Newsom Asked Point Blank: Should There Be Law Banning Trans Athletes From Playing In Women's Sports

2 days ago

At a press briefing, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) was asked about whether there should be a law banning transgender athletes from women's sports.

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Transcript

00:00transactions and winning sports yesterday. I'd like to ask you what's

00:07your response to that vote? And also, should there from your position of

00:11government, should there be

00:18well, I didn't pay any attention to the committee yesterday. I was literally

00:21spend most of the day talking about a fire recovery with our teams. Um, and

00:27progress is being made there, by the way, but we're starting to run up into

00:31some of those abundance conversations around permitting that's already

00:35starting to take shape where most of my focus was yesterday as it relates to,

00:39uh, that issue. Um, my position is, I think, known. Um, and that issue came

00:48to the fore with me on multiple occasions as governor came right into

00:51the office. We had a state track, uh, meet, uh, where there were two athletes

00:57that got into the finals. And because of, you know, um, because people's

01:04reaction to that, they ended up not playing in the finals and see it to

01:10folks that didn't get in to folks that did. No one playing. We tried to figure

01:15out how to balance this. Is there a way to make this work? Uh, we worked with

01:19experts. We literally were talking to some international Olympic committee

01:23experts. We talked to our own state experts. We were trying to figure this

01:26out and couldn't figure it out. And that's my, uh, my point of view that I

01:31just couldn't figure out how to quote unquote make this fair. That said, I

01:36don't know. There's a bigger champion for L. G. P. T. Q. Rights as an

01:39executive in the country. And I mean that it's done more over the course of

01:45decades that I have and so deeply sensitive, uh, and empathetic to the

01:50community. And, uh, and I can't stand those that demean

01:54the community and bully the community, talk down and use this to weaponize a

01:59political agenda. And, uh, and I made that point. I said, you can hold both

02:02things in your hand, uh, in terms of the statement that I made on this at

02:07the time, and I continue to make that point. And so I'm looking just for

02:11empathy. These kids just want to survive. And so the question you're

02:15asking is the question we've been asking ourselves for months and

02:18haven't been able to answer. What is that? Finally, how can you make this

02:22fair? And I haven't been able to figure it out. And, uh, and I'm about

02:26as transparent about this as anybody out there, particularly in my party on

02:30this and to the extent someone can and do it in a way that's respectful and

02:34responsible, uh, and could find the kind of balance. And, uh, then I'm I'm

02:40open to that discussion. That said, this is not where all my energy flows.

02:46You're talking about a very small number of people, very small number of

02:50athletes. And in my responsibility is to address the pressing issues of our

02:55time. And this, I think, has been colored in and weaponized by the right

03:00to be 10 X 100 X bigger than it is. And and so my focus is on a myriad of

03:07other issues in this state. And to the extent that someone could find that

03:12right balance, I would embrace those conversations and the dignity that

03:17hopefully presents themselves in that conversations, meaning the humanity

03:21around that conversation, not the politics around that conversation.

Newsom Asked Point Blank: Should There Be Law Banning Trans Athletes From Playing In Women's Sports

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