Former ESPN analyst Kate Fagan returned to Around the Horn on Thursday, appearing on the long-running sports debate show in its final days to advocate for the inclusion of transgender child athletes.
After 23 years on air, the final episode of Around the Horn will premiere on May 23, as the network announced the show’s cancelation in March.
Fagan, who left ESPN in 2018, included a message about supporting trans kids in sports in her conversation with former SportsCenter anchor Jemele Hill, who was fired in 2018 over tweets about Trump in his first term.
Fagan’s remarks come as Trump has taken significant steps in his second term to restrict the participation of transgender women and girls in women’s sports.
“Being on this show has been a privilege and a platform, and I know it’s my last time on it, and I want to say something worthy of that privilege and platform,” Fagan started on Thursday.
“That is this: trans kids deserve to play sports. Think about what you remember from your time playing sports and 99 percent of it is: finding that jersey for the first time, your favorite number, community, joy, those high-fives.”
Fagan continued, “It’s that moment when you have a great play with a teammate, it’s the feeling of belonging, and it does not know gender. Trans kids deserve that — the same as everybody else does.”
“This space on Around the Horn has been about diversity and inclusion, lifting up new voices because sports is joy and sports is humanity. And the more people who have that, the better,” she concluded.
On February 5, Trump signed Executive Order 14201, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.” This order prohibits transgender women and girls from competing on female sports teams at all educational levels — elementary, secondary, and post-secondary. It also threatens to revoke federal funding from institutions that allow such participation, citing violations of Title IX.
His administration has filed a lawsuit against the state of Maine for resisting the federal push to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports.
Fagan declined a contract extension with ESPN at the end of 2018 and left the network, citing structural challenges in mainstream sports media and a desire to step back from daily sports coverage.
Hill faced backlash in September 2017 for calling Trump a “white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists,” on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Hill joked about her firing on Thursday’s episode of Around the Horn, while reflecting on her past moments with host Tony Reali and the other panelists.
“I got a little bit nervous when I saw you were pulling up our tweets. Dude, I just came back, man!” she said.
