doesn’t agree “with much of what the GOP and DeSantis have done in the last six months…”

As someone who was raised Republican and has relatives whom I love who vote Republican, I have at long last learned to abide, so long as they support me and other trans and nonbinary people, and our rights.

Ryan O’Callaghan, the out gay former pro football player who collaborated with Zeigler for his 2019 memoir, “My Life on the Line: How the NFL Damn Near Killed Me, And Ended Up Saving My Life,” expressed a similar sentiment in an email to the Blade:

“Outsports editor Cyd Zeigler tweeted that he regrets not educating himself before sharing tweets that include the fact he registered as a Republican for the first time in decades, and seemed to endorse Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the architect of the ‘Don’t Say Trans or Gay’ Laws now spreading across the U.S.”

“I did not see that he announced he is registering as a Republican until someone sent me a screenshot, but I assumed he already was,” he said. “If I shut out every Republican in my life, I wouldn’t have a relationship with any of my family or most of my friends. I’ve learned that just because someone more closely identifies as a Republican, doesn’t mean they think any less of me. I would never hold someone’s political party against them.”

This is a strange crossroads at which I stand; for years, I have spent many a conversation defending Zeigler as the greatest ally trans people had. I stopped doing that when he started touting the campaign of lesbian tennis icon Martina Navratilova, trans trailblazer Dr. Rénee Richards and former Olympian, cisgender women’s rights activist and attorney Nancy Hogshead Makar.

They and their group are campaigning for “a path to inclusion” that would exclude any trans woman athlete who’s experienced male puberty. Trans women and girls would be banned from competing with cisgender female athletes and restricted to competing in “trans only” events, meaning in many cases, the one and only trans athlete would have no one to race against but themselves.

This goes against the policies and laws where I live and work as well as a federal court’s conclusion — as well as my own personal belief — that it’s discriminatory to treat trans athletes the same way Major League Baseball once treated Black players.

Zeigler in a later tweet said he was “Listening, thinking, evaluating…” and added that he regretted that he “didn’t listen and educate myself more before I shared some of the tweets.”

The Advocate’s editor, John Casey, wrote an op-ed titled “The Editor of Outsports Turns On Our Community,” and acknowledged an important fact: “Zeigler is free to join any party he likes, and support any candidate he wants; however, when you have the power of the pen, and a voice in the fight for equality, you have an extra burden and responsibility to do what is right for those who you write about and cover. And especially to your readers, many of whom, as athletes, are afraid to come out because of DeSantis and bills like ‘don’t say gay.’”

Here’s the bottom line: Even after sharing his regrets, what Zeigler has done is far worse than just tarnishing the brand. He’s turned his back on trans kids in states like Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah, and 20 other states considering anti-trans legislation right now.

I am hoping you will consider that whatever your feelings about Zeigler, you will support the freelance writers at Outsports, who are all wonderful people and so proudly represent our diverse community. They should not be punished for one man’s hubris and his politics.