Nike-Backed Smithsonian Exhibit On Trans Athletes Criticized By Jillian Michaels
Visitor data shows most reject transgender participation in women’s sports despite exhibit framing.
PublishedAugust 14, 2025 4:22 PM EDT•UpdatedAugust 14, 2025 4:22 PM EDT
Apparently, there's an exhibit at the Smithsonian – inside the National Museum of American History – that asks visitors to give their opinions on transgender athletes. Not only that, but the exhibit is sponsored, in part, by sports apparel giant Nike.
Jillian Michaels, one of the original "fitness influencers" and a staunch defender of women's sports, brought it up during a segment on CNN, asking why the exhibit exists and why it is promoting a false claim.
"[The exhibit]… talks about how it's complex to do gender testing in sports. It's not complex. It's basic science," Michaels said. "Is it it fair to have biological men competing against biological women in sports? No, but why is this in the Smithsonian?"
To Michaels' point, gender testing is not complex. As OutKick reported, World Athletics has implemented testing for athletes so that only women can compete in the women's category. The "complex" test they plan to conduct on athletes to prove their biological sex is a cheek swab that is then used to check for XX or XY chromosomes. It's simple: if a person has XY chromosomes, they can't compete in women's sports. That's not complicated, nor invasive.
Visitor Reactions to the ExhibitIn addition, the exhibit asks visitors to pick "fair or foul" on several different sports topics. Several of the questions surround transgender athletes. It also says that Lia Thomas "was assigned male at birth," rather than the correct phrasing: "Lia Thomas, formerly William Thomas, is a male who claimed to identify as a woman and dominate women's swimming at the NCAA Division I level."
Jillian Michaels questions Nike-backed Smithsonian exhibit on transgender athletes, sparking debate over fairness, gender testing, and women’s sports.
(Getty & Imagn Images)
Still, based on photos taken in January that were sent to OutKick by XX-XY Athletics, 60% of respondents said that transgender athletes competing in women's sports was "foul," despite phrasing that clearly encouraged visitors to vote in support.
Another question, "Is gender testing fair or foul?" had a 58% "fair" response rate. Again, this is despite a slide that says Caster Semenya, an intersex athlete with XY chromosomes who produces more testosterone than females, was forced to "reluctantly" take medication "to suppress her body's naturally high testosterone levels."
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Smithsonian exhibit on transgender athletes, partly funded by Nike, sparks debate over fairness, gender testing, transgender athletes, and women’s sports. (XX-XY Athletics)
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Smithsonian exhibit on transgender athletes, partly funded by Nike, sparks debate over fairness, gender testing, transgender athletes, and women’s sports. (XX-XY Athletics)
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Smithsonian exhibit on transgender athletes, partly funded by Nike, sparks debate over fairness, gender testing, transgender athletes, and women’s sports. (XX-XY Athletics)
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Smithsonian exhibit on transgender athletes, partly funded by Nike, sparks debate over fairness, gender testing, transgender athletes, and women’s sports. (XX-XY Athletics)
In another interesting plot twist about this exhibit, one of the exhibits that President Donald Trump has ordered a review of due to misleading historical context, is that Nike is one of the sponsors.
As OutKick extensively reported, Nike appears to have funded a youth transgender athlete study. Although the main parties involved in the study – including the leading researcher, have refused to discuss the study – OutKick stands by its reporting that Nike was, at least at one time, financially invested in studying whether transitioning young males early enough could allow them to compete in girls' and women's sports.
Despite Nike's silence on the study, their presence as a sponsor of a Smithsonian exhibit that discusses transgender athletes – generally in very positive terms – raises more questions about why the sports apparel giant is so invested in this issue.
Nike is one of the sponsors of a Smithsonian exhibit titled "Change Your Game" which focuses heavily on transgender athletes in women's sports.
(XX-XY Athletics)
Remember, Nike constantly purports itself as a defender of women's sports. They recently ran a Super Bowl advertising campaign centered around WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark and other high-profile female athletes. The ad is called "So Win." and it leans on outdated stereotypes of female athletes to make a point about misogyny and sexism in American society, especially as it relates to athletics.
Why does a company that claims to support and lift female athletes refuse to condemn males competing in women's sports and invading women's locker rooms? It doesn't make any sense. Unless, of course, Nike isn't really as interested in promoting women's sports as they are in promoting left-wing talking points. Their political position appears to trump everything else.
Nike supports women when it's politically convenient, but quickly bails on that when the transgender athlete issue moves to the forefront. As the radical left-wingers have consistently shown, in the "victimhood hierarchy" males who claim to identify as women are far more important than… women.
To see two major United States institutions, Nike and the Smithsonian Institution, pushing gender ideology on American citizens is incredibly disappointing. Unfortunately, it's not all that surprising.