President Donald Trump impersonated a transgender athlete after sharing First Lady Melania Trump’s feelings on the matter.
On Thursday (1 May), Trump, 78, gave a commencement speech at the University of Alabama. While speaking to the crowd, he created a scenario about a cisgender female weightlifter at a competition having issues lifting an ‘eighth of an ounce’ of weight, before a ‘transitioned person’ attempted afterwards.
In the transphobic scenario he created, the female weightlifter failed to achieve the lift, but someone who had transitioned was able to do it easily.
Before launching into the odd display as Trump addressed the topic of transgender athletes competing with cisgender women in sports, he said Melania Trump often urges him against doing such impersonations.
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"My wife gets very upset when I do this. She says, ‘Darling, it’s not presidential,’ I say, ‘Yeah, but people like it,'” Trump claimed.
"All right, I’m in trouble when I get home, but that’s OK, what the hell. I’ve been in lots of trouble before,” he added.
The Trump administration determined on Monday that the University of Pennsylvania violated federal civil rights laws when it allowed transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports, claiming the educational institution broke Title IX rules.
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Title IX is a landmark U.S. federal law that was passed in 1972 as part of the Education Amendments prohibiting sex-based discrimination in any educational program or activity that receives federal financial assistance. According to the Trump administration, the university was found to have denied 'women equal opportunities by permitting males to compete in women’s intercollegiate athletics and to occupy women-only intimate facilities.'
The university was given 10 days to 'voluntarily resolve these violations or risk a referral to the US Department of Justice (DOJ) for enforcement proceedings.'
On February 5, President Donald Trump signed an executive order called 'Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,' directing the administration to withhold federal funding from elementary, secondary, and post-secondary institutions that allowed transgender girls or women to compete on girls' or women’s sports teams.
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LGBTQ+ charity GLAAD released a statement following Trump’s anti-trans executive order banning trans women from competing in women’s sporting events.
“All women and girls, including transgender women and girls, should be welcome to play sports if they want, make decisions about their own bodies, be hired for jobs they are qualified for, and be free from lawless attacks by elected officials,” their statement read.
“Anti-LGBTQ politicians with a record of abusing and silencing women and stripping their health care have zero credibility in any conversation about protecting women and girls. Every American should demand that so-called leaders stop attacking vulnerable people and start doing their jobs solving actual problems.”
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If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact the LGBT Foundation on 0345 3 30 30 30, 10am–6pm Monday to Friday, or email [email protected]
Topics: Donald Trump, LGBTQ, Politics, Sex and Relationships, Sport, US News
Gregory Robinson