Democrats playing footsy with fascist Charlie Kirk over hating trans people. This is the party that’s supposed to be the great defenders of LGBT people?
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a pioneer for LGBTQ+ rights who decades ago upset leaders in his own party when he defied state law and issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples, suggested Democrats were in the wrong in allowing transgender athletes to participate in female college and youth sports.
“I think it’s an issue of fairness, I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness — it’s deeply unfair,” Newsom said in his debut podcast episode of “This is Gavin Newsom.” “I am not wrestling with the fairness issue. I totally agree with you.”
Newsom’s comments on the issue roiling political debates nationwide came in a conversation with influential MAGA-world figure Charlie Kirk, the campus culture warrior who leads the organization Turning Point USA and is a close ally of President Donald Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr.
Newsom also agreed that the most politically destructive attack ads from Trump’s campaign featured Kamala Harris’ support for providing taxpayer-funded gender transition-related medical care for detained immigrants and federal prisoners.
“She didn’t even react to it, which was even more devastating,” Newsom said, suggesting upward of 90 percent of Americans disagreed with Harris’ position. “Then you had the video [of Harris] as a validator. Brutal,” Newsom added. “It was a great ad.”
Kirk challenged Newsom, a likely 2028 presidential hopeful, to speak out against AB Hernandez, a transgender high school track star from California whose triple jump event in the women’s competition is drawing fierce backlash from the right. Newsom said he has four children of his own — including two daughters — and noted that both he and his wife participated in college-level sports, she in soccer and he in baseball.
“I revere sports, so the issue of fairness is completely legit,” Newsom said. “And I saw that — the last couple years, boy did I [see] how you guys were able to weaponize that issue at another level.”
Kirk challenged Newsom over his use of the word “weaponize,” and Newsom replaced it with “highlight.”
There’s an interesting and nuanced conversation to be had about fairness in sports. Many athletic associations have guidelines in place that allow trans athletes to compete in a way that is as fair as possible to them and other competitors. Are they all perfect? Probably not, but having this conversation in the first place is the best way to ensure these associations can make competition as fair as possible to trans and cis athletes alike.
But of course this conversation will never take place, because the goal was never to make women’s sports more fair. It’s always been about trans erasure.
The easy solution is to get the government (including schools) out of sports entirely. Make them independent clubs, and they can set their own rules.
Schools are too focused on their sports programs anyway.