The visual of this violent, disgusting man surrounded by smiling girls in sports uniforms is really too much to stomach. There were adult women accomplices present as well, including former collegiate swimmer turned right-wing talking head Riley Gaines.
Carl Charles, a senior attorney for Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ legal advocacy organization, told NBC News that the order “takes aim at K-12 and college athletes—a vanishingly small subset of people who on the whole, outside of a few sensationalized examples, have been participating in school sports programs for decades with absolutely no issues.”
Former Massachusetts governor and current NCAA head Charlie Baker (R) said in a December Senate hearing that, out of more than 500,000 collegiate athletes, there were “less than 10” who are trans. So this is really a solution in search of a problem.
But rather than wait to see lawsuits play out, the NCAA caved and said on Thursday that it would ban all trans women from competing in women’s sports effective immediately. That ended the organization’s 15-year policy of allowing trans women to compete on women’s teams after completing a year of testosterone suppression treatment. Baker said in a statement, “We strongly believe that clear, consistent, and uniform eligibility standards would best serve today’s student-athletes instead of a patchwork of conflicting state laws and court decisions. To that end, President Trump’s order provides a clear, national standard.”
How does one enforce such a policy? The New York Times reported that it could lead to genital exams. “The order will affect more than transgender athletes, [Suzanne Goldberg, a professor at Columbia University Law School] said, adding that it might force women suspected of being transgender to answer invasive personal questions or undergo physical examinations.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) made the same point about a Capitol bathroom ban and a federal bill to ban transgender athletes in school sports. Of the latter, she said, Republicans “right now says there’s no place in this bill that says it opens up for genital examinations. Well, here’s the thing. There’s no enforcement mechanism in this bill. And when there is no enforcement mechanism, you open the door to every enforcement mechanism.”
This pathetic order could also mess with the 2028 Summer Olympics, which will be held in Los Angeles. It directs the Secretary of State Marco Rubio to pressure the International Olympic Committee to change its competition standards to ensure that “eligibility for participation in women’s sporting events is determined according to sex and not gender identity or testosterone reduction.” Currently, the international governing bodies for each sport set competition standards and the IOC has allowed trans athletes to compete in the Olympics since 2004. The missive also calls for the secretary of state and the Department of Homeland Security to potentially deny trans women athletes entry to the U.S. for competitions. It says that the two offices should “review and adjust, as needed, policies permitting admission to the United States of males seeking to participate in women’s sports, and shall issue guidance with an objective of preventing such entry to the extent permitted by law.”
Speaking of Title IX, last week, Trump reinstated Title IX rules that make it easier for students to get away with sexual misconduct. We can’t help but think back to the final days of the cursed 2024 campaign when Trump threatened that he would “protect” women “whether the women like it or not.” He’s absolutely not protecting women, he’s advancing Christian nationalism.
Trump-related barf:
- After Trump aides tried to walk back his comments about the U.S. taking over and “developing” Gaza to turn it into into the “Rivera of the Middle East,” he doubled down on Thursday, saying the area would be “turned over to the United States by Israel” once the war ends. [NBC News]
- Co-president Elon Musk, who is set on cutting federal funding even as he leads multiple companies that receive billions in such funding, said he would police his own conflicts of interest. Great policy, just ask the Supreme Court. [Bloomberg]
- Musk DOGE flunky Marko Elez resigned after reporter connected him to a Twitter account that advocated for repealing the Civil Rights Act and backed a “eugenic immigration policy.” [Wall Street Journal]
- Rubio gave a top state department job to Darren Beattie, a man who was fired from his speech-writing job in the first Trump administration for speaking at a conference attended by white nationalists. Beattie is also a January 6 conspiracy theorist. [CNN]
- Dozens of Department of Education employees were placed on leave after taking a diversity training encouraged by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos during Trump’s first term. [NBC News]
- Andrew Taake, a Texas man who Trump pardoned for assaulting police officers on January 6 has been arrested on child sex charge from 2016. Taake is the same man who bragged about the insurrection to a Bumble match, who then turned him in to the FBI. [Texas Tribune]
- Donald Trump Jr. reportedly killed a protected bird on a hunting trip in a Venice lagoon. [The Guardian]
Non-Trump barf:
- Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman (D, but lol) said he would “fully support” putting U.S. troops on the ground Gaza. [Philadelphia Inquirer]
- Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has hired Daniel Penny, the former Marine who choked a homeless man to death on the New York City subway in 2023. I never want to hear about cancel culture again. [New York Times]
- Relatedly, transphobic comedian Dave Chappelle will appear on SNL‘s three-hour 50th anniversary special this Saturday. [Associated Press]
- A man who wrote a glowing review of the dubious sex-trafficking film The Sound of Freedom for the right-wing site The Federalist has been arrested for child molestation. [The Daily Dot]
- The New Orleans Saints, an NFL team with a devout Catholic owner, helped do damage control for priests in the Archdiocese of New Orleans accused of sexual abuse. [Associated Press]
- Joe Biden signed with talent agency CAA. Good luck getting coherent thoughts out of him! [USA Today]
This has been your weekly Barf Bag, thanks for reading!
