Jill Stein's running mate, Butch Ware, caught in transphobic comments

Butch Ware, the running mate of Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, has made transphobic comments about transgender women in sports.

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“I don’t think that biological males should play in female sports,” Ware said in a video posted to X by Olayemi Olurin, a lawyer, activist, and Substack columnist. Where the video originated is unclear. “I think it gives an unfair, you know, competitive advantage,” Ware continued.

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That trans women have an unfair advantage is disputed by activists and scientists. One of the latest studies, funded by the International Olympic Committee and conducted at the University of Brighton in England, suggests that trans women are less like cisgender men than generally believed.

Trans women in the study, published in April in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, had greater handgrip strength than cis women, but they had lesser jumping ability than both cis women and cis men, plus lower lung function and cardiovascular fitness than cis women.

“While longitudinal transitioning studies of transgender athletes are urgently needed, these results should caution against precautionary bans and sport eligibility exclusions that are not based on sport-specific (or sport-relevant) research,” the study concluded.

The IOC lets the governing body for each sport determine whether trans athletes can compete. The National Collegiate Athletic Association has a similar policy. The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, which represents small colleges and universities, has barred transgender women from participating in women’s sports. Twenty-five states have laws or policies restricting trans students’ participation in public school sports, with some of the laws also applying to colleges and universities and, to some degree, to private schools.

Ware, a history professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has made other controversial comments. In a recent interview, he said there should be limitations on abortion, possibly a ban or restrictions on the procedure after 16 weeks of pregnancy, although he declined to go into the “fine points.”

Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion nationwide (and which was overturned in the 2022 Dobbs decision), set up a trimester system for state regulation of abortion. In the first trimester of pregnancy, states could not restrict the procedure, the court ruled, but they could put reasonable health regulations on it during the second trimester and prohibit it in the third trimester, as long as there were exemptions if an abortion was needed to save the life or health of the pregnant person. The third trimester starts at about the 24^th week of pregnancy.

Since Roe was overturned, 21 states have banned abortion or restricted it earlier in pregnancy than they could have under Roe. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has promised to pass legislation writing the terms of Roe into federal law.

Also, Ware is part of a hip-hop duo, Slum Prophecy, that released an album that appears to celebrate the attacks on Israel of October 7, 2023, by the terrorist group Hamas, according to Jewish Insider. A Shopify page for the album has been taken down.

Stein, in contrast to her running mate, is strongly in support of LGBTQ+ rights, including trans rights, although her platform doesn’t mention sports. She supports abortion rights, and she issued a statement that condemned the attacks on Israel but said they were motivated by Israel’s policy toward Palestinians. Israel has used them to justify genocidal violence, she added.

Stein, a physician who has made multiple runs for president, was widely viewed as a spoiler in the 2016 election, in which Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College to Donald Trump. In the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, her share of the vote was greater than Trump’s margin of victory. Members of her family urged her not to run in 2024, and a coalition of Green Parties in Europe has called on her to drop out of the race. However, Stein, whose party is farther left than the Democratic Party, has resisted. She frequently says, “Forget the lesser evil. Fight for the greater good,” as reported in a recent New York Times article.