[[link removed]]

16-YEAR-OLD GIRL IN HARM’S WAY SO TRUMP CAN SCORE POINTS WITH HIS
BASE  
[[link removed]]


 

Nancy Armour
May 28, 2025
USA Today
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Trump targeted the transgender teen as part of a social media post
Tuesday threatening California Gov. Gavin Newsom over the state’s
law protecting the participation of transgender athletes. _

Parents and children came together to share their stories and call
for action against the Trump administration in February in New York
City., Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

 

It is shameful enough for the president of the United States to launch
a barrage of insults at a fellow adult and issue not-so-veiled
threats.

But a teenager? A 16-year-old whose biggest concerns ought to be her
upcoming finals and choosing a topic for her college application essay
is now in harm’s way because of Donald Trump
[[link removed]]’s latest
effort to gin up his base.

Trump targeted the transgender teen
[[link removed]] as
part of a social media post Tuesday threatening California Gov. Gavin
Newsom over the state’s law protecting the participation of
transgender athletes. (Ask Maine how well that’s going to go
[[link removed]].)
Though Trump did not mention the young woman’s name, her high school
or even which events she’s won, it only takes a quick spin of the
Google machine to find all that out — along with when she’ll be
competing at this weekend’s state championships.

If you don’t think that’s a threat to her physical safety, if you
can’t imagine how Trump’s screed might encourage one of his
followers to take matters into his or her own hands, you must have
been under a rock on Jan. 6, 2021.

Protests and vitriol over her existence
[[link removed]] have
become the soundtrack for AB Hernandez’s junior track season. Video
from her meets earlier this month show protesters, as well as a woman
berating Hernandez’s mother for allowing her daughter to compete.

Hernandez has shrugged off the hysteria from the anti-trans
activists, telling Capital & Main
[[link removed]],
“I’m still a child, you’re an adult, and for you to act like a
child shows how you are as a person.” But there’s quite a
difference between Karen from Chino trying to make you disappear and
the president of the United States bringing the full weight of his
social media following to the fight.

And, as usual when it comes to transgender participation in sports,
facts are irrelevant.

Trump claimed that Hernandez "won 'everything" at last weekend’s
southern California regional championship and “is practically
unbeatable.” This despite her finishing fourth in the high jump at
what was not even a statewide meet.

Hernandez did win titles in the triple jump and long jump, but even in
those events she is not close to being “unbeatable”. Her personal
best in the triple jump is 41 feet, 4 inches, which is almost 2 feet
behind the nation’s best this season. Two feet! And Hernandez didn't
come close to that Saturday.

It’s similar in the long jump, where the 19 feet, 3.5 inches
Hernandez jumped on Saturday doesn’t even crack the top 25 for best
performances nationally this season. Heck, it isn’t even the best
result in the state this season.

“I don’t think you understand that this puts your idiotic claims
to trash. `She can’t be beat because she’s biologically
male,’” Hernandez told Capital & Main after an earlier meet, where
she won the triple jump but was third in the long jump and eighth in
the high jump.

I don’t know how many times this needs to be said, but there is no
reputable science showing a competitive advantage by transgender women
[[link removed]].
Nor are the performances of cisgender men an appropriate comparison or
predictor for transgender women because the two are not the same.  

Transgender girls and young women have been competing for years now
and, last time I checked, they aren’t overrunning the podium or
taking all the roster spots. They don’t pose an existential threat
to cisgender women or women’s sports.

Are there some transgender girls and young women who’ve beaten their
cisgender opponents, as Hernandez did in the triple jump? Sure. But
it’s not because they’re transgender. It’s because that’s how
sport works. You line up, you compete, and somebody wins and everybody
else loses, and the reasons for that are as varied as the people
involved. Physiology. Coaching. Experience. Work ethic. Nutrition. I
could go on.

But the transgender community, and transgender women athletes in
particular, have become a convenient punching bag for opportunistic
politicians and mean-spirited grifters, often as a cover for their own
failings. These people have made the few dozen transgender athletes
— yes, that's really all there is across the levels of youth sports
— into bogey men and women who will be the ruin of our society, and
too many Americans have fallen for the con.

It’s craven and it’s cruel. And in the case of Trump’s post
Tuesday, it’s dangerous. The discourse over transgender athletes has
gotten so out of hand, devoid of all reality and decency, that it’s
only a matter of time until someone gets physically hurt.

Or worse.

_Nancy Armour is a columnist for USA TODAY Sports, writing about a
little bit of everything._

* Trans Athletes
[[link removed]]
* Transgender Rights
[[link removed]]
* Donald Trump
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]