Geno Segers was a widely acclaimed actor who starred in the Broadway production Hadestown. That came to an end this month when Segers expressed the view of the vast majority of Americans: women’s sports should be confined to biological women. He has now been fired, even after an attempt to apologize for expressing his own views on the subject. Other actors have expressed support for transgender players without any response other than praise in the latest example of the rising McCarthyism on the left.
This is only the latest termination over the political views of artists in New York. As the song states in Hadestown, “It’s an old song. It’s a sad song. But we’re gonna sing it anyway.”
We have previously discussed how private companies can fire employees for public conduct or statements that bring controversy to their business or products. However, even though the First Amendment does not govern such controversies, there remains a free speech issue. Free speech goes beyond the confines of the First Amendment and private companies can engage in censorship that curtails this human right.
The question often comes down to consistency in companies enforcing content-based standards. I did not like some of the comments of Segers, but there is little question that equally strong comments against “cisgender” athletes or for transgender athletes would not result in such termination.
Segers posted statements critical of transgender athletes playing in women’s sports as well as the posting of preferred pronouns. The comments were certainly mocking and insulting at points: “If you asked me what my preferred pronouns are and it’s not obvious to you that I’m a he/him, that I’m good with he/him — Surely you don’t need any help. I’m not wearing a dress.”
One can understand why transgender advocates would be upset with the content and tenor of these comments, including “I don’t see transgender people becoming oppressed or being oppressed … life is unfair.”
However, Segers also wrote: “I’m not against anyone living out their lives the way they want, but I am against their rights superseding the rights of other people. That’s a little bit foul.”
Segers attempted to apologize for his comments after the cancel campaign picked up steam:
I wish to extend my most sincere apologies to everyone impacted by my words. While I never intended to inflict harm, I recognize that the impact of my statements is what matters most. I am fully committed to listening, educating myself, and elevating my standards. I will work tirelessly to earn the opportunity to make things right.
Actors, athletes, and academics routinely offer equally strident and insulting comments about the issue as well as radical comments on cisgender citizens and culture. Those comments generally do not trigger cancel campaigns.
In academia, the bias is obvious and open. As discussed this week, over 40 percent of academics say that they will vote against faculty candidates who voted for Trump regardless of the intellectual content of their scholarship. Even moderate conservatives are rare in teaching while higher education is heavily populated with the most extreme voices on the left.
An example is the recent book published by Pennsylvania Professor Beans Velocci claiming “sex isn’t real” and the gender “binary” is “incoherent.” The assistant professor in history and the sociology of science seemed to relish the anticipated controversy over his book, telling Duke University Press in an interview that “any right wing or TERF detractor who wants to s***-talk the book is going to have to say or write the phrase ‘Sex Isn’t Real’ in the process.”
Velocci is no standout in higher education. Attacking “cisness” and conservatives is a clear winning strategy for faculty candidates. As with actors, the opposing views would be lethal to an applicant.
The same is true with athletes. The mob has now come for Sophie Cunningham as it did for authors such as J.K. Rowling. Cunningham stated her support for maintaining women’s sports for biological females, a position also declared yesterday by Aryna Sabalenka, the number-one-ranked female tennis player. Cunningham was not obnoxious or extreme in her comments. She simply stated her concern for girls in sports. Nevertheless, she has been viciously attacked (including by a team owner), as have girls who support her.
Athletes, including coaches, routinely make opposing statements with no cancel campaign, including a women’s basketball coach. Former U.S. Women’s National Team star Megan Rapinoe routinely made controversial statements in favor of transgender athletes without any repercussions.
However, Cunningham is now the target for the mob. Guardian’s Howard Bryant wrote, “Sophie Cunningham is now … accepting the role as the right’s anti-Black, anti-transgender culture war ambassador.”
Whether it is actors, athletes, or academics, there is a demonstrably different level of tolerance for controversial views on gender. Take Segers’ statements, swap the nouns or pronouns, and ask yourself if there would have been a cancel campaign, let alone a termination. It is not the fact of the controversy but the lack of consistency that is so problematic in these areas.
It is likely that Segers will now be effectively blacklisted in seeking new roles and productions. For him, the musical lyrics came true: “Hadestown, Hadestown, a place where you can die.”
“…even though the First Amendment does not govern such controversies, there remains a free speech issue. Free speech goes beyond the confines of the First Amendment and private companies can engage in censorship that curtails this human right.” — J.T.
OK, how “far beyond”? There’s a sound argument for open-mindedness and tolerance for dissenting opinion (offered with civility). But there’s a limit when it comes to rudeness, insults, gratuitous showboating, intended intimidation, premeditated falsehoods, inauthenticity, unhinged zealotry, and incoherent mumbling. Turley’s ever-expansive definition of free speech collides with another basic freedom — to filter out and ignore that which we find annoying, insufferable and pointless. These are routine value judgments we dole out dozens of times every day without thinking about it.
Does Turley think there is a “natural right” to be paid attention to? I hate to break it to him — no.
I’s add to that being taken seriously. And being judged as socially acceptable. These are to be earned…they are not rights.
Shouldn’t it be illegal to fire and/or blacklist a person for their political beliefs? This is a serious stain on sanity.
Illegal?…no, that would lead to encroachment on employer freedom. How about branding it as cowardly? Or, if the firing / blacklist grew out of a campaign of intentional falsehoods, a defamation lawsuit?
If Hadestown loses 40% of its paying audience over this, it might just teach these arrogant zealots a lesson about toleration of dissent.
Arrogant zealots? And what exactly is your ideology… an arrogant MAGA zealot?
Stick to the issue, not your hate for an unrelated issue. Arrogant zealots describes these critics well. They are not only dead wrong, they have no respect for another’s right to their opinion and think it’s ok to fire them because of it.
Even the left leaning Mirror told the truth, the US Women’s soccer team lost to under 15 boys.
Carli Lloyd confesses to USWNT thrashing from boys team before World Cup win
FC Dallas’ youth team beat the World Cup-winning USWNT back in 2017 and, although it was just a rumor at the time, former player Carli Lloyd has confirmed it was true.
Two-time FIFA Player of the Year Carli Lloyd has admitted the United States Women’s National Team was indeed beaten 5-2 by a boy’s team before going on to win the World Cup two years later.
From a Fox News interview:
“If it’s true you lost to a bunch of 15 year old boys?” someone asked on X, the company formerly known as Twitter on Thursday.
“Yes it’s true. I know…thousands of people have already brought that up,” Lloyd responded.
We actually lost to a youth Bayern Munich team in my career as well but then we went on to win Olympics and World Cups,” Lloyd wrote.
“They should beat us. Bigger, stronger, faster! Boys always gave us a run for our money! It was great prep,” Lloyd wrote in a separate social media post.
But hey adult men not 15 year old boys playing women’s sports is just fine. (sarc)
Every sports league needs three divisions: men’s, women’s and trans’.
Or not. I bet you wouldn’t see women going up against men.
It’s only the men playing this trick.
All the rules passed to protect women sports is out the window. Thanks dem-o-rats.
Good one Benson. Dustoff you are an idiot.
Hate the truth Ano. You think it’s OK to have women beat up by men in a women’s game?
Quit telling.
OK? No one said anything of the sort you idiot. You pulling the upstate farmer nonsensical challenge. You truly are an idiot.
You idiot Dustoff.
OK, the prove me wrong. Or just maybe, you enjoy beating up women…
Learn to write you idiot. Then learn to think. If all else fails, jump off a bridge.
Men’s, Women’s and Fruitcakes.
How about two divisions? XX and XY.
Or we could go with one division, coed. The sexual cheaters will still lose that way.
A person who is born male can never become female. A person who is born female can never become male. Males and females are different.
2+3=5.
The Left has a problem with reality. The Left’s instincts are always totalitarian. Liberalism is a mental disorder. The Left ruins everything it touches. Leftists are mentally-deranged monsters.
At any rate, sex‑based categories exist because biological differences matter in competitive athletics. Reeves used her trans support as a shield while taking a public swipe at a player, Cunningham, who defended the foundational principle of women’s sports.
She was also defending the founding principle of Title IX.
Does anyone imagine that “Crazy Abe” really didn’t know that his personal lunacy and communist successors would take America from foreign Afreakans all the way to full-on Gender-Freaks and everything in between along the way?
Thanks, Abe.
“Crazy Abe” was kind enough to tell everyone that he was going to destroy America as destruction’s author and finisher.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.”
– “Crazy Abe” Lincoln, January 27, 1838
ANON dreams of Abe daily! What a DF
You’re so right; “Crazy Abe” was the author and finisher of the inception and commencement of the destruction of America.
Nope!! Blaming Abe from 188 years ago is just LAME!!!! Another Abe post tomorrow? ha ha
predictableracebaiter (aka enigmainblaque) wrote:
I have two daughters, nine granddaughters, and one great granddaughter, none of whom (to my knowledge) have ever had their life changed because of a transgender athlete.
And yet you have spent all day posting on here instead of being a father, grandfather and great grandfather, not to mention productive citizen in your twilight years. And then you complain that blacks are kept back. Kept back from what, trolling the internet while ignoring blood family?
Interesting approach: “If I haven’t personally been affected by something, I won’t admit it’s a problem to anyone else.”
Let’s see, none of my family members have been murdered. So, by his standard, when the topic of murder is under discussion, I should resist saying there’s anything wrong with it.
Another example: he rails against the Supreme Court focusing on the underlying intent in deciding whether improper racial gerrymandering has taken place. But when boys who can’t successfully compete against other boys decide to pretend their girls where they can actually win a few competitions, he steadfastly refuses to say there’s anything at all wrong with that unless you have a confession by the boy that his real reason for “switching genders” is to win a few matches. In other words, although he knows women are being deprived of medals and scholarships, not to mention suffering traumatic brain injury, he still won’t say that’s bad in any way, because the boy hasn’t confessed to his subjective motivations. All the while lambasting the Supreme Court for supposedly using that standard in a completely different context.
“If I haven’t personally been affected by something, I won’t admit it’s a problem to anyone else.”
Hmmmm!!
Is that another “tautology” ?????
What a dope!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I was criticizing “enigmainblack’s” approach. Reading comprehension not your thing?
Your criticism of enigmainblack is entirely absurd and irrelevant.
I was simply pointing out that based on an earlier comment you obviously have no idea what “tautology” means.
I was mocking you.
You’re still stuck on that? It’s been, what, 12 hours now and you’re still obsessing about that? In that case, your deficient reading comprehension skills are the least of your worries. Your severe mental health issues should be attended to first, then perhaps you can learn to read the English language.
Apparently not.
ANON MORON! ha ha ha ha ha
oldmanfromkansas,
“But when boys who can’t successfully compete against other boys decide to pretend their girls”
Yes, they pretend they are girls, so they can get beaten up by people such as yourself who are afraid their own sexuality is unstable and you might be attracted to a trans-girl or may realize you have an attraction to men. Rather than face the truth, you try to destroy those who expose it.
Broadway is doomer. They are beyond woke and that’s why it’s dying.
Spacex released their 10-Q quarterly earnings report after the closing bell yesterday.
I am delighted to report that the stock closed down almost 14% today at $108.27, and after hours it is currently trading at less than $108, as it continues to spiral into oblivion.
This means that Elmo the Muskrat’s holdings have almost been cut in half from the all time high.
Officially reported short interest is 34% and Ortex is reporting that 63% of the tradable float is out on loan, and probably shorted.
Tomorrow is the big day.
Almost 1 billion shares owned by insiders and locked up until tomorrow will hit the public market. The IPO float was only 619 million shares, so this will be a massive influx of new shares. If even a small number of insiders decide to cash out, the stock will collapse tomorrow.
Get your popcorn ready!!!!
This will be historic.
Elon Derangement Syndrome: You are jealous of his immense success and you are truly insignificant in the face of his greatness.
Yeah , everyone’s gonna stop sending stuff to space cause anon has EDS. Eat Elon’s dust you insignificant moron.
EDS? Is that the same as erectile dysfunction syndrome? I can see a high correlation between Elon derangement and erectile dysfunction.
In you’re case. YES.
That’s all you’ve got to say about the lunacy embraced by the woke left with men competing against women? Of course you change the subject because the subject is an outright embarrassment to you. Douchebag.
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BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY
Yet, he still sends rockets into space. Everyone else. Not so much.
Just a cry baby.
So you’re happy for Musk’s misfortunes and don’t care about all the hardworking SpaceX employees who lose as well. Nice guy/gal/whatever.