WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Saturday again decried two gold medalist Olympic athletes, falsely labeling the female boxers as men.
Trump made the comments while speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania and pledging to “keep men out of women’s sports,” turned his attention to the recently concluded Olympic Games and the case of two athletes who became the subject of international scrutiny regarding misconceptions about their gender.
Trump has long criticized transgender people as part of his rallies and focused specifically on transgender athletes, using language about gender identity that LGBTQ+ advocates say is wrong and harmful.
In the case of the two boxers, both Imane Khelif of Algeria and Li Yu-ting of Taiwan have faced misconceptions about their gender created by the fallout from the Olympic-banished International Boxing Association’s decision last year to disqualify both fighters from the world championships for allegedly failing an eligibility test.
Trump did not mention the athletes by name but remarked that “in the Olympics, they had two transitioned.”
“They were men. They transitioned to women, and they were in the boxing,” Trump said.
Despite being born and raised as women, Khelif and Lin found themselves in the crosshairs of Western debates about gender, sex and sports after failing the unspecified and untransparent eligibility tests for women’s competition from the now-banned International Boxing Association.
Trump and other prominent figures have complained about Khelif being allowed to compete and Trump has previously referred to Khelif as a man.
On Saturday, he did so again and in describing both athletes competing in the games as “crazy” and said, “It’s so demeaning to women.”