Liberal author Malcolm Gladwell has admitted he regrets not voicing his opposition to trans athletes competing in women’s sports.

Gladwell, 62, said he was previously intimidated into staying silent, but believes that ‘trans athletes have no place in the female category’.

The author revealed he is ‘ashamed’ of his performance moderating a panel discussion the issue at the 2022 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.

‘I’m ashamed of my performance at that panel because I share your position 100 percent and I was cowed at the idea of saying anything on this issue,’ Gladwell said on Ross Tucker’s podcast The Real Science of Sport Tuesday. 

Tucker, a sports scientist, also participated in the panel, where he argued against allowing trans athletes in women’s sports. 

Gladwell said the panel took place during the ‘time of peak trans ideology’.

‘I think in retrospect we will look back on the COVID period as a period of profound cultural destabilization. I think we all went crazy.’ he added.

The author mentioned that if the panel were held today, ‘it would be, I suspect, near unanimity in the room that trans athletes have no place in the female category. I don’t think there’s any question.’

Liberal icon Malcolm Gladwell expressed that he was previously deterred from voicing his belief that trans athletes should not participate in women’s sports. 

Gladwell is positioned on the far right as he moderates a panel on trans athletes in sports at the 2022 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. From the right: Gladwell, sports scientist Ross Tucker, trans athlete Joanna Harper, and sports journalist Katie Barnes.

This was a stark contrast to the 2022 panel when Gladwell appeared to support the inclusion of trans women in women’s sports, acknowledging former UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas as an ‘elite swimmer breaking lots and lots of records.’

He also asked whether she could qualify for the Olympic team, describing her case as ‘difficult,’ as reported by the New York Post. 

However, Gladwell revealed in this week’s podcast that he recognized trans activists had taken an ‘extreme’ stance after hearing remarks by panelist Joanna Harper, a transgender athlete, who insisted that trans women must be allowed to ‘win’ in women’s sports.

‘I heard that and thought, “This is nuts,” and yet I didn’t say anything.’ Gladwell said. 

‘And it was at that moment that I realized this position has gone, this argument has gone to the furthest extreme,’ he continued.

‘What the trans movement is not asking for—they’re not asking for, you know, a place at the table… What they’re asking is for no one to question the considerable physical and physiological advantage they bring to the sport, and no one to question if they’re going to win these races by five seconds. “Suck it up!”‘

Gladwell told Tucker the trans in sports topics was no longer about sports but about political and cultural issues. 

‘This was a much, much larger argument about a political argument, a cultural argument, and I think that those cultural winds have clearly shifted,’ he said.

Gladwell, 62, said is ‘ashamed’ of his performance moderating a panel discussion about trans athletes in sports at the 2022 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference

During the 2022 panel, Gladwell remained seemingly supportive of allowing trans women into women’s sports, saying former UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas was an ‘elite swimmer breaking lots and lots of records’

Gladwell, a Canadian journalist, author and public speaker, has sold more than 25million books.

The first five, which included The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference and Outliers: The Story of Success; were on the New York Times bestseller list.

The author is known for distilling published academic research into a popular format to reveal unexpected findings.