Steyer goes all-in on transgender athletes as California governor’s race goes down to wire
by Valerie Richardson · The Washington TimesThe transgender-athlete issue helped torpedo Democrats in the 2024 election, but California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer is doubling down as he seeks to separate himself from the primary pack.
Days before Tuesday’s balloting, the Democratic billionaire made a play for the LGBTQ vote by literally embracing transgender athlete A.B. Hernandez ahead of the state track-and-field championships, where the teen won two girls’ titles.
“I’m so proud of you for what you’re doing,” Mr. Steyer said in the video, as he posed for a photo with his arm around the Jurupa Valley High School senior and Nereyda Hernandez, the athlete’s mother.
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The show of support came with Mr. Steyer in a tight three-way battle for a top-two showing in the nonpartisan primary with Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton.
Mr. Hilton, who strongly opposes biological males in female sports, was quick to amplify Mr. Steyer’s position.
“Thank you, Tom, for clarifying that you have no intention of protecting women and girls sports,” Mr. Hilton, the former Fox News host, wrote in a post on X.
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On the other hand, no Democrat took issue with Mr. Steyer’s stance, offering more evidence that the party is sticking by its support for biological males competing in female sports based on gender identity as opposed to sex.
Mr. Becerra, who served as Health and Human Services Secretary in the Biden administration, didn’t directly address Mr. Steyer’s show of support for the transgender athlete, but posted a “Protect Trans Youth” message the following day.
“From fighting the Trump administration in court to defending gender-affirming care at HHS, my focus has been on leveraging the law to protect trans people and especially youth,” Mr. Becerra wrote in the Saturday post on X.
The same day, the 17-year-old Hernandez won the girls’ high jump and triple jump, and placed third in the long jump, at the California Interscholastic Federation’s state track-and-field championships.
Mr. Hilton countered that Mr. Becerra “fought Trump’s common-sense ban on transing the military and now wants to flood our state with taxpayer-funded experiments on minors — erasing girls’ sports, bathrooms, and futures in the process.”
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Last week, Mr. Becerra affirmed his support for abiding by the federation’s bylaw allowing students to participate in athletics based on gender identification, a policy rooted in the state’s 2013 law barring discrimination against transgender identity.
“I’m not interested as governor of having someone be bullied or someone discriminated [against] because of who they are simply for that reason,” Mr. Becerra said, referring to gender identity, in a May 25 interview on the CBS News program “California Investigates.”
He added: “If the rules allow an individual to play in that sport, those are the rules and you should abide by them. If the rules don’t let you play in that sport just because of who you are, then you don’t get to play in that sport.”
The latest polls show Mr. Becerra leading the field by a few percentage points over Mr. Steyer and Mr. Hilton, who are statistically deadlocked.
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Surveys show Americans oppose biological males who identify as female in female scholastic sports by a wide margin, an issue credited with helping Republicans capture the White House, Senate and House in the 2024 election.
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Valerie Richardson
vrichardson@washingtontimes.com
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