March 1, 2021
Watch: Trump Takes Aim at Trans Athletes in CPAC Speech
Kilian Melloy READ TIME: 2 MIN.
Former President of the United States Donald Trump, a headliner at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), slammed transgender athletes in a speech at the event. The February 28 address was his first speech since leaving the White House.
The speech accused the Biden administration of imperiling women's sports, declared that trans athletes were "smashing" women's sports records and leaving cisgender women and girls behind, and attacked trans women as "biological males."
The topic arose when Trump abruptly swerved from a string of claims about alternative energy sources, predicting oil would soon be prohibitively expensive, into the topic of transgender athletes. "Joe Biden and the Democrats are even pushing policies that would destroy women's sports," said Trump.
TMZ summarized that Trump declared "Democratic policies were ruining women's sports" before veering off into an assertion that weight lifting events were not "even challenging for some new competitors lately."
Trump continued: "Young girls and women are incensed that they are now being forced to compete against those who are biological males," reported UK newspaper the Independent.
Without citing specifics - such as events, dates, former record holders, or whether new record holders were even transgender - the onetime resident of the Oval Office declared that "records that stood for years and decades are now being smashed with ease... smashed."
"If this is not changed, women's sports as we know it will die and end," said Trump. "I think it's crazy, what's happening. We must protect the integrity of women's sports. It's so important."
After a burst of sustained applause, Trump continued: "Is that controversial? Somebody said, 'Well, that's going to be very controversial.' I said, 'That's okay, You haven't heard anything yet.' "
"Trump's administration had it out for transgender people - remember, he banned them from joining the military early in his presidency," TMZ recalled, going on to note that the transgender military service ban was "something Biden undid as soon as he was sworn in."
Watch the speech in its entirety below. The comments about transgender athletes commence at the 43:20 mark.
Kilian Melloy serves as EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor. His professional memberships include the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and the Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee.
