Donald Trump plans to ban all transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports, if he wins next month’s presidential election.
The White House hopeful, who recently spent close to 40 minutes of a campaign rally dancing to songs such as Village People’s “YMCA”, was asked about his policy on trans women competing in sporting events, on Wednesday (16 October).
“It’s such an easy question,” he replied. “Everybody in the room and you know that answer: we’re not going to let it happen.”
The former president went on to refer to college women’s volleyball teams who have forfeited matches against San José State University over an alleged transgender player – despite no evidence being offered for this.
“Just yesterday, they had a volleyball match. did you see that?” Trump said. “I never saw a ball hit so hard, hit the girl on the head.”
A clip showing the player from San José State spiking the ball in the air and hitting a girl in the head prompted a hefty anti-trans backlash. The opponent was not injured and her team won.
Regardless, Trump used the incident to claim that trans women have an inherent advantage in sport, saying: “Physically, form a muscular standpoint… look at what’s happened in swimming. Look at the records that are being broken.”
Asked by Fox News host Harris Faulkner how he would enforce the ban, Trump said he would “just ban it,” adding that it would “not [be] a big deal.”
Despite Trump and several other anti-trans pundit’s claims, there is no definitive evidence that transgender women have an inherent advantage over their cisgender peers in all competitive sports. In fact, a study backed by the Olympic International Committee suggested that trans women might be disadvantaged in some fields.
In a study of 75 cisgender and transgender athletes, the research, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, showed that trans women typically fail certain cardiovascular tests and tend to have less lower-body strength.
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