Curt Schilling Fired From ESPN Over Anti-Transgender Comment on Facebook

One of ESPN’s biggest baseball analysts, Curt Schilling, has been fired from the network, the New York Times reports.

Schilling was reportedly terminated on Wednesday, just one day after he was criticized for commenting on an offensive Facebook post regarding North Carolina’s controversial LGBT law that bans transgender people from using bathrooms and locker rooms different from their gender at birth.

Although Schilling did not post the message, he did leave a comment on the photo of an overweight man donning a wig and women’s attire that had cutouts in the breast area, the Times reports. The picture included the words, “LET HIM IN! to the restroom with your daughter or else you’re a narrow-minded, judgmental, unloving racist bigot who needs to die.”

Schilling reportedly left the following message: “A man is a man no matter what they call themselves. I don’t care what they are, who they sleep with, men’s room was designed for the penis, women’s not so much. Now you need laws telling us differently? Pathetic.”

In a statement obtained by the newspaper, ESPN denounced Schilling’s opinion regarding the post.

“ESPN is an inclusive company,” the network said in a statement. “Curt Schilling has been advised that his conduct was unacceptable and his employment with ESPN has been terminated.”

While Schilling did not offer a statement to the publication, he did take to his personal blog to air his thoughts on the situation in a blog post titled “The hunt to be offended ”

“This is likely the easiest way to address all of you out there who are just dying to be offended so you can create some sort of faux cause to rally behind,” he started. “Let’s make one thing clear right up front. If you get offended by ANYTHING in this post, that’s your fault, all yours. This latest brew ha ha (sic) is beyond hilarious. I didn’t post that ugly looking picture. I made a comment about the basic functionality of mens and womens restrooms, period.”

This isn’t the first time Schilling’s social media etiquette has put him in hot water with his employer. Last year, he was suspended from ESPN for a month for a comment he made on Twitter, which compared extremist Muslims to Nazis.

However, this time, even Schilling’s son Grant came to his defense, writing in a Facebook post that while his father may not be the “most well informed in the modern LGBT+ culture,” he has worked hard to understand the community and has even allowed Grant’s “trans friends to stay over [and] respected pronouns and name changes.”