Over the weekend, Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a Republican, appeared on Fox News and made a baseless, inflammatory claim about transgender people in sports — this time suggesting that entire teams of men are deciding to transition to compete in women’s athletics.
That's not happening.
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The former Auburn football coach, who should know a thing or two about student-athlete eligibility, offered zero evidence during his appearance on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Barteromo. “We have entire men’s teams across this country now that are turning trans,” Tuberville, 70, said. “Women’s teams, they’re turning trans.”
Related: 20 things we have more of than transgender NCAA athletes: From Trump felonies to measles cases
He continued: “That’s going to be a situation where it’s going to pick up speed because these woke globalists are pushing these kids to say if you can’t compete in men’s sports, let’s just transition and say you’re a woman and participate in women’s sports.”
His remarks came amid a broader attack on Democrats, LGBTQ+ people, and youth in sports.
“The Democrats know that transgender boys in women’s sports is wrong, but they can’t abandon them because the rest of the group would probably say, ‘Hey, if you’re not going to stand with us, we’re out of here for you Democrats,’” Tuberville said. “And so it’s wrong. Everybody knows it’s wrong. We’re going to ruin women’s sports. It’s a disaster.”
When The Advocate asked Tuberville’s office to provide evidence for his sweeping claims — including even a single example of the alleged widespread subterfuge in American athletics — his team did not respond.
The senator's claim isn’t just absurd — it’s flatly contradicted by data from the organization governing college sports.
The NCAA, which oversees more than 530,000 student-athletes across 1,100 colleges and universities, did not respond to a request for comment. But NCAA President Charlie Baker told the U.S. Senate in December that there were “less than 10” transgender athletes participating in NCAA competition nationwide.
That’s 10 out of more than half a million.
Related: Donald Trump bans transgender athletes from playing sports
Tuberville’s remarks came as he referenced a viral incident involving a cisgender fencer who was disqualified from a recent tournament at the University of Maryland for refusing to compete against a transgender opponent. That fencer, 31-year-old Stephanie Turner, was penalized under USA Fencing rules. Turner took to Fox News and right-wing media to describe the disqualification as a civil rights issue — a claim USA Fencing quickly pushed back on.
“A fencer is not permitted to refuse to fence another properly entered fencer for any reason,” USA Fencing said in a statement to the Associated Press. “This policy exists to maintain fair competition standards and preserve the sport’s integrity.”
But Tuberville took that moment and ran with it.
“This young girl in Maryland on the fencing team said, ‘Listen, I can’t beat this guy. Why don’t you give me a chance?’” he said. “We have entire men’s teams across this country now that are turning trans—women’s teams they’re turning trans.”
In reality, Republican lawmakers are using trans kids — again — as scapegoats for a fabricated crisis.
And as LGBTQ+ people continue to be targeted by statehouses and the White House alike, advocates say the damage of this kind of rhetoric is real.
“Elected officials pushing obvious lies are failing their constituents in multiple ways,” a GLAAD spokesperson told The Advocate. “The number of transgender people playing sports is dramatically outnumbered by the lies in conversations like this... All youth deserve leaders who will at minimum tell the truth and be a champion for their right to be themselves.”
Transgender athletes have become a favorite target of Republican lawmakers across the country, especially in the wake of President Donald Trump’s February executive order banning transgender women and girls from participating in female sports divisions. That order led the NCAA to revise its transgender participation policy.
Trans women may now only practice with teams and receive benefits like medical care but cannot compete.
Meanwhile, real issues affecting Alabama — including cuts to critical federal research funding — have drawn far less attention from the senator. In 2024, the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Heersink School of Medicine received more than $270 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health, the 28th-highest total in the nation, Al.com reports. That funding is now threatened by cuts initiated by the Trump administration — a fact Tuberville has not addressed with the same urgency as his anti-trans talking points.
Less than one percent of Americans over age 13 identify as transgender, according to UCLA’s Williams Institute, and fewer still participate in competitive sports.
There are no “entire men’s teams” turning trans. But there is an entire political strategy built on pretending there are.
