'Will keep men out of women's sports': Donald Trump vows to take action over trans athletes amid ongoing debate
DALLAS, TEXAS: Former President Donald Trump demanded a ban on teaching radical racial, sexual and material to children during a speech to a conservative audience on Saturday evening, August 6, at CPAC Texas in Dallas. He also called for the abolition of the Department of Education and vowed to "keep men out of women's sports". Trump also introduced Riley Gaines, 23, a former college swimmer, who is associated with the campaign against transgender sports.
"Basically, all I want to say is that it takes a brain and common sense and fifth-grade biology level understanding to realize that this is blatantly unfair. It's completely obvious," she said. "I'm just gonna say keep female sports female." Gaines tied with transgender athlete Lia Thomas in March for fifth place in the 200-meter freestyle NCAA championships.
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During his speech, Trump prepared the grassroots for November's midterms. He stressed his belief that parents should be given more power to decide what their children should be taught. Trump said it was time to smash the "radical left's corrupt education establishment." "What's more basic than parents' rights, especially parents' rights over their children? We're trying to defend parents' rights," he said. "It's so crazy." He added, "Across the country, we need to implement strict prohibitions on teaching inappropriate racial, sexual and political material to American schoolchildren in any form whatsoever. And the federal bureaucrats are going to push this radicalism. We should abolish the Department of Education."
"And we will keep men out of women's sports," Trump vowed. The statement stemmed from an ongoing debate over whether transgender women have a competitive advantage over their biological competitors, after undergoing testosterone suppression.
The case of Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania, has given rise to various debates and discussions over transgenders being allowed to compete with women. Thomas competed for three years at Penn as a man, Will Thomas, before the transition.
At a meet on November 20, 2021, Thomas had a 1:43:47 time in the 200-meter freestyle and 4:35:06 in the 500-meter freestyle. These times, which were records for Penn, would have placed Thomas second and third, respectively in the NCAA Women’s Championships. Thomas breaking women’s records has, like always, raised questions about how fair it is when people who are born as men compete as women.
There has been a lot of debate surrounding what is fair on the field, the court, the track, and in the pool. However, the international swimming authority, FINA, recently announced that transgender women can compete in the organization's women's races only if they completed their transition by the age of 12.
The audience saw the former president bash House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, called for the National Guard to provide law and order in cities hit by crimes, and demand death sentences for drug dealers.
Trump also hinted at the possibility that he could run again in 2024. "I ran twice. I won twice and did much better the second time than I did the first getting millions and millions of more votes than in 2016 and likewise getting more votes than any sitting president in the history of our country by far," he said. "And now we may have to do it again."
Of the midterms, Trump said, "The Republican Party needs to campaign on a clear pledge that if they are given power ... they have to shut down the border, stop the crime wave beat inflation, and hold the Biden administration accountable. They have to hold it accountable."
"We need to return to the tried and true strategy of a thing called stop and frisk," he said. "We have to take the guns away from people that are criminals. Instead of taking guns away from law-abiding Americans let's take them away from the violent felons and career criminals for a change," the former president said.