Election 2024

GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker mocks transgender people who serve in the military

Senate candidate Herschel Walker
Senate candidate Herschel Walker Photo: Screenshot

Herschel Walker – the former NFL player running for a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia as a Republican – mocked transgender people who serve in the military.

“Hey, just think about it: Pronoun? In our military?” he joked at a campaign event on Tuesday. “How do you identify? In our military? These are war times. What happened to push-ups? Sit-ups?”

The crowd – including Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) – laughed.

“Because I can tell you right now, China, Iran, and Russia are not talking about pronouns,” Walker said, referring to three countries with poor records on human rights, especially when it comes to LGBTQ people.

“They got us believing we can bring wokeness into our military,” Walker continued. “We should never bring wokeness into our military.”

Then Walker suggested that “the people on the left” are going to “take your kids” to Hell.

“You’ve gotten a little bit too smart,” he said. “You don’t fall for it. You don’t let them take you in that elevator [to Hell]. So they’re going to take your kids now. They’re going to take your kids down now.”

“But they want to tell the white kids, ‘You’re an oppressor.’ They want to tell the Black kids, ‘You’re a victim.’ No. All of them are victorious.”

Walker has never served in the military, despite his recent claims to the contrary.

In September, he told Rolling Out: “I’ve been very fortunate in the business world. I’ve been very fortunate in my military, uh, career – that I was doing a lot of things in the military.”

CNN said that he may have been referring to how he worked as a paid spokesperson for a business that runs mental health programs for veterans. That is not the same as having a military career or being “in the military.”

This isn’t the first time that Walker has attacked transgender people as part of his Senate bid. In September, he said that his opponent, Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), “voted to put men in women’s sports,” which also isn’t true.

“I ask every parent out, would you like Herschel Walker to compete against your daughter? Right now that’s what you voted for,” Walker said on The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show in September.

Warnock didn’t vote in favor of any measure concerning gender and sports. Rather he voted against a last-minute amendment to cut funding to school districts that allow transgender girls to participate in school sports that Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) tried to insert into the 2021 COVID relief bill.

Moreover, no schools are allowing grown, cisgender men – much less professional athletes like Walker – to compete in school sports on girls’ teams. Herschel Walker is not a transgender schoolgirl and Warnock’s vote didn’t allow him to participate in high school girls’ volleyball.

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