United States women’s soccer legend Megan Rapinoe is not happy with a recent decision that bans transgender athletes from competing in the Olympics, and she’s claiming that the move was done entirely to appease Donald Trump and his presidential administration.
Beginning with the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, transgender athletes will not be allowed to compete in the women’s category. The new rule states that “eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females, determined on the basis of a one‑time SRY gene screening.” The organization claims that the new policy is “evidence-based” and “expert-informed.”
Rapinoe, who is an Olympic gold medalist herself, is not happy about this decision. During the most recent episode of her “A Touch More” podcast, Rapinoe called the change a “really horrible rule.”
“Unfortunately, we have to say that all in the same breath as a really horrible rule came out from the International Olympic Committee,” Rapinoe said. “They announced a new policy that they’re calling, I can’t even believe that they’re calling it this because it has nothing to do with protecting women, I feel like two people, who played at the very highest level for every competition that you possibly could, don’t agree with this and never felt like this was an issue at all, ‘The Protection of the Female [Women’s] Category.’”
Rapinoe pushed back against claims that the decision was rooted in science.
“We already know that biology, as much as we want it to be just nice and clean and tight and perfectly in one category and another, it’s not,” Rapinoe said. “We know that. So, now what we’re doing is subjecting everybody, all women and all people who are identifying as women to this really invasive testing that only to me says like, ‘Oh we’re just trying to whittle it down to a certain type of woman.’ Is that what we’re doing? That’s really the whole game here.
“They sort of lost the battle on gay marriage and lost the battle on all these things so it’s just like, ‘We’re gonna have this whole campaign for all these years to just hate trans people,’ which is such a small percentage of the population. It’s actually on a single hand when we’re talking about sports. And just like thread the absolute tightest needle thread that you possibly could.”
Rapinoe had some strong words on the decision as she claimed that it was done simply to appease the Trump administration, calling the move “really hateful.”
“This committee is framing it as based in science, which it’s not,” she said. “This will ultimately just prevent people from competing within the women’s category that they feel like they have an unfair advantage. It’s just really hateful. There’s been so few athletes that are trans or competing as trans and it’s so blatant on its face. It’s a total acquiescence to the Trump administration and to really right-wing conservative politics that really is just bringing down so much hate against such a small percentage of people who are just trying to live their life. It’s just horrible and I’m just sickened by it, really.”
Clearly, Rapinoe is not happy with Trump or this decision.
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