Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis slammed transgender ideology this week when asked about ongoing controversies involving the hot-button topic.
The governor, who criticized Bud Light’s decision to partner with transgender-identifying influencer Dylan Mulvaney, took a shot at the transgender movement as a whole when asked if it represented an “an existential threat to women.”
“A total fraud,” DeSantis said in a video posted to Twitter on Tuesday. “I mean you have a swimmer that competes on the men’s team for three years at Penn and then switches to the women’s team and then wins the 500-yard freestyle national championship for women. When you’re a mediocre male swimmer and now you win the women’s, and so you had a second-place finisher, she was actually from Sarasota, she should have been the national champion.”
DeSantis’ remarks were in reference to Lia Thomas, a male who claims to be female, who beat Emma Weyant, a woman, in the 2022 NCAA championships 500-yard race.
“I did a proclamation from our office saying she was the best woman swimmer in the 500 yard because she was,” DeSantis said. “That swimmer was not the best women’s 500-yard champion, okay? The number two [swimmer] was the best woman, so that’s just the bottom line.”