On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said that there are tons of examples to demonstrate why allowing biological men to play women’s sports isn’t fair, including one from 18 months ago.
Host Bill Maher asked, “I’ve seen a lot of people lately talking about this 80-20 issue, and I think you are on the other side of this now, the side with the 80. 80 being 80% of the people in this country — again, this is the issue of should biologically-born men be able to compete in women’s sports? And you — I saw the polling here in California, they think you’re a traitor for saying this. When those kind of people call you a traitor, there’s a word for that, electable. If the Democrats — and 80% of the people are with you on this now, if the Democrats can’t get with 80, how are they going to do something when it’s a 51-49?”
Newsom responded, “No, look, I get it. And that’s — look, and the other side weaponizes these issues, they dehumanize, they attack, they demean, and they’ve weaponized this issue extraordinarily well. That said, on the fundamental question, is it fair? And I can give you an example after example, just in my home state, there was someone that won a triple jump by 8 feet, alright? … And we had two people in the champ[ionship] — and this broke my heart, two years ago, I’ll never forget it, 18 months ago, we had two extraordinary athletes that got into the state finals, trans athletes, got in the state finals. The backlash was so bad, they didn’t even compete and the other two people that were kicked out weren’t able to compete. It was fundamentally unfair. We haven’t been able to figure that out. So, I express that as a fierce champion of LGBTQ rights.”
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