{"id":158963,"date":"2025-06-05T01:25:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T01:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/158963\/"},"modified":"2025-06-05T01:25:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T01:25:08","slug":"republicans-focus-on-transphobia-to-mask-trumps-failures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/158963\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans focus on transphobia to mask Trump’s failures"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Trump and Republicans act like there’s an epidemic of trans women and girls competing in women’s sports, these competitors make up a fraction of a fraction of the overall number of athletes.<\/p>\n

\"play\"<\/p>\n

Trans teen publishes children’s book about inclusivity<\/p>\n

This transgender teen co-wrote \u201cA Kids Book About Being Inclusive\u201d with the hopes of inspiring children everywhere.<\/p>\n

Staff Video, USA TODAY<\/p>\n

Hate is a learned behavior that Republicans seem really happy to teach. The latest lesson is on transphobia.<\/p>\n

Over the weekend, California held its state high school track and field meet. It\u2019s the kind of thing that would normally happen without much fanfare beyond parents, coaches and college recruiters.<\/p>\n

But this event was different.That\u2019s because of the participation of AB Hernandez<\/a>, a 16-year-old transgender girl who in recent days has been the focus of national attention after President Donald Trump<\/a> threatened to cut funding to the state<\/a> if it allowed a trans girl to compete in categories that aligned with her gender. While Trump didn\u2019t mention Hernandez by name, it was clear who he was referring to.<\/p>\n

The threat led event organizers<\/a> to change the rules of the meet<\/a>, allowing the athlete who finished behind Hernandez to share the podium with her. In a scenario almost designed to single out Hernandez, she and her competitors made the most of it.<\/p>\n

AB Hernandez and the other teen girls show us the way forward<\/p>\n

Hernandez shared first place in the high jump and triple jump, as well as second in the long jump. While some heckled her as she competed, they were drowned out by cheers. As she and the other girls took the podium, they smiled for cameras and ignored hecklers<\/a>. Hernandez and Brooke White, with whom she shared second place in the long jump, put their arms around each other.It mirrors what Hernandez\u2019s mother, Nereyda Hernandez, has shared about her daughter\u2019s fellow competitors through TransFamily Support Services: that they have treated her with respect, unlike adults, including the president, who treat her daughter like a problem.<\/p>\n

Opinion: <\/strong>With Trump’s ban on trans troops in effect, US tests lawful discrimination<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the reality of the entire conversation surrounding trans athletes \u2013 that while adults are up in arms about a single teenage girl, the athletes competing against her don\u2019t seem to mind.<\/p>\n

In fact, they\u2019re setting an example for how all of us should treat our trans neighbors, i.e., treating them like human beings, not enemies.<\/p>\n

Trump is obsessed with attacking a small number of people<\/p>\n

Trump has made a huge fuss about keeping trans women and girls out of sports as part of his overall campaign promise to do away with \u201cradical gender ideology<\/a>\u201d in daily life and within the federal government. Despite this obsession, there are very few trans women and girls actually playing sports.<\/p>\n

According to the president of the NCAA, among more than 500,000 athletes competing at the collegiate level,\u00a0there are fewer than 10<\/a> who publicly identify as transgender.<\/p>\n

There could be just an equally astonishing number participating in grade school athletics: Save Women\u2019s Sports<\/a>, an anti-trans advocacy group, could only identify five trans students competing on girls\u2019 teams from kindergarten through grade 12 in 2023. That group’s entire existence is to hate trans athletes, and they found very little to hate.<\/p>\n

Opinion: <\/strong>Corporations won’t save LGBTQ+ people. Take their money for Pride anyway.<\/a><\/p>\n

While the Trump administration, Republicans and transphobic adults are acting like there is an epidemic of trans women and girls competing in women\u2019s sports, these competitors truly make up a fraction of a fraction of the overall number of athletes competing across the country. Talk about making mountains out of mole hills.<\/p>\n

It’s also not a coincidence that all of this is happening while Republicans actively try to make it harder for people to receive Medicaid<\/a>, deport people without due process<\/a> and let Trump waffle on tariffs<\/a> that will hurt the economy. Instead of doing something to make life better for the average American, they’ve chosen to demonize trans people.<\/p>\n

What if I told you that athletes don’t seem too worried about trans people?<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t even a huge number of athletes complaining about having to compete against their transgender counterparts. In fact, there are many athletes willing to stand up for their competition.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Olympian and Stanford swimmer Brooke Forde<\/a> released a statement about swimming against University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, who is trans. You might remember how Riley Gaines, one of the women who competed against Thomas, made an entire career out of complaining about her fellow competitor, even though the two women tied for fifth place<\/a> at the 2022 NCAA Division I Women\u2019s Swimming and Diving Championships.<\/p>\n

However, I think Forde\u2019s opinion<\/a> on the matter deserved, and failed to receive, equal attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that treating people with respect and dignity is more important than any trophy or record will ever be, which is why I will not have a problem racing against Lia at NCAAs this year,\u201d Forde said in a statement her father read in a sports podcast.<\/p>\n

Opinion alerts:<\/b> Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don’t have the app? Download it for free from your app store<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I have a lot more respect for the teenagers who treated Hernandez like friendly competition than the adults who are attacking a 16-year-old for daring to exist as her authentic self. In this debate over who can be an athlete, I think we often overlook that these are children and young adults simply trying to do what they love and find some semblance of normalcy in a country actively trying to erase them. The way Hernandez\u2019s competitors reacted is proof to me that it isn\u2019t young people who want to vilify trans people.<\/p>\n

To the teenage girls who smiled with Hernandez and helped maintain a sense of normalcy as adults heckled a fellow teenager, keep doing what you\u2019re doing. Continue to focus on yourselves and refuse to listen to the adults who believe they are fighting for your honor, when all they\u2019re doing is villainizing one of your own. At the end of the day, you\u2019re only trying to be better than your previous best, both on and off the track. Adults want to teach you hate. Teach them love, instead.<\/p>\n

Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Peque\u00f1o on X, formerly Twitter: @sara__pequeno<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Trump and Republicans act like there’s an epidemic of trans women and girls competing in women’s sports,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[5176,11753,11757,5762,11765,8745,8522,8530,5483,32,67209,5905,11672,55765,10521,11762,5763,6584,12,391,11768,11767,7670,5179,6591,5487,457,8528,11752,11763,285,55768,55775,8523,5486,2861,55770,55769,11760,11771,11759,4678,79,11761,26339,10995,67210,18745,19293,1757,5181,49,978,659,11758,11769,45810,20296,20303],"class_list":{"0":"post-158963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-and","9":"tag-center","10":"tag-collection","11":"tag-columnists","12":"tag-columnists-opinions","13":"tag-content","14":"tag-discrimination","15":"tag-discrimination-u0026-identity-relations","16":"tag-donald","17":"tag-donald-trump","18":"tag-field","19":"tag-identity","20":"tag-issues","21":"tag-k-12","22":"tag-left","23":"tag-lgbtq-issues","24":"tag-lgbtq","25":"tag-negative","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-opinion","28":"tag-opinion-collection","29":"tag-opinion-content","30":"tag-opinions","31":"tag-overall","32":"tag-overall-negative","33":"tag-party","34":"tag-people","35":"tag-people-u0026-society","36":"tag-politically","37":"tag-politically-center-left","38":"tag-politics","39":"tag-primary","40":"tag-primary-u0026-secondary-schooling-k-12","41":"tag-relations","42":"tag-republican","43":"tag-republican-party","44":"tag-schooling","45":"tag-secondary","46":"tag-sensitive","47":"tag-sensitive-subjects","48":"tag-sharing","49":"tag-society","50":"tag-sports","51":"tag-subjects","52":"tag-track","53":"tag-track-and-field","54":"tag-track-u0026-field","55":"tag-transgender","56":"tag-transgender-people","57":"tag-trump","58":"tag-u0026","59":"tag-united-states","60":"tag-us","61":"tag-usa","62":"tag-usat","63":"tag-usat-content-sharing-opinion","64":"tag-usat-content-sharing-sports","65":"tag-womens","66":"tag-womens-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}