Mark Cuban says Americans 'aren't ready' for transgender athletes yet: 'You ​can't just force it down people's throats'

Billionaire Mark Cuban said people are not ready to accept transgender athletes in sports and it should be up to their opponents to decide if they want to compete against them.

Cuban spoke to controversial commentator Stephen A. Smith on his podcast, and Smith remarked that while he voted for the Democrats, he was "disgusted" with how the party was caught up in "identity politics" and "cancel culture."

Broadly speaking about diversity initiatives, the Dallas Mavericks owner said it was wrong of Democrats to make transgender inclusion a "national issue" and particularly wrong of them to demonize those who did not agree with it. However, he did allude to the idea that biological males should be included in women's sports down the road.

"To make it a national issue so that if you weren't supporting the fewer than 10 trans athletes in the NCAA, then you weren't a good person. People just aren't ready for that yet," Cuban said. "You've got to meet people where they are. It takes time; you can't just force it down people's throats."

After stating that the United States has come "so far" in race relations and "attitudes towards LGBT," Cuban said the focus should be on helping the disadvantaged and implied that transgender people are somehow "discriminated against."

"Instead of trying to get where the people who are being disadvantaged and being discriminated against are helped, they wanted to make it a campaign issue. Focus on helping the people, not using them to campaign," Cuban said on the "Stephen A. Smith Show."

As for the women who are forced to play against male athletes, Cuban said it should still fall on the women, the "opponent," to decide if they want to compete against men.

"My attitude is, if there's a trans athlete, no matter what side, you let the opponent — whether it's an individual sport or a team sport — you let them decide if they want to compete against them or not," Cuban noted.

At the end of the day, Cuban thought that "how you help" transgender people, or anyone who is allegedly being discriminated against, is by "getting elected" and then doing the work.

'I think [DEI] really turned off a lot of people ...'

Cuban later said that President Donald Trump "wasn't wrong to a certain extent" when he told white men who worked at large companies that diversity, equity, and inclusion programs were the reason they were not getting jobs or securing promotions. He also said Trump was partially correct to say low-wage workers were having their roles filled by illegal immigrants.

However, the entrepreneur explained that he would rather have seen the Democrats come up with solutions rather than "just talk about" how Trump was wrong.

"I'm a fan of DEI. I think it really turned off a lot of people who felt like they were being diminished, and then there were, particularly in universities, the way they implemented DEI and spent tens of millions of dollars instead of just helping people ... it was, 'Let's put together these programs, let's spend all this money, let's tell people that they are racist when they're not racist,'" Cuban went on.

Overall, Cuban thought Democrats need to target small towns that have been affected by the Department of Government Efficiency through federal employee cuts and talk to mayors and taxpayers who might lose federal funding.

"There's no point to talk about [Trump]," Cuban said. Rather, Democrats just have to go and help the people who need help.

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