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.”
The former “democrat” party is now full-blown communist. We have to deal with them as such. Communism is still outlawed under federal law. It’s way past time for the DOJ to prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law & free our nation from this horrific threat.
In all sincerity, I really appreciate the Professor’s unshakeable objectivity, it’s extremely valuable.
I personally call prejudice, prejudice, regardless of its content or target; prejudice, greed, and fear seem to be the modern left’s only remaining motivations.
Mix the three together and you get straight up hate. Hate does not create stable societies or institutions, it destroys them, and hate is incapable of building anything new. We have raised generations that consider hate in the name of personal comfort to be a virtue; a feature, not a bug – something to be cultivated where magnanimity and generosity used to be.
I am often told that, if I don’t like how my employer treats me, I can find another employer. That same idea could apply here.
This is NOT true…under communism.
It was a good, valid question.
Well, no matter how righteous you feel that your views are, you need to understand that there can be blowback Sometimes expected and sometimes unexpected. You have to be prepared to accept the consequences whether it is a calm time or a time of heated political and social intolerance. Sometimes it can be severe and costly. You simply have to understand that.
Sometimes you can be in an unassailable position and weather the storm and some times not. Mr Segers made things easy for the opposition by being intemperate in his own statements. And then apologizing only made it worse.
Also actors are not in an unassailable position and we have already seen numerous cases of actors being fired for conservative remarks or just intemperate. Many actors and other performers have chosen the road of keeping their views to themselves. In that profession I thinks that is wise, especially in New York. Other locations might be more accepting.
You simply have to be self aware or maybe be between jobs when you decide to talk.
Bringing bad publicity on your employer is always a bad move, economics wise, no matter the cause.
You are correct. Hopefully soon however, there will be consequences for the people that have become accustomed to virtue signaling and political gatekeeping with impunity. The left apparently refuses to self-correct their anti-civilized self-righteousness, so there needs to be a correction for them. I only hope it is overwhelming and final for them. Tic toc tic toc
GEB, the position of the hysteria mob and trans women lacks logic, reason. It’s a harbinger of culture failure. The vice is lust as instinct and must be noted as a matter of education imo. I appreciate your comment otoh. It’s a very dangerous group.
One and one do not have to equal two. At least according to these morons.
Many Ayn Rand novels address such challenges a man might face. I think she called it ‘conviction’.
How can there be a conversation that uses words without meaning? Cisgender, transgender, woman, man, LGBTQ++++++, queer, binary … what do these words mean? How can using these words result in a conversation? If “transgender” means that “a person’s internal gender identity differs from the gender assigned at birth”, what does that mean? What does “gender assigned at birth” mean? What does “gender identity” mean? What does “gender” mean? When language becomes a dictionary based on circular touchy-feely utterances that even a Supreme Court Justice doesn’t understand, language dies. And so does conversation.
“How can there be a conversation that uses words without meaning?”
The answer, which you already know, is that it’s impossible.
But for the Left, that’s a feature, not a bug. It does not want a conversation, debate, arguments. It’s tool is not reason. The Left wants its diktats blindly obeyed. Or else.
Gender is assigned at conception. Period. It does no matter what terms the queers want to use. Anything else is mental illness.
🤣 This is brilliant!
LeBronya James To Dominate Women’s League Where Women Won’t Accept What A Woman Is
https://thefederalist.com/2026/08/05/lebronya-james-to-dominate-womens-league-where-women-wont-accept-what-a-woman-is/
You’re easily impressed by mundane conservative propaganda.
propaganda? I don’t think you know the meaning of that word.
This is satire. Entirely different. Good try buzz-word boy.
and you’re easily disturbed by it. Free speech got you down? try communism and they’ll make you quiet.
OLLY,
Good one!
This line says it all,
“In the days leading up to James’ massive revelation, some WNBA players and coaches rushed to demonstrate their openness to male players joining the league, while others struggled to pierce the haze of enigmatic ambiguity that, in their minds, engulfs the question of what the W in WNBA stands for.”
Good grab. This kind of humor works because there is just enough truth in it. In fact, the truth in this story is 99% of it.
Why aren’t women who are transitioning to become men dominating men’s sports?
Because the best woman is a man.
Might makes right, even if it is nonsense.
The only difference here is that McCarthy was correct as we are witnessing with the state of the democrat party, while the tranny crowd is wrong now and will be wrong for eternity. This isn’t McCarthyism at this point, it a Jacobin revolution with a whole lot of crazies in the mob.
If they’re wrong, which is subjective, why is it then that they make-up 50% of the electorate, up 49% from 10 years ago. See a trend?
We all know that most of that 50% consists of indoctrinated, mis-educated young people who have been the test-rats for the great, failing anthropological experiments of social/progressive engineering that chases that “perfected man”. And throw in a bunch of old stoned hippie boomers for good measure and you get a Jacobin-like bunch of morons totally ignorant of their own ignorance about reality (those old hippies lost touch with reality back before Jon sang that miserable song “imagine”).
whimsicalmama,
I disagree with the whole 50% thing.
Bill Maher has stated his vote is in play and would vote for VP Vance if the Democrat party continues with the stupid and crazy.
James Carville has sais,
“Hasan Piker and James Carville are not going to be in the same political party. One of us is going to leave. It might even be me,” Carville said. “If he becomes a voice in the Democratic Party, I’m out. I have no intention of ever being in the same political party with that guy.”
A NJ Democrat Rep. recently said he was a common sense Democrat, and the DSA does not represent the Democrat party.
I think there is a loud minority within the Democrat party that is alienating the moderate and traditional Democrats. And, the DSA and their like, may find themselves getting the boot from the sane and normal Democrats. Or so I hope.
80% of the people don’t support trans guys in woman’s sports, any comment?
70% of the people support capital punishment, any comment?
How many people supported gay marriage when it was legalized by the courts?
How many people supported the open border under Biden?
How many people supported mixed marriages for a hundred years? The majority was wrong and yet you think they should rule?
Hullbobby, this is when they want the filibuster!
How many supported Obamacare? How many supported nuclear material to russia? etc…tiringly long list…
Luckily, sanity reigns. That’s how Trump got in and we’ll do it again.
Was it a private entity that fired him?
Do you ever STFU MORON ANON??
Re: “Do you ever STFU MORON ANON??” The persistence of contributors in replying to the manic ravings of these useless tools who have no life or purpose but to rise early, sit at their screens and rain vituperation upon those attempting rational conversation and exchanges of opinion has never ceased to perplex me these many years now. It’s the equivalent of encouraging the behaviors of the pervert in the raincoat masturbating in a public by not turning away. Verbal masturbation is all they can be encouraged to offer up.
If you think it’s morally right to ruin someone’s life, career, and reputation because they said women’s sports should be for women. you might be a moron. Not because the topic isn’t debatable. Because “destroy the person” isn’t a rebuttal, it’s an admission you don’t have one.
Good thing you’re anonymous.
Re: “If you think it’s morally right to ruin someone’s life, career, and reputation…” Such has been the task of the Woke Volksinitiativ, its Cancel Culture Gestapo, and its virtue signaling minions, in their efforts to reweave the fabric of society with threads of its own colors and, in the process wreck the lives and fortunes of all those who stand in opposition to them.
Morality and the left? does not compute.
It’s called passive-aggressive, and it dominates the leftists’ daily thoughts. Victim mentalities seek ‘revenge’ and find ways to justify it because their egos will not allow them to call their own morality into question. Once you believe you’re a victim, justifications to injure others are easy.
Prof. Turley – Please ban anonymous posters. They slither through the comments sections like cockroaches.
Cockroaches? You mean like what you do as “walrthompson” and the anons you use to insult and attack others here?
Grow up you stupid old fart.
Even Turley is not Turley but some anonymous intern of his…
I have used my name and only my name since joining this blog. YOU ARE THE “ANONYMOUS” COCKROACH and woefully ignorant to boot.
Do you like anonymous commenters pointing out your un-American stand on free speech? would you have us ‘show our papers’?
Some of us anons are patriots.
You seem to have touched an anonymous nerve! See below:
The fatal flaw of the far left is that they become imprisoned by their own positions. Once committed, they cannot recant. The reason is simple: they cannot admit to being wrong about any issue or assessment. To acknowledge a mistake, in their view, would be to concede that their theories might contain other flaws as well.
This explains their rigidity on COVID policies, transgender issues, illegal immigration, cancel culture, extreme climate measures, various entitlement programs, and numerous forms of hatred. Though their support is slowly eroding, they cling to hopes of achieving dominance before what they see as their eventual political annihilation.
Well, well, well. Finally a coherent comment. In fact one could say the same about conservatives here.
When was the last time that you saw a conservative gathering a mob of morons to burn down cities or have blue-haired tantrums because they didn’t get their way? Do not attempt to make that comparison fly, it just invalidates any claim you may attempt to make at a reasonably sound mind.
@Anonymous
Many of us are not Conservatives. Try again.
(The fatal flaw of the far left is that they become imprisoned by their own positions. Once committed, they cannot recant.)
Doesn’t this remind you of another insane cult; I am seeing ideologically trapped tools of an islamist ideology flying planes into buildings because their indoctrination was so effective.
Same mind set, different objectives but totally controlled by their ideology.
“Once committed, they cannot recant. The reason is simple: they cannot admit to being wrong about any issue or assessment. To acknowledge a mistake, in their view, would be to concede that their theories might contain other flaws as well.”
Trump to a T!!!!
Rigidity? It’s called an “all-or-nothing” thinking distortion. Lefty excel at every clinical thinking distortion because they have distorted thoughts.
Every Broadway theater is publicly subsidized. IN FULL. By the Feds, by the state of NY, and by NYC. Take subsidies away, and watch what happens. Wanna promote DEI? Do it at own expense.
Every? You got proof? Didn’t think so.
Ah yes. . .always asking for proof, yet you lack proof of your posts as well.
yep. every one. I looked it up, it’s true! Got proof otherwise wise guy?
Professor Beans Velocci claiming “sex isn’t real” . So tell me that you haven’t had any for years without telling me you haven’t had any for years.
Um… he wasn’t referring to coitus you dummy.
There’s always your hand.
Defund higher education. No government support whatsoever. Anyone who wants to go to Harvard can pay full freight.
Defund higher education…. you sound stupid, obviously you are the victim of defended higher ed.
MORON ANON
FYOU.
Yeah FYOU!
Name calling is not an argument. It’s a bad look, really.
Half of the posts are from MORON ANON!! PSYCHO!
Half of the posts are from MORON K!! PSYCHO!
You can’t even post with you’re own name…. Pitiful at best.
shut up you child. I’m telling your mom you’re being a jerk!
The performing arts have been a bastion of support for Marxist ideology since Marx first published his imbecilities, so this should be no surprise at all. I feel a bit sorry for Professor Turley, daily trying to find something worth writing about within the milieu of leftist idiots behaving absolutely true to form and expectations…
“The performing arts have been a bastion of support for Marxist ideology since …”
How do you come up with such stupidities?
“I feel a bit sorry for Professor Turley, daily trying to find something worth writing about…”
Well, he could always discuss his Fox-mate Pirro and her attempted prosecution of four innocents just because Donald is an utter idiot when it comes to paint-jobs.
So what’s to discuss? You already made your point. We could talk about how liberals are child molesters. You go first…
Hey! I got an idea! You could start your own blog, talk about anything YOU want and then we all could really ignore you.
This is because marxists are always looking for a way to NOT get a real job.
Imagine living in the land of opportunity and not taking advantage of any out of spite.
Never apologize to the left. Confessions are routinely used by communists to justify a maximum penalty, not leniency. Stalin shot lots of people who “confessed.” Only in Western courts do confessions secure a plea deal (at least for Democrat offenders).
For conservative defendants, it’s increasingly a bonfire of the vanities.
“onfessions are routinely used by communists to… ” So, just communists do it?
Communist and leftist are indistinguishable now.
Indistinguishable? So why are they spelt differently?
Marxist slight-of-hand but you can see the trick.
Found the commie leftist marxist socialist!
Better register with the federal government marxy.
@Diogenes
They really are. I don’t know who, other than their usual brain dead followers, the modern left think they are fooling. Their ‘big tent’ is a pup tent. It could equally be a clown car.
And I think we’ve found the clown-car driver, James. My troll is back.
I am heartened to hear another currently active pro female athlete speaking out for women. God bless her and protect her from the idiots who will pounce.
Jg, I’d like to have some empathy for the amazons but as a group they support transwomen so I have none.
I remember Howard Bryant from when I lived outside Boston and he wrote for the Boston Globe. Bryant was one of the first and worst race baiters and one of the reasons I unsubscribed to the paper. It will also be fun for anyone interested to Google Bryant and his trouble with the law for his actions with his spouse.
Because of an professional writers’ opinion you cancelled a newspaper subscription? How intolerant of you.
And now you spread vicious innuendoes on this blog to defame him?
Hate sure runs deep in your sick twisted mind. Even many years later … what sickness.
I am not spreading anything, just Google the guy.
If you knew how to read you would see that I said, and I quote, “…one of the reasons I unsubscribed….” Wow, you really are not that bright. Nasty and dumb is no way to go through life son.
“Nasty and dumb is no way to go through life son.” Well, you’re been doing it for 70+ plus years and look what’s become of you. A sick old man spewing hate all day long, every day, 365 days a year on this blog. Oh yeah, you’re a model of humanity. SF.
I will let your words speak for themselves.
I will let your words speak for themselves.
Stay away from mirrors
Hull has hate?????????????
Right he goes around calling to everyone to be hurt like you loons do everyday.
Get a grip.
Anon, you are just burying youself in your own crap here. touch grass, lithium is doing wonders for some people.
Yet YOUR intolerance is taking center stage just like every egotistic lefty.
He cancelled his subscription, a capitalist action, and you call him sick and twisted?
Who is intolerant here? Think mcfly