Former President Donald Trump voiced his support for banning transgender women and girls from competing on girls and women's athletics teams during his speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday.
"We will not have men playing in women's sports," he said.
The proposal is included in the Republican Party's official platform, along with plans to cut federal funding for "any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children."
Trump had a major hand in shaping the two-page document, though apart from the sports ban his remarks closing out the convention did not otherwise address LGBTQ matters.
Instead, after powerful opening remarks describing the assassination attempt on him that occurred at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania July 13, his often-rambling speech covered familiar ground. He mentioned "crazy" Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic congressmember from San Francisco, and reiterated that the 2020 election was "stolen" from him. All told, CNN counted more than 20 false statements during his speech.
The Republican presidential nominee also did not mention Project 2025, the 900-page governing blueprint for a second Trump term that would radically reshape American government including by advancing a Christian nationalist anti-LGBTQ, anti-choice policy agenda.
While Trump has recently claimed he knows "nothing" about Project 2025, a number of people who served in his administration had a major hand in shaping the document.
In a statement following Trump's speech, Biden-Harris 2024 Campaign Chair Jen O'Malley Dillon pointed out that the former president also neglected to discuss "how he had inflicted pain and cruelty on the women of America by overturning Roe v. Wade" or "his plan to take over the civil service and to pardon the Jan. 6th insurrectionists."
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