Former United States President Donald Trump Weighs in on Debate About Transgender Athletes in Sports

Former United States President Donald Trump Weighs in on Debate About Transgender Athletes in Sports

Keba Mothoagae
updated at April 12, 2023 at 8:01 PM
  • Former United States of Africa Donald Trump has criticised the participation of transgender athletes in women's sports
  • Trump was talking to his friend and controversial media personality Piers Morgan in an interview on Sky Australia
  • Trump was speaking in the wake of the furore resulting from transgender women dominating female sports

Even after leaving the White House, former United States of America President Donald Trump is never far away from the headlines.

On this occasion, the ever-controversial Trump gave a no-holds-barred response to a question by journalist Piers Morgan in an exclusive Sky News Australia interview regarding transgender athletes in sports, particularly transgender women in female competitions.

donald trump, piers morgan, lia thomas, laurel hubbard
Former United States President Donald Trump, Laurel Hubbard (top) and Lia Thomas (bottom).
Source: Getty Images

Trump said to Morgan:

"People see it and won't put up with it. They had a weightlifter where the record [stood for] 11 or 12 years, where weights were added on each side, and the woman would struggle. A guy comes along and breaks that record by numbers you wouldn't believe."

This jumbled point Trump was trying to put across - with Morgan interrupting him -was about transgender New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, who caused a storm worldwide when she transitioned from male to female. Hubbard's performances improved drastically from when she participated as a man as opposed to doing so as a female, culminating with her contentious appearance at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics last year.

When Morgan asked Trump about United Kingdom prime minister Boris Johnson's proposal to ban people born as biological males from competing in women's sports, he responded:

"Good. I agreed with this long before everybody else. I think it's ridiculous. It's sad and it's bad for the Democrats.

Morgan concluded by asking the former president what a woman was, with Trump saying:

"I'm not going to the question. But a woman is somebody swims at a certain time and doesn't get beaten by 38 seconds by somebody that wasn't even a good swimmer as a male."

This was an overt dig at Lia Thomas, whose dominance of college female swimming in the US caused a bitter divide in the same fashion as Hubbard, having ranked lowly as a male participant before rising to the top after transitioning to a woman.

Transgender swimmer loses to another transgender competitor in the USA

Headline-grabbing swimmer Lia Thomas, who transitioned from male to female, was the centre of more attention this past weekend.

As reported on Sports Brief, Thomas, who has been breaking records controversially as part of the University Pennsylvania's swimming team, was defeated by Yale University's Iszac Henig, who is transitioning from female to male.

This happened at an Ivy League tri-varsity meet between the two colleges as well as Dartmouth.

Authors
Keba Mothoagae photo
Keba Mothoagae
Editor- Local Desk
Tags
World