The Josh Innes Show - Is This Soccer Player Transphobic?

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

A lady soccer player is being called transphobic because she thinks the professional lady soccer league should be for ladies only. It's crazy to me how controversial it is for women to feel this way. I also discuss the idea of me doing political talk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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How are you? Glad you're there today. I know it's been kind of all over the place the last couple of days. Then today I planned on getting a lot of these done early, but then I got stuck in a meeting for some video stuff that ended up taking like an hour and a half, which it should not have taken an hour and a half. But here we are. We're in this thing together. But let's do this. Let me get a couple of commercials out of the way, and we'll get into this story. Headline reads, Angel Cities Elizabeth Eddie, Edie. Ed. D-D-Y, Elizabeth Eddy, faces backlash after op-ed criticized as transphobic and racist. Well, I know nothing about this person, nor do I know anything about Angel City Soccer.

Are they in Los Angeles? No. Are they in San Diego? I don't know where the hell that team is. Wherever the hell it is. Angel City. I don't know. But let's get into this because I feel like if a bunch of people who cover ladies soccer think it's transphobic and

racist. It's probably not, but I'm curious now. So let's get into this after these words. All right, here we go. Angel City FC defender Elizabeth Eddie is facing criticism after she wrote an opinion piece for the New York Post, which her teammates have described as containing transphobic and homophobic or sorry, transphobic and racist language. I'm genuinely curious because a lot of these people just react to things the way they think they're supposed to, so they just call them transphobic and racist and everything else. But let's see. In the article, Eddie reflects on her 11-year career in the NWSL during which she has participated in three NWSL championships, three regular season titles, and one international champions cup. She recalls how games were initially live streamed to fans on YouTube and have since evolved into a $240 million television contract. And he continues by emphasizing the importance of protecting women's rights and ensuring competitive fairness in the sport.

She also highlights controversies in swimming and track and field that she says demonstrate the lack of standards regarding transgender athletes. Oh, boy. I love this story. I just love this angle so much. The whole like ladies and men being in women's sports and all that because both sides can be ridiculous on it. For instance, like if you think I believe that Clay Travis gives a shit if like a dude is in a woman's sport or gives a shit about protecting women's sports, I don't. But on the other hand, I love watching the people who are liberal and have to like tiptoe around this whole thing and act like they're totally cool with dudes participating in women's sports because they don't want to be considered transphobic or racist or homophobic or whatever. It's a fucking hysterical song and dance to watch people do.

Like watching them dance around this. Like, I know I get this a lot, and I was talking to a guy who programs a talk station yesterday, as a matter of fact, I was texting with this guy. Like now, all of a sudden, people who run talk stations think I'd be a good talk show host. Not a sports talk show host, but now people who run these stations now think I would be a good talk show host, a political talk show host, right? Like, no one ever reached out to me about doing this, ever. Now all of a sudden that I'm out here talking up fucking ZZ-Z-top records, now I'm like, oh, we think you'd be great at being a lot. a talk show host, but I'm texting with this guy, and I'm just kind of going back and forth about what I think is good talk radio, right?

Like, I'm not sitting there trying to get a job or whatever, but I'm talking with him about talk radio and about what I think is good and what I think is bad about political talk radio and about how I think fucking Clay Travis sucks. And I think, like, I think he was good at doing the sports stuff. I just, like, and I don't think he's a bad broadcaster or anything like that. I just don't like the content of these shows. I don't like rage bait shit. I don't like people who peddle in rage.

I hate it. I hate it. So I said, if I were to ever be a political talk show host or just a general talk show host, I would not be someone engaged in rage baiting bullshit, and there will be days that you'll listen to me, and you'll go, wow, this guy's super liberal. There'll be days you'll listen to me, and you'll think, wow, this guy is super conservative. And maybe that won't be a good thing. Maybe that will not be successful ratings-wise on the radio.

Maybe if you're going to be a conservative talk show host, you have to be hard, fast, steady, conservative on everything. Maybe. Maybe you have to be super maga to be successful. I don't really know because I've never done it on a full-time basis, right? I've done this podcast and sometimes I've had these thoughts on podcast, but I've never done like a full-on show like this. But that was the type of radio station this person reached out to me about. He's like, listen, we've got a conservative talk show, you know, but we think you'd be great at. We just want to keep in touch with you because we think you'd be great. We're big fans of yours. We know you from your sports stuff. if we see you on social media, like, yeah, they tell you all the right things, right?

Again, there's nothing I can do about it. I have a job here, and I have to win at this job. I came here to be successful, and I have to win at this particular job. But just like anybody, like if you get a call from someone and they're intrigued by what you do and they think you'd be great at something that's hard not to be turned on by that, at least to a degree, because why not? You spend a year being fired and no one's interested, now you've got a job, and someone else is like, hey, big market wants to have you do something that you know you could do. So it's interesting, but I was trying to tell him that, again, he didn't, I just asked him about his station and how they're doing and all this stuff.

And he was telling me about it. And I told him that I am a big believer that you can have viewpoints on things that aren't fully in line with one side. Like you can say, you know, I don't really care if a woman gets an abortion. but if she's, you know, like, like, I'm not a huge fan of the idea of abortion, but I'm not someone who's a big, like, a staunch opponent, right? The people who weird me out are people who run on platforms like, hey, like an abortion shouldn't happen, even if you get raped, like, I think you can, I think you can suck it on out of there, okay? Like, I, like, that's how I am. I have a differing viewpoint, like most humans, right? Most humans are down the middle on stuff, and that's what I believe.

Now, do I believe that would make for a successful talk show? Maybe not. You might have to be totally outraged by everything the liberals do to be a successful conservative talk shows. Maybe my viewpoint on it and my idea of how it should be would be a giant failure. I don't think it would be because if you do it right and you do it interesting, I think people would be intrigued. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. So what I do enjoy, though, is watching these people, these hardcore liberal people have to kind of like pick and choose which one of their little hills they have to die on on a particular day, right? Because on one hand, it's like, oh, we love women and women support women. But then on the other hand, when a woman says, hey, I think women's sports should not have transgender athletes,

then you have to jump on that high horse and judge that woman. So it's fascinating. It's fun to watch. But anyway, back to this. So this chick, this was obvious where this was going. This lady's soccer player wrote that we should protect women's rights and ensuring competitive fairness in the sport. And she highlights controversies in swimming and track and field that she says demonstrate the lack of standards, regarding transgender athletes.

Edy suggested that the NWSL should establish clear criteria for women participating in the sport. She proposed, quote, all players must either be born with ovaries or pass an SRY gene test. Edie believes, or Eddie, I probably, I'm just going to say Edy, Eddie, tomato, believes implementing these standards will help protect the integrity of women's sports. Angel City captains Sarah Gordon and Angelina Anderson have both publicly expressed their disagreement with the article, they emphasize the article does not represent the team's views and highlight their concerns regarding the transphobic and racist undertones presented in the writing. Why is that transphobic? Right?

Like, why is it homophobic to say, like, let me offer you my political leanings on something here, all right? My leaning about like gay people, right? Love gay people. Some of my favorite people are gay people. Gay people for whatever reason love me. And they used to love me a lot more before the whole world got super political. I had a bunch of gay people that were just infatuated with me. People that would call the radio show.

Gay dudes love me. It's because I'm a bear. I am aware that I'm a bear. And that's fine. Gay people think I am the cat's pajamas, right? And it might be because I go to the Cher show and I've seen Share five times and I sit in the second row for the share show. And this one guy wanted to fight me because his gay boyfriend thought I was cute. And it was a whole to do.

But whatever. So let me give you my thought. that and you tell me if this is a homophobic viewpoint right I don't care if gay people get married I don't care if gay people adopt kids I don't care if if gay people I literally do not care live a normal I fuck who you want to fuck do what you want to do I do not care however if there's going to be a gay pride parade that shouldn't be like license to just flop your cock out in front of the world like hey it's the gay pride parade but if you say that if you go hey don't flop your cock out in front of

a bunch of people you know what they take that as oh you're homophobic not at all not one thing i've said has been homophobic and the other viewpoint would be hey uh when i turn on like like like i'm not turned on by watching dudes bang each other doesn't mean you shouldn't be allowed to do it doesn't mean they shouldn't put it on film or in tv shows or whatever it means that when i see it it doesn't do anything for me and i'm kind of icked out by it because in the same way that a gay dude would watch a heterosexual bone and going on and be like ooh that's probably not for me that's how i feel when I watch two dudes make out, right? That's it.

I don't want you to be stripped of anything. I want you to have the right to do every single thing you want to do in life. But I guarantee you that viewpoint that I just gave that I just don't want to watch two dudes making out. They'll latch on to that one thing and turn it into, oh my God, you're a piece of shit. He doesn't want to watch two dudes making out. What a horrible homophobic. Not one thing I said is homophobic. Homophobic would be like, I don't think you should have any rights.

Gay is not the way, whatever, right? you know like those that the Baptist church people that show up at people's funerals and shit and protest shit you know like that would be like that I'm not like that at all the problem is these people are so outrageous and when I say these people I just mean in general like extreme leftist wackos are so extreme in general that if you like there can't be a a nuanced conversation of hey I love that you're gay be gay celebrate that you're gay have your gay pride parade do all that shit, but there comes a line where, you know, you flop your dicks around at a parade. Like, why is that the, like, why is that the understood thing that should happen at a gay

bribe right? And you say that, and you're homophobic. I have no idea, other than, you know, what this woman said about how they have to have ovaries or pass some S-R-Y gene test. Why that is considered transphobic. Transphobic would be something far more extreme and hateful. That is not hateful. Why is it hateful for a woman to say, say that she believes that women, people who are born women, should be in these sports. Why is it homophobic or transphobic or racist to say that you believe that women should be playing in women's sports? That's the problem I have.

The problem I have is not that people have these views or that people are bothered by her views. It's that we put a label on her views. Her views are transphobic. Her views are racist. Let's see what else she had to say that was the racist. I still haven't found the racist part of this. In a statement to the athletic, a spokesperson for the NWSL responded to her op-ed, emphasizing the league's commitment to collaborating closely with the NWSL Players Association on any changes to our league policies.

The commitment ensures players' voices remain central to our process, reinforcing our dedication to inclusion, trust, and transparency. It seems like you guys love inclusion, trust, and transparency as long as the opinions don't piss off left-wing people. this woman has every right to feel the way she feels. I also like when you write these kind of things and you have to make sure that, well, this doesn't represent the league. I've never thought it would. When I get on the radio and I say something on the radio, I don't assume that people believe that what I say is what I Heart Radio believes

or what WLLZ believes, right? So, like, and I've never done that. When I watch, like, Fox or ABC or whatever network and I'm watching a TV show and I see, you know, like NYPD Blue or something, and I don't believe that everything that happens at NYPD Blue is something that the people at ABC believe. Like, I don't know why that needs to be clarified, why people are such dipshits that they think that way,

but whatever. Angel City's response to Eddie's piece. Angel City released a statement a day after Elizabeth Eddie's article appeared in the New York Post. The statement emphasized that while everyone is entitled to express their opinions, the opinions do not necessarily represent the views of the entire organization. No shit. Like, I speak for me.

I don't speak for WLZ. If I were speaking for WLLZ or IHart, I would say I'm speaking on behalf of WLZ. Why does this have to always be clarified? Like, I never hear someone talk and think, that represents all of them. When some wacko teacher goes out and tries to fuck with kids in a school or some wacko teacher is putting up all these different random flags or whatever in a classroom to try to. to make a political statement, I never go into it going, well, she represents the whole school and all the teachers in the school. She represents herself. Since our founding, Angel City has remained committed to equity, inclusion, and belonging. These principles will always guide how we show up for our team,

fans, and community. Okay, cool. So that story was really a non-story. Like the gal had opinions about transgender athletes and soccer, and the team had to come out and say, well, we don't necessarily believe all this and that's that. It's just wild to me that saying that women should play women's sports is that big of a deal. Like that's a controversial take, right? Like women wanting to protect other women. Now, on the other hand, I also think the way that these people handle this is outrageous. And by these people, I mean the right-wing people who've glommed on to this, we're talking about a very small number of people who are involved, like transgender players involved in these sports. And who knows how many of them are actually all that good. Like in the

minds of the Clay Travis's of the world. Everybody's a fucking Joanna man with a wig, balls flopping everywhere, dunking on some four-foot tall chick in a high school basketball game. And I doubt that that's really how shit goes. Again, there's a nuance here. The left-wing people are fucking lunatics in the way they handle this, because if you speak in any way that seems negative, it's transphobic, it's homophobic, it's racist. On the other hand, Clay Travis is out here with his pitchfork saying that Joanna Man is nutsing people. and a middle school basketball game, which is also not true.

Like, these people are all crazy. And to the point that I was making with this person I was talking to about this political talk radio gig, and again, I'm not up for it. I'm not whatever. I was just, again, I'm always fascinating in talking with people about radio shit. I enjoy radio conversations. So I just, I want to know about their station, what they're doing, what their belief is. And you never know, I could get fired here tomorrow. So it's nice to have friends that, you know, are interested.

of course when you get fired they're no longer interested that's usually how it goes everybody loves you until you get fired from your job and then magically that job ain't there anymore that's usually how it goes but that was my point I was making to him is that now there are some things I have that I'm steadfast on that I'm a big believer in but most of my stuff is nuanced and it's case by case each situation's its own thing and I think I think like most people but anyway all right more to come