Alabama’s Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville is blasting U.S. Women’s National Team soccer star Megan Rapinoe and saying she doesn’t “stand up for what’s right in this country” for her support for allowing men claiming to be women to compete in women’s sports.
During an appearance on the “Crain & Company” podcast this week, the former Auburn football coach joked that if Rapinoe had been forced to play against men, she would never have become a famous soccer player.
“The problem is she’s voicing now her opinion that, ‘Hey, trans boys should be able to compete against women.’ Well, if that would have happened during her career, she’d have been working at Safeway or Piggly Wiggly,” Tuberville scoffed.
Senator Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from Alabama, speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, US, on Thursday, March 2, 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“She’d never gotten on the field, but now that she’s retired, ‘Yeah, I’m all for this.’ And that’s the biggest bunch of crap I’ve ever heard,” he added.
Rapinoe is semi-retired and will likely never face having to compete against a man claiming to be a woman.
Megan Rapinoe, #15 of the United States, takes questions from the media ahead of a training session at the 2023 SheBelieves Cup at Toyota Stadium on February 21, 2023, in Frisco, Texas. (Sam Hodde/Getty Images)
“They stand up supposedly for all this activist stuff, but they don’t stand up for what’s right in this country,” Tuberville added.
“The main point about this is it’s not fair. It’s not fair to girls to know that they’re going to be playing for second or third,” the Sen. said.
The Senator’s criticism comes a month after Rapinoe and 39 other athletes signed onto a letter produced by a radical gay advocacy group seeking to force lawmakers to allow men who claim to be transgender women to compete in women’s sports.
The letter, sponsored by the LGBTQ advocacy group Athlete Ally, was written to oppose House Bill 734, which would mandate that federal Title IX rules require that girls’ sports in schools be restricted to participants born as females.
The letter states that the signers feel that “every child deserves to have their life changed for the better by being able to participate in the sport that they love.”
“We believe that gender equity in sport is critical, which is why we urge policymakers to turn their attention and effort to the causes women athletes have been fighting for decades, including equal pay, an end to abuse and mistreatment, uneven implementation of Title IX, and a lack of access and equity for girls of color and girls with disabilities, to name only a few,” the letter reads. “Our deepest hope is that transgender and intersex kids will never have to feel the isolation, exclusion, and othering that H.R. 734 is seeking to enshrine into law.”
Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) introduced the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act in February to enact an amendment to Title IX “to provide that for purposes of determining compliance with Title IX of such Act in athletics, sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”
Steube’s bill goes on to say it will be a violation of Title IK for “a recipient of Federal financial assistance who operates, sponsors, or facilitates athletic programs or activities to permit a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls.”
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