Is Newsom Pumping The Brakes?
Yesterday, California governor Gavin Newsom released the first episode of his own podcast, a form of media quickly becoming popular within the male sex. The episode was a chat with Charlie Kirk, an infamous MAGAt who heads Turning Point USA.
Unsurprisingly, Kirk brought up the issue of male (or euphemistically, “transwoman”) participation in women’s and girls’ sports. California’s very liberal policies allow for men and boys to participate in women’s and girls’ sports if they refer to themselves as “transgender”, and numerous males have exploited this to eke out an easy win.
“You right now, should come out, and be like ‘You know what, the young man who’s about to win the state championship in the long jump in female sports, that shouldn’t happen’,” Kirk said, referencing AB Hernandez, a male high schooler who recently won a girls’ triple jump by eight feet. “You as the governor should step up and say no.”
He continued on to ask Newsom a very pressing question. “Would you do something like that? Would you say no men in female sports?”
Newsom’s response was a bombshell. “I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that,” he told Kirk. “It is an issue of fairness. It’s deeply unfair.”
My first reaction was utter shock. My second was, “So, why the FUCK didn’t you do anything sooner?”
Gavin Newsom has been a champion of transgenderism for years. Arguably his most notable contribution to it was signing SB 132 into law, which allowed incarcerated men who call themselves “transgender” to be transferred to women’s prisons.
Of course, I’m very wary of Newsom on this matter. He has shown time and time again that he is willing to sacrifice not just fairness, but the safety of women and girls for the feelings of men and boys. What would cause him to change his mind now, after so many years of taking an axe to our rights?
I’ve seen speculation within radical feminist circles that the Democrats’ brazen support of transgenderism was what cost them the presidency in November 2024. Personally, I think that it was a mix of multiple different issues, and that while it did play a role, it was not the sole cause of their loss.
Democratic support of transgenderism has definitely alienated some of their voters. Among the general public, it appears that support for transgenderism is slipping. Recent polling found that, while Americans disapproved of most of Donald Trump’s policies, he had a 53% approval rating on “LGBTQ+” issues, with a 37% disapproval rating. (This also means that 10% of people either didn’t answer these poll questions or weren’t entirely sure of their stance.)
Use of the acronym “LGBTQ+” both force-teams transgenderism with gay liberation and obfuscates which of the two is being talked about. But, to the best of my knowledge, Trump has not put out any executive orders targeting gay rights, whereas he has put one out clarifying the definition of the biological sexes.
Polling released by Women’s Liberation Front in November 2023 found that Californians were less likely to support transgender policies than they were in 2020. This is reflective of a shift in support for these policies noticed in other countries.
Transgenderism clearly does not have the support it once enjoyed, even amongst Democrats. However, Democratic politicians - Newsom among them - have repeatedly supported it, many times against the wishes of their own constituents. What would cause him to change course now?
Many people are recommending that Democrats adopt a more conservative stance in the wake of the November election, hoping that they’ll appeal more to the working class. It’s also possible that Newsom will vie for the presidency in 2028. I really do wonder if he is taking this approach in order to get centrist and conservative voters a little more on board with him.
Newsom also recognized on the podcast just how rough the Democrats have been having it lately. “You expressed that I should be concerned as a Democrat, that we’re getting clobbered,” he told Charlie Kirk. Again, I think that he is trying to appear more moderate on transgenderism in order to appeal to the general public.
There are other possibilities - maybe the money from the trans lobby is drying up. Perhaps he always believed this was unfair and feels that he can use that to his advantage now. If so, I’d find him to be even more heinous. The possibility that he knew that transgender policies would harm women, girls, and gay people, and yet continued to champion them, is one I find absolutely disgusting.
I much prefer Newsom over a conservative governor for multiple reasons, so I warily welcome this change. Warily, because I am unsure of his motivations, of his reasons for only telling us what he thinks now. If he does a 180 and completely turns against transgenderism, I hope that he pays close attention to the Democrats and other progressives who have been speaking out about this for so long. Opposition to transgenderism is not solely conservative, after all - radical feminists have been pushing back against it at least since the 1970s, long before conservative opposition made it appear as a much more black and white issue.
However, even if Newsom does completely change his stance, I will never forgive him for the harm that he’s done. SB 132, the law he signed, was a disaster for incarcerated women. Multiple women have reported being sexually assaulted by the male transfers, and with the vast majority of incarcerated women being survivors of domestic violence, sexual abuse, or both, this only further contributes to their trauma.
Regardless of what he will do in the future, I don’t view him as an ally after he harmed us so terribly and irreversibly.