Stars on Mars contestants blast disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong for wanting to separate trans athletes

Some of Lance Armstrong's fellow Stars on Mars celebronauts would prefer he take his opinions to another planet.

For some reason, the disgraced former pro cyclist chooses to share his thoughts about trans athletes on the latest episode of the Fox reality show while the other contestants are just trying to get in a freeze-dried meal before preparing for their next mission.

Seemingly unprompted, Armstrong tells Ronda Rousey about being asked on a podcast to discuss "transgender stuff in sports" on Monday's episode. "I said, 'Listen, this is real simple: You want to transition, let's do it. You have your own category,'" he says. "'We're gonna have a whole new division. We'll celebrate you just like we celebrate everybody else. Let's go.'"

"What's unfair about that?" wonders Armstrong, who has admitted to doping for the bulk of his cycling career.

Fox Lance Armstrong on 'Stars on Mars'

That's when Tinashe steps in to answer his rhetorical question. "To me, I think we just have to care about if you otherize people. It's not good for their mental health," the musician says, explaining that to otherize is to "exclude them from the same spaces and places that everyone else" is in.

Armstrong rebukes, "Actually, no, we're not excluding anybody. And, by the way, I sound like a right-wing lunatic. I'm not. I'm the most liberal person, but from a sporting perspective..."

"You're ostracizing the people who don't fit in the categories," replies Modern Family alum Ariel Winter, who's no stranger to clashing with Armstrong on the show.

"That's not the conversation you need to be having here," scolds Real Housewives of Atlanta star Porsha Williams. "You're not at your kitchen table," she reminds the athlete.

Olympian Adam Rippon remarks that he finds Armstrong's words "so disheartening" and and notes that the conversation around trans athletes is "way more nuanced." In a private confessional, the figure skater says the comments "have completely shifted the energy and have completely shifted the focus and I will not ever forget them."

"I wasn't really shocked to hear his opinions," Tinashe says of Armstrong in her own confessional, "but I definitely didn't think that he should be the spokesperson for that."

In 2012, Armstrong was famously stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and an Olympic bronze medal, and issued a lifetime ban from competing professionally in cycling after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency charged him with using and trafficking banned performance-enhancing drugs, including the blood-booster hormone erythropoietin and steroids. After years of denying it, he finally admitted to doping in a sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey.

This isn't the former athlete's first time offering up his unsolicited thoughts on transgender people competing in sports. He just launched a new daily podcast series, The Forward, all about the topic. It premiered June 26 with his first guest, Caitlyn Jenner.

Announcing his new series, Armstrong caused a stir when he said he was questioning the "fairness of trans athletes in sport" in a June 24 tweet. "Have we really come to a time and place where spirited debate is not only frowned upon, but feared?" he wrote. "Where people's greatest concern is being fired, shamed, or canceled? As someone all too familiar with this phenomenon, I feel I'm uniquely positioned to have these conversations."

Many trans people and allies were quick to point out that Armstrong cheating in sports for years seemed to make him more of a hypocrite than "uniquely positioned" to question whether transgender athletes have an unfair edge over their cisgender peers.

"Armstrong also acts as if he's the first to ask these kinds of questions. Of course, in reality, many people with far more integrity and actually relevant expertise have been debating this issue for years," Canadian cyclist and trans rights activist Veronica Ivy wrote in an MSNBC opinion piece. "No, being banned for doping with performance-enhancing drugs doesn't mean you know a thing about trans women's physiology or the level of hate we have to put up with."

Stars on Mars airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Fox.

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