California Governor Gavin Newsom just lately launched a brand new podcast and, in his first episode on Thursday, informed conservative activist Charlie Kirk that he thinks transgender women and girls enjoying in sports activities for women and girls is “deeply unfair.”
Newsom and Kirk, the Donald Trump-aligned, 31-year-old right-wing influencer greatest identified for beginning Turning Point USA to advertise conservative beliefs on faculty campuses, spoke for over an hour about, amongst different issues, how Democrats fumbled messaging within the 2024 election cycle and the place the pair may agree.
“I’ve got to admire what you’ve been able to do, not to weaponize, but to organize on these college campuses a different point of view,” Newsom mentioned earlier than noting that his newly teenage son has seen movies of Kirk on TikTok. Kirk laughs that the teenager may come to a Turning Point occasion in Florida.
Then, the governor asks Kirk for recommendation on tips on how to higher enchantment to Americans.
“Get better ideas,” he responds.
“You have an opportunity to run to the middle … you right now should come out and be like, you know what, the young man who’s about to win the state championship in the long jump in female sports,” Kirk continued, misgendering a highschool monitor participant in California. “That shouldn’t happen.”
“Right,” Newsom mentioned.
“Would you do something like that? Would you say no men in female sports?” Kirk requested. “Well, I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that,” Newsom responded. “It’s deeply unfair.”
“So, would you speak out against this young man?” Kirk pressed, including, “I see you wrestling with this.”
“No, I’m not wrestling with the fairness,” the governor mentioned. “I totally agree with you.”
The governor, who’s broadly understood to be eyeing a presidential run for 2028, described his new podcast, “This Is Gavin Newsom,” as a discussion board to “have honest conversations” with individuals who each agree and disagree with “us.”
Newsom’s feedback come as, throughout the nation, transgender Americans proceed to face elevated offenses from conservative leaders in authorities, healthcare, and schooling—together with immediately from President Donald Trump’s administration.
In early February, Trump signed an govt order barring transgender student-athletes from enjoying on ladies’ sports activities groups. The motion, which notably doesn’t point out transgender boys and males enjoying in sports activities that align with their gender id, claims to “protect” ladies.
Shortly after Trump signed the order, the National Collegiate Athletic Association modified its participation coverage for transgender athletes and barred anybody who wasn’t assigned feminine at delivery from collaborating in ladies’ or ladies’s sports activities. (Some native leaders have pushed again on Trump’s order, together with the governor of Maine, who mentioned she would see the president “in court” over her state’s choice to permit transgender athletes to play on the groups they select.)