You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Later with mo Kelly. We're live on YouTube, Instagram, and the iHeartRadio app. Let's get to it, Jackie Ray, good to see you this evening.
Great to see you.
Zion Williamson. You may know him as a star when he's on the court. He's often injured, the star with the New Orleans Pelicans. You may know of him when he was a star at Duke University. But he also has a house here in Los Angeles, and he is in the news because a woman claiming to be one of Zion Williamson's exes has filed a lawsuit lawsuit I didn't say criminal charges lawsuit against the NBA star, alleging he raped, kidnapped, and terrorized her on multiple occasions throughout
their years long relationship. In fact, according to the suit, one of the violent incidents took place on September twenty third, twenty twenty, well within the statute of limitations. I'm putting that out there for a reason. And this was after the woman had gone on to Williamson's Beverly Hills home.
The accuser says she told Williamson.
She was tired of wanted to go to sleep, but he called her stuck up some other expletives, and told her allegedly that she could not go to sleep without having sex with him. Williamson then allegedly pinned her down on the bed and it goes on from there. Afterward, there were other incidents which were alleged. My first question to you is should I take anything from the fact that this is a lawsuit, not actual criminal allegations as far as I know, which were reported to the police.
Yes, I always, and I know sometimes especially women, they get mad when I say that. But as a woman, for me, anytime a woman files a lawsuit instead of seeking criminal charges, me seeking criminal charges is trying to make sure there are severe consequences on this person and
that they don't do it to other women. If I'm filing a lawsuit, the message, especially when you're talking about an aggressor, Let's say that we fully believe all of these allegations and everything she's saying happened happened exactly the way that it did. The lawsuit will probably eventually be settled. And now the message is to Zion if he did this and any other person who has done this is I can pay my way out of this. The message isn't don't do it again, it's I can pay my way out.
What about a situation like Cassie and I will talk about what Bill Maher had to say about Cassie and women filing lawsuits as part of my final thought to preview that. But in that specific instance, you had someone who filed a lawsuit because the statue libertations had expired and her only recourse was to do so because of the New York Adult Survivors Act, there wasn't a window opportunity for her to file criminal charges.
But but because of her lawsuit.
Law enforcement did follow up and subsequently filed criminal charges because what was found in a lawsuit?
What about that possibility?
But that wasn't the intent, And so for me, the intent the intent is always it means more than the outcome. Her intent was to have financial repercussions for what she went through. And I'm not saying she didn't deserve some financial repercussions for what she went through. I'm saying that as a woman, if I can prevent another woman from enduring that, that's going to be my goal.
Money is not.
Charger fifty five in our YouTube chat said a parenthetical, same thing happened to Trevor Bauer and Kobe Bryant. That is incorrect because both Trevor Bauer and Kobe Bryant faced criminal charges.
Correct. Correct.
And that's the thing because again, once you reach a certain status, male or female, there is a level of entitlement that I can just behave this way because what I'm just gonna throw some money at it, and normally people do go away.
So what's the endgame?
That's always my question when I see stuff like this, and when you're talking about twenty eighteen, twenty twenty, twenty twenty two, there's another problem. Again, I'm not saying that this didn't happen to this woman, but what I'm saying is now you've put yourself in a situation where it's difficult for people to believe you because now you've gone all this time and you've said nothing, and now you're not doing criminal charges, you're doing a lawsuit that could
potentially get you financial gain. Same thing happened with Cassie when she was on the stand. She said, you know, I didn't say anything because he might have replaced me, there's a level of lifestyle that she was getting used to.
That's a problem. I interviewed.
If you go way back in the Jackie Ray Show days, I interviewed a woman named Tasha Biltmore. She was doing this whole play about her domestic violence experience, and I had to ask her the question. I says, you know, I know this is going to be a difficult question, but I'm listening to you talk about years and years of abuse and I have to ask, what the hell
were you thinking? And she even said, in that situation, I knew if I left that my whole life would change as far as the lifestyle that I was accustomed to. It's difficult for me to really sympathize with you if you're seeking money, if lifestyle is a consider ration exactly, and so that's it's difficult for me to really say, Okay, yeah, you know this is horrible. If you're staying because you don't you don't want the money to go away, then that's the price.
I want to believe, and maybe I'm not, depending on who is listening right now, I want to believe I'm fair in this regard. I would like to be the person who's I'm not going to be the person who says, believe all women.
I'm not right.
I'm not because people lie people right.
I am going to be a person to say, let's hear the story and judge it on its merits. I don't know enough about the evidence in this. I do know the difference between a civil lawsuit and criminal charges as far as the standard a proof. I do know that in a civil lawsuit, all you need is the propounderance of evidence, which is fifty one percent, which is
a much lower standard. In other words, you have a greater likelihood of being successful financially as opposed to in a criminal child where you need beyond reasonable doubt.
Right, But then that's in a lawsuit like this. In the civil lawsuit, then it becomes the believability because unless she's recorded this, unless there were video surveillance in the house that showed this, what is the proof is gone now? And so now it's gonna be do you believe her in a court or do you believe zion? And that a lot of times comes down to likability, and that.
Is the large discussion for everyone to wrestle with. Some people in the chatter say I don't know who Zion Williamson is. Well that's really neither here nor there. If you follow NBA basketball closely, you know who he is. But the point is there is something to extract as far as this is not the first and won't.
Be the last.
Right, how do we look at the idea of a woman suing and not pursuing criminal charges within the statute of limitations?
So I'm gonna give some grace because I understand that if this were to happen to me, who knows how long it would take me to mentally be okay to even talk about this publicly. So that's first and foremost. You don't know how people respond to grief and trauma, So I'm definitely gonna give grace. I would like to think it wouldn't take from twenty eighteen to twenty twenty five, because again, at that point, I lose my credibility. So if my intent is to stop this from happening to
another woman, it can't be just about me. It has to be about stopping this abuser who by if what she's saying is true, this man feels entitled to do this.
And probably she would not be the only one that it's happened to exactly if we take.
Her at her word exactly.
So what I would say to any woman prayer forllly this never happens to you.
But if it does happen.
To you, you, as a woman should embrace the responsibility of making sure another woman does not have to go through that if you can have anything to do with that.
It's Later with mo Kelly.
Jackie Ray joins me in studio as we go beyond the Boxwell, when we come back, we have to talk about the trans athlete who won two girls air quotes and I mean that air quotes track and field events at the California State CIF Finals. That's next KFI AM six forty. We're live on YouTube, Instagram, and the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Later with mo Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.
It's Later with mo Kelly Live on YouTube, Instagram, andy I Heartradio App. As we continue to go beyond the box score with Jackie Ray. A huge subject and story here in California. The trans athlete who won two girls track and field events at California High School Track and Field Championships over the weekend took home gold in the
girl's high jump and the triple jump tremendous controversy. We know that the Trump administration is investigating whether California state law is in violation of Title nine federal law and its provisions for girls slash women's athletics on.
A scholastic level.
Let me just say this because I always feel like I have to do this as a precursor. This is not against the trans community, and I'm not going to disrespect anyone in the community, but when it comes to trans children, and they are children, and if they want to perform in athletics or compete in athletics, sometimes you have to tell your child no right and sometimes you have to do it because you have to teach the child that the world is not going to confirm to.
Your individual decisions.
Title nine in girls sports is predicated not only on fair competition, but a biological separation. Not a gender expression separation, but a biological one.
Where do you come out on this, Jackie Ray.
I think it's quite disappointing that this is even a thing. I think that any true athlete, a true competitor, someone who wants to go out there and win, wants to win against the best and if you are a biological male, there's just no way you can say that you are competing against your equal counterparts. You can't say that now, you can't say that just because you've been taking these hormones. You'll never be able to say that because you will
never be a biological woman. So for in the spirit of competition, every athlete I know wants to compete against the best, even if they know they might not win against the best. It's a level of competition and being able to get over and say, hey, I won that through my pure grit and strength. And so it's disappointing to me that so many transgender athletes even want to participate in women's sports, because however you identify is irrelevant
to me. It's a biological women's sports. And people forget how hard we had to fight talk about Title nine, Title nine. People forget all about Title nine. When I was coming up, there wasn't a WNBA until there was a WNBA, and part of.
Don't forget the ABL which preceded.
The NBA, right, But it was a fight to say, hey, we want to play sports. We want to play the same sports as men. There was a whole like if you read the history. And I know a lot of people don't read these days, but if you read, you read the history, there was a whole men did this whole campaign. When women were saying we want our own sports, men would say, oh, there's not enough women who would actually want to play sports.
That's right.
We had to fight against the narrative. We had to fight against men. We had to fight and just make our own leagues just to be relevant. And then even when you're talking about the WNBA right now, without even looking, we could go back on some of our podcasts and I would bet my last dollar that there's men in there that are saying the WNBA isn't as good as the NBA, and people are not watching it because of this. That and the third. The fight for women's sports is
never going to end. So for a biological man to want to jump into that ring is offensive. It's just flat out offensive.
Well it's offensive.
It is also unfair, and I think it demeans and diminishes the fight and the whole purpose of having. When I say women's sports that includes girl sports, I hate to say the same thing over and over again, but my argument hasn't changed. This is an expression of gender. It's not a change of your actual sex, your born sex, how you choose to express it, from makeup, hair clothes, that's gender, right, and title nine is not about gender.
It's about sex exactly, exactly. And I just think I'm a little disappointed. I kind of wish that the parents, and this is something that I would encourage parents to do when instead of taking to social media and being upset about this, which if you're a parent, you have every right to be upset, snatch your kid out. If all the parents that were competing against this transgender person said, you know what, if this is the game you want
to play, we're not gonna play it full stop. This is the thing, and people were like, oh, that's not It's one hundred percent fair because at the end of the day, I'm not competing against my equal and I'm not going to let you put my child in a situation where now they have to think that maybe they didn't train hard enough, maybe they're less than for any other reason, when there is a biological reason that they might not have won in that particular situation.
That's the whole point of having the girl's hide jump or the girls tackle jump.
That is the whole point.
Sometimes and this is broader than just sports. Sometimes you have to tell your child no. And although you can be supportive of the decision for their choice as far as how they want to express themselselves as far as gender to the world, it doesn't mean that they are also entitled And I know that's maybe a loaded word, but it might be the appropriate word. That they're entitled to then have access to every single space because of an individual decision of expression of gender.
Right, you, your personal choices in life do not affect the actual world. That's your little bubble in the world. How you choose, how you choose to live, like if you if you want to if you're a biological man and you want to live as a woman, that is
your bubble. That is your world you can but out in the real world, there's a certain set of rules that we have to conform to if we want a sense of fairness in this world, and this this entitlement, if you will to not have to conform to that is not only frustrating, but you're making enemies we're in don't need to be made. And I've said this time and time again. I know the transgender community only makes
up one percent of the population. But I've always said in boxing, we have heavyweight, lightweight, featherweight.
We have all reasons for a reason. There's a reason why we have so many divisions.
There's a reason why we don't let elementary school kids play with middle school kids, and why we don't let middle school kids play with high school kids.
We have all these different divisions for a reason.
Make yours not even middle school kids against high school kids.
We do it by year and age.
You know, we have eight year olds, let's say eight nine playing They don't play against nine and ten.
Year olds, right, And we also have nine and ten year olds who look like they're thirteen and fourteen, who can't play with nine and ten year olds.
Say, now, I got to argue with someone about this, and they didn't know that I had a history as officially.
So well, what about when you have boys.
And girls play on the same team when they're like nine and ten years old pre pubescent? I said, because they're pre pubescent on the other side of puberty. Then you have the biological differences. You have testosterone and estrogen playing an outsize impact on what these athletes will be. That's why you don't have the sixteen year old girl. I should say the sixteen year old boy playing in the girls league.
Come on, I mean, it's so basic as far as your intelligent level, how it has to be the level you have to be. It's not a high IQ argument.
No, And I reject the arguments like well it's only one athlete. It's look, rules are not about the exception. Rules are about for everyone to follow, not everyone except someone. And I think it's easier to delineate this because it's sports, because sports are predicated on fair play. Sports are predicated on even level of competition, and everybody follows the same rules, the same rules. Yes, I always say get the easy ones, right. I'm sorry, this is not being against trans people. Let
me be clear, it's not against trans people. If you want to express yourself in a certain way, if you want to live your life in a certain way, so be it.
How you dress, how you talk, how you interact.
But that does not grant you the right to then also expect to be it's not even welcome. It's just we're talking about access into things which are predicated on biological difference or and you said this before, so I'm gonna give this back to you. If you're not going to do away with biological differences, then this is the way it has to be. Or you can do away with biological differences and everyone just plays yeah, and that's never gonna happen.
And hello, why it's never gonna happen because there's no woman in the WNBA that can take a charge from Lebron James.
You know what I'm saying, Make it all, but that'll be the last game she played.
Right, forty year old Lebron James right now against Angel Wilson, the best player, or Nafisa Collier, the best players in the w I'm telling you right now, that is a concussion that's going to take months to recover from.
It is not the same.
And I think the problem in our society specifically is we have difficulties saying your difference is okay, and instead we want to say we're all this and no and damn well, we're not the melting pot. Like we all find differences in different ways, We're not a melting pot, and that differences are okay, embrace them.
Women have fought very, very hard for this position.
I would implore the trends community to come to us and ask us how we can help you fight for your space in sports, but don't take ours.
Jackie Ray, good to see it.
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty