Nikki Haley: 'I'll Aways Fight' Against Trans Women Athletes in Female Sports

Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley continued her denunciation of transgender women and girls in female sports during an interview with Linsey Davis that dropped Monday night on ABC Live, the network’s streaming service.

After a discussion of abortion rights, Davis mentioned that Haley has said trans sports participation, not abortion, is the women’s issue of our time. Davis asked Haley what she would say to a young trans person who wants to play sports.

“They can find a place for trans kids to play sports, but biological boys should not be playing in girls’ sports,” Haley answered, not saying what that place would be and, by “biological boys,” meaning trans girls. “My daughter ran track in high school. I don’t know how I would even have that conversation with her. How do we tell our girls that it’s OK to have a biological boy in their locker room? It’s not. In no scenario.

“We have to remember that strong girls become strong women. Strong women become strong leaders. That doesn’t happen by putting biological boys in women’s sports. You’ve got women who have worked so hard all their life to really get to points in high school and college where they want to, and to have a biological man, who’s physiologically different, athletically, go and take that away from those women, no, we’re not gonna erase the women like that. You can’t do that. You can find other ways of dealing with this, but it doesn’t have to be on the backs of our girls, who we’re trying to make strong. It’s the wrong thing to do, and I’ll always fight against that.”

Haley, who has previously gone so far as to blame trans athletes for teen girls’ suicides, ignored the fact that trans girls and women make up a tiny minority of athletes and that scientists have said they do not necessarily have an advantage over cisgender women. There are many factors other than gender-related hormones that give athletes advantages — size, training, and more. Also, sports leagues and associations often require trans girls and women to have reduced their level of testosterone before competing against cis females.

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Regarding abortion, Haley, who favors limits on the procedure but has said she doesn’t think a national ban would pass Congress, said Democrats have used fear around the issue and Republicans have used judgment.

“There is no place for fear or judgment when you’re talking about how do we save as many babies as we can and support as many moms as we can,” she said, without detailing what that support would consist of. “We need to start dealing with this with respect and with compassion. That’s the only way that we’ll move forward.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Haley, a former South Carolina governor and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, expressed support for Israel in its war with Hamas and said the best way to help residents of the Gaza region is to eliminate Hamas. She also brought on her daughter, Rena, who was criticized in November’s debate by another Republican presidential aspirant, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, for using TikTok. Haley was outraged that he would attack her daughter, and in the ABC Live interview, Rena Haley agreed that the reference “was uncalled for.”

Nikki Haley also addressed the issue of whether front-runner Donald Trump is fit to be president. Another rival for the Republican presidential nomination, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, has said Trump is unfit and lambasted other candidates for not saying so.

Haley said she thinks Trump, who appointed her to the ambassadorship, is fit to be president but shouldn’t be president. “I thought he was the right president at the right time,” she said. But the nation needs a leader from a new generation, she added.

“You can’t defeat Democrat chaos with Republican chaos, and Donald Trump brings us chaos,” she said.

“I offer a different approach,” she continued. “No drama, no vendettas, no whining.” The U.S. needs a president who will offer “new solutions, not focusing on negativity and baggage of the past,” she said.

Pictured, from left: Nikki Haley and Linsey Davis