Mary Cain’s book and Nike’s trans-athlete study reveal the same pattern of corporate hypocrisy

Nike It presents itself as a company that is more than just selling sportswear. Of course it isn’t, but he wants people to think it is.

company preaches left-wing issues Like “inclusion”, “diversity”, “body positivity” and other empty platitudes (while the only goal remains to sell as many products as possible).

There is a page on Nike’s website titled Saying that sports should celebrate “the unique beauty and diversity of our bodies,” “Celebrating Every Girl’s Body” warns of a “narrow definition of beauty,” criticizes messages that encourage “undereating and overtraining,” and encourages adults to create “Body Talk Free Zones.” On another Nike page, “No Pride, No Sport,” the company says it is committed to “LGBTQIA+ belonging and visibility in sports” and that its vision is one where “everyone is invited to play.”

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So when it comes time to pay supporters to wear Nike apparel (again, to sell more Nike apparel), people may be shocked to learn that it’s not exactly about making sure “everyone is invited.”

That’s what makes former Nike Oregon Project runner Mary Cain’s new memoir a real problem for the sportswear giant. Promoting the book on Sarah Spain’s podcast, Cain described what she called “hot girl contracts,” basically saying that Nike openly signs some women because they’re “hot.” Meanwhile, he faced rumors of a “pay cut” or “layoff” under his performance standards, even though he was faster than some athletes held in terms of marketing value.

Cain’s book “It’s Not About Running” is uninteresting because it reveals that Nike wants to make money. Of course Nike wants to make money. It’s an American company and that’s always the goal.

What is interesting is the gap between preaching and behavior. Cain’s memoir highlights the contrast between Nike’s body positivity language and its actual marketing. In an excerpt published by “Outside,” Cain writes that he wears “five-pound Nike ankle weights” and goes on long walks because Alberto Salazar (former head coach of the Nike Oregon Project) told him he had “extra fat” to lose after the hydrostatic weigh-in.

Cain claims he weighed 115 kilos at the time and says even he couldn’t access the weigh-in file and was told the result. This sounds like a story in which a Nike official pushes for “undernutrition and overtraining,” which is the exact opposite of what the company claims to promote.

Salazar has denied any wrongdoing, and The Guardian reported that he and Nike settled a lawsuit filed by Cain in 2023 alleging harassment.

The publishing of the memoirs gets worse from there. Inside GuardIn ‘s interview for the book, Cain describes a Nike environment where people allegedly knew what was happening and allowed it to continue. The report alleges that Salazar’s boss and Nike’s then-vice president of marketing told Cain that cutting his hair could help him lose weight. She was also reportedly told she couldn’t do it because it “wouldn’t look good” and that she needed a different bra because people could see how big her breasts were.

Let’s go back to Nike’s own website and see how this lines up with the virtues they claim to have. Does this story sound like Nike is “Celebrating Every Girl’s Body” or is it a story where they want the body to look a certain way to sell more sneakers?

Although Nike seems to be a company about much more than selling sneakers, it is actually a company about selling sneakers. (Rachel Wisniewski/Reuters)

And if this all sounds familiar, it should. Because Cain’s memoir isn’t the only time Nike’s public stance of virtue runs into fundamental questions about what the company actually does.

As OutKick first reported in 2025, the evidence strongly suggests that: Nike was helping finance A study on 12-year-old young transgender athletes. In our reports, two researchers affiliated with the project, Dr. Kathryn Ackerman and Joanna Harper publicly stated that Nike funded the study. The New York Times also reported that Nike was financing this, and later told OutKick that he was confident the news was true.

Then came Nike’s response, and it was a classic corporate cop-out. At first Nike did not answer repeated questions. Later, after mounting public pressure, a Nike executive told OutKick that the behind-the-scenes work “was never initiated” and was “not moving forward.” But when OutKick asked whether Ackerman and Harper were wrong to say Nike was financing it, the executive reportedly said “no one was at fault” and suggested there were “gaps in the information chain.” Nike hid behind vague language because she didn’t want to explain herself.

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OutKick also found that there is a winter 2024 edition. Boston Children’s Hospital Magazine described the project as “supported in part by Nike, Inc.” and said the research was designed to answer questions about physiological and athletic changes resulting from gender-affirming care. Now there were researchers publicly saying Nike funded the study, a major hospital publication saying Nike supported it, and New York Times It survives by reporting that Nike is funding it. But Nike still mostly preferred silence and evasion.

Then the story changed again. Months later, Harper told Outsports that Nike pulled out “when the haters heard about it”; Which of course made things even darker, because it directly undermined the idea that the work was “never started.” In other words, Nike was willing to let other people speak publicly about its support when the transgender movement was a popular policy, but when the scrutiny came (as Americans became aware of what was really going on in the world of “gender-affirming grooming”) the company suddenly went silent.

That’s why the trans-study reports are in the same column as Mary Cain’s memoirs.

These are not two separate Nike stories. Rather, both are evidence of the same fundamental problem within the company.

Nike preaches left-wing talking points, but in the end, it’s nothing more than a company whose only goal is to make money. (iStock)

Nike wants applause from the public, but it especially wants to please the overly loud radical leftists who dominate social media. That’s why there’s a page on the website dedicated to body confidence; that’s why he uses words like “inclusion” and “diversity”; That’s why there are so many cute catchphrases about belonging, pronouns, and who gets to play.

But when real scrutiny comes, whether it’s a former star airing a memoir about how a female athlete’s body is actually treated on a Nike-affiliated show or reporters asking fundamental questions about a politically explosive teenage athlete investigation, Nike suddenly becomes the master of silence, background commentary, and strategic ambiguity.

This is the part worth working on, not because Nike is greedy or calculating. Of course it is.

Companies need to make money. They need to want attention, market share, and relevance. There’s nothing remotely scandalous about Nike trying to sell more shoes or treads for reasons it believes will help the brand. The problem is claiming that all of this is moral enlightenment rather than corporate strategy. This makes Nike a hypocritical money-making machine. This doesn’t even include how the company is largely He keeps his mouth shut about China (because someone has to make these shoes and there are 1.4 billion potential buyers in the country) While shouting “social justice” in America.

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Nike is free to make as much money as possible; that’s capitalism. Nobody is bothered by this. But many people are tired of classes. Spare everyone the body positivity nonsense as public memoir excerpts describe a young runner sent on ankle-weight power walks after being told she had fat to lose.

Cain also claims that Nike pays less talented athletes more because they provide better marketing. He publicly referred to this dynamic as “hot girl contracts” and described Nike’s discussions about signing some women for marketability while facing talk of a pay cut or termination despite being faster.

Again, duh. People who look better generally sell more products.

But spare everyone the inclusivity talk, because when it comes time to be “inclusive” about who gets the marketing checks, it turns out it’s a very privileged group.

Stop lecturing Americans about “LGBTQIA+ belonging and visibility in sports,” then stop blocking basic questions about a study involving “transgender-identifying” youth and medical transition when OutKick comes knocking.

Mary Cain’s memoir and OutKick’s reporting do not prove that Nike is uniquely bad. They prove something much more mundane and much more useful: Nike is a giant company that likes to virtue-signal when it’s good for business. What he doesn’t like nearly as much is simple responsibility.

This is why the book of Cain is important. Not because he told everyone Nike wanted money. Everyone already knew this. This is important because it reminds people that when Nike starts lecturing Americans about bodies, inclusion, or fairness, the first response should be very simple: sell the shoes and stop preaching to us.

OutKick reached out to Nike for comment on this story, but the company did not respond to our request.