Nikki Haley promises she’ll “always fight” against trans kids playing sports

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said in a recent interview that she’ll “always fight against” transgender females playing girls’ and women’s sports.

Her comments come at a time when other Republicans are criticizing the administration of President Joe Biden for finalizing federal rules to allow trans participation in school sports nationwide. Congressional Republicans have recently introduced their second bill seeking to ban trans females from sports teams.

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In an ABC Live interview broadcast on Monday, Haley said that she would tell a young trans person who wanted to play sports, “They can find a place for trans kids to play sports, but biological boys [meaning trans girls] should not be playing in girls’ sports.”

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Haley then said that she didn’t know how she would even have a conversation with her own daughter, who ran track in high school, about a trans girl being in her locker room.

“How do we tell our girls that it’s OK to have a biological boy in their locker room? It’s not. In no scenario,” Haley said.

“We have to remember that strong girls become strong women. Strong women become strong leaders. That doesn’t happen by putting biological boys in women’s sports,” she continued. “You’ve got women who have worked so hard all their life to really get to points in high school and college where they want to, and to have a biological man, who’s physiologically different, athletically, go and take that away from those women, no, we’re not gonna erase the women like that. You can’t do that.”

“You can find other ways of dealing with this,” she said without elaborating, “but it doesn’t have to be on the backs of our girls, who we’re trying to make strong. It’s the wrong thing to do, and I’ll always fight against that.”

Haley has vocally opposed President Joe Biden’s efforts to restore trans-inclusive school policies that were rolled back during Donald Trump’s presidency, calling the athletic policies, “an attack on women’s rights.” She has also said that trans athletes and statements of personal pronouns are proof that the U.S. has “been weakened.”

Some people believe that trans women must be banned from competing against cis female athletes because biological traits and pubertal changes give trans girls unfair physical advantages over their cisgender opponents and “erase” women’s hard-won victories in sports. However, this field of sports science is relatively new and no studies have conclusively determined that trans women have physical advantages over their cis female competitors.

Critics of this position have pointed out that sexism and poor funding harm women’s sports and discourage female athleticism far more than trans competitors. Critics also note most young trans student-athletes just want to play sports alongside their friends.

Republicans blast Biden’s coming legal protections for trans student-athletes

Earlier this month, the Biden administration said it will finalize its proposed updates to Title IX, “the federal civil rights law prohibiting sex-based discrimination at federally funded schools, by March, nearly a year after the administration missed its first deadline,” The Hill reported.

The revised rules will allow trans students to access school facilities and programs consistent with their gender identities. The rules would also allow for some schools to limit the participation of trans athletes in sports while also forbidding schools from completely banning trans athletes altogether. Schools that discriminate against trans students risk lawsuits and a loss of federal funding.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and other congressional Republicans have opposed the rule revisions, citing the aforementioned transphobic viewpoints.

The month, congressional Republicans introduced a bill, named the Save Women’s Sports Act, that would require grade schools, colleges, and universities to ban trans girls and women from participating in sports as their gender or risk losing federal funding. The bill is not very different from Rep. Greg Steube’s (R-FL) Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which passed in April. It’s thought that Republicans introduced the similar bill to keep trans issues at the forefront of the 2024 general elections.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has blasted Republicans for not considering how their efforts will affect all women and children.

“Under the guise of not only trying to further marginalize trans women and girls, we are talking about opening up all women and girls to genital examinations when they are underage, potentially just because someone can point to someone and say, ‘I don’t think you’re a girl.’”