Former President Donald Trump launched into a tirade Thursday against an Olympic boxer on The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show as his running mate smeared her on social media.
Algerian Imane Khelif, who defeated Italian boxer Angela Carini in under a minute when Carini forfeited, is a woman from birth; however, she has naturally occurring high levels of testosterone and was excluded from a competition last year for failing an unspecified gender eligibility test, which has led many right-wing commentators to falsely claim Khelif is transgender or even a "biological man."
In fact, gender transitions are banned in Khelif's home country of Algeria, so if she hadn't been female at birth, she likely could not even have competed under their flag as a woman.
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But Trump, who has made keeping transgender women out of women's sports a routine talking point at his rallies and posted a clip of the bout on Truth Social with the words, "I WILL KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMEN'S SPORTS!" raged against Khelif's participation. Neither he nor the hosts appeared to know Khelif is a woman.
Khelif's punch, Trump said, "was like getting hit by a horse." He complained that "Men can do anything they want, they can go into the locker rooms," and promised the right-wing hosts that if elected, he would undo President Joe Biden's new guidelines on Title IX protecting gender identity from discrimination.
His running mate, J.D. Vance, took to the social media app X and said: "This is where Kamala Harris's ideas about gender lead: to a grown man pummeling a woman in a boxing match. This is disgusting, and all of our leaders should condemn it."
Public polling has broadly found support for transgender rights; however, on the issue of transgender athletes specifically, polls have found U.S. voters are much more skeptical, which has led Republicans to prominently feature the issue in attacks on LGBTQ rights.
Meanwhile, Republican state attorneys general have been fighting in courts to get the new Biden administration Title IX rules rolled back.
Watch the full interview below or at the link here.
