Nike was allegedly funding research tracking the physical performance of boys put on puberty blockers and wrong-sex hormones

Why don't people seem to care all that much?

Nike, the world’s largest and most influential sport brand, is (or was? more on that later) funding research that tracks the physical degradation of adolescent boys when they take puberty blockers and wrong sex hormones. Why? Nike wants to understand if little boys can be impaired enough that if it might be fair for them to compete against girls.

If it sounds far-fetched that an athletic clothing and shoe brand would participate in conducting medical experiments on children, I’d tend to agree with you. But it appears to be true. At least according to The New York Times.

The New York Times Magazine published an article on April 20 that included the following:

“[Joanna] Harper [PhD researcher] is currently helping to lead an ambitious study of trans adolescents that measures their results on a 10-step fitness test before they start hormone therapy and then, after they have begun to medically transition, every six months for five years. But, she told me when we talked in February, ‘the current climate makes the study somewhat uncertain.’”

Harper is a trans-identified male who was an advisor to the International Olympic Committee on “matters of gender and sport.” This is how he self-describes on HuffPost.

Harper is a big reason that Imane Khelif — a male boxer with a DSD (difference in sex development) — was able to compete and win gold in the women’s boxing division in Paris last summer.

Harper was interviewed in The New York Times piece — which was largely about the dust up with San Jose State University fielding male player Blaire Fleming last season, which prompted boycotts from many opposing teams in the Mountain West Conference.

But the article diverged to discuss “retained male advantage” (presumably to further a debate on whether or not Fleming should have been allowed to compete on a women’s volleyball team) and Harper entered the chat to say well, we’re conducting a study paid for by Nike to determine how much retained male advantage we can do away with in young boys if we give them puberty blockers and wrong-sex hormones. You heard that right. How much can we disable young boys to make them viably competitive with girls, such that they don’t stand out too much? So much wrong with this.

Only Outkick has followed up on the story. They first wrote about it here. And here. And the follow up yesterday, with a response from both Nike and The New York Times here. Reporter Dan Zaksheske doggedly pursued Nike to get a statement, eventually.

An unnamed executive finally said “no one was wrong” but there might have been some “gaps in the information chain.” Also, according to the executive who contacted Outkick to clear things up, the study “was never initialized” and “is not moving forward.”

The New York Times was also followed up with and said: “We are confident in the accuracy of our reporting.”

Shots fired.

So, as a long time corporate executive insider, what this says to me is (Note: I have none of this on direct knowledge but I’m just applying insight as to how things generally work in corporate America):

• Harper, who doesn’t work for Nike, went rogue and talked publicly about the study. And why wouldn’t he? He’s proud of this work. And was probably never told it was a secret. Or at least not something to be shouted about.

• A decision was made deep within the organization to do this work. Or possibly by the Nike Foundation, a separate non-profit organization.

• The study was funded by either Nike or the foundation. It’s not clear.

• It’s very possible senior executives didn’t even know about it. They have a new CEO and there are lots of changes happening at the top. The business is challenged — the stock is down 38% in the last year — and the senior leaders are struggling to regain focus (great product, unifying marketing) and haven’t reigned in all the rogue projects yet.

• Times have changed and funding work like this isn’t the tout-able win it once would have been considered in Portland.

• And so now, the big wigs at Nike are going whoa whoa whoa, lets put the brakes on.

• But once decisions are made at the top, it can take a long time for those decisions to wend their way through the business, to the woke operatives deep down in the organization.

I spoke about it here to Dan Dakich for Outkick this past week.

So here we are.

We don’t know what it means to say the study “was never initialized.” It seems to suggest that it was concepted but then stopped. Probably because it became controversial in the context of today’s conversation on the subject of boys competing in girls sports. Probably because it appeared in the pages of The New York Times and prompted questions.

But this study should have always been controversial and off limits. Why on earth would a company that makes running shoes fund — or at the very least incentivize —medical experiments on children?

And, when it comes to girls’ athletic abilities, they are not impaired boys. It’s a demeaning and degrading starting point to assert that if we just hamper boys enough it might be ok for them to compete against girls.

That’s the summary of the current state. There has been coverage but not a ton. As yet, the media doesn’t seem to care all that much about this. Nike is a media darling, so why would they? There also hasn’t been much — enough? — outrage from consumers. From my view, this is so much worse than Bud Light featuring trans-identified-superstar Dylan Mulvaney in a social media campaign for their watery beer. And a boycott should be imminent. But it doesn’t seem to be.

Here’s a video which summarizes the state of things: