Rantz: Rep. Pramila Jayapal feigns outrage over transgender sports debate. Get over it
Nov 14, 2024, 10:03 AM
(Photos courtesy of Getty Images)
As is often the case when the progressive agenda gets a hard pass from the American public, Squad matriarch Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Seattle) scrambles to salvage her unpopular ideas with a fresh round of spin. She’s applying that same tactic to transgender athletes in youth sports competitions, determined to keep her out-of-touch stance dominant, despite overwhelming opposition.
Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Seth Moulton recently took heat after saying his party was on the wrong side of the trans sports debate. He said Democrats were too obsessed with “trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face.”
“I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete. But as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that,” he told The New York Times.
Commence the backlash.
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Why are Pramila Jayapal and others pretending to be mad about the transgender athletes issue?
Moulton’s comment reflects the view of a vast majority of Americans — a reality that Jayapal, squarely on the fringe of this issue, tried to sidestep with feigned outrage during a CNN interview.
“I just find that to be an offensive comment, actually. We’re talking about half of one percent of people in the country and I think that we have to really be clear. There was one party that tried to initiate a culture war against a tiny group of people. That was the Republican Party,” Jayapal said.
There was nothing offensive about Moulton’s comments. Jayapal’s manufactured indignation only serves to prove his point. Democrats are hell-bent on silencing any opposition to their extreme belief that biological boys and men should compete against biological girls and women.
Progressives are not looking for dialogue — they want outright acceptance of this agenda, claiming it’s about “inclusivity.” But it’s not inclusive; it’s dismissive of the concerns of the very group this impacts the most: females. Democrats’ refusal to even define what a “female” is has put them in a corner of their own making, one where they alienate those who see the risks posed to fairness and safety in women’s sports.
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American people are staunchly opposed to transgender athletes competing
As Jayapal and others make the case for transgender athletes competing against women, Americans are becoming more opposed to the idea.
A 2022 Washington Post-University of Maryland poll found that 55% of Americans oppose transgender female athletes competing with other women and girls in high school sports, with opposition rising to 58% at the college and professional levels. Two years later, in a June 2024 Gallup poll, 69% of Americans said they believe transgender athletes should only participate on sports teams matching their birth gender, an increase from 62% in 2021.
That Jayapal and others pretend it’s offensive to express an opinion shared by the majority of the country is little more than gaslighting intended to shut you up so they can bulldoze over the American people and force their fringe beliefs on society.
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No, Republicans didn’t turn this into a culture war
To be clear, Republicans didn’t make transgender issues into a culture war. They responded to Democrats forcing policies around transgender issues on the American people.
The pushback against transgender athletes competing against females emerged precisely because Democrats unilaterally changed policies, mandating that teams and leagues allow transgender competitors—without a shred of real discussion. And we all saw the result: biological boys and men started to dominate competitions, stealing opportunities, records, and access to sports that generations of women fought to secure.
Female athletes were injured, lost opportunities, and were bullied into silence.
At the same time, Democrats began pushing their views on gender identity onto children in schools, promoting extremist ideas that gender is fluid and that kids should decide their identity based on their mood that day. They even went so far as to insist that babies aren’t born with a sex, but rather that doctors “assign” one at birth.
Virtually overnight, this extremist gender ideology was imposed on the rest of us, and dissent was quickly shut down under the threat of being labeled a bigot. Pushing back against Democrats’ forced agenda isn’t “starting” a culture war — it’s defending against a fringe ideology taking root at the expense of fairness, safety and basic common sense.