REVERSAL

Trump Praised Inclusion of Transgender Women in Pageants: Report

Trump has attacked transgender rights in his campaign, but his tune on the subject was very different when it came to his own pageants.

In his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump has joined the chorus of Republican candidates attacking transgender rights—but that turns out to be a complete one-eighty from his stance a decade ago. Comments shedding light on Trump’s earlier position resurfaced in a new CNN report on Friday. In a series of public statements, Trump praised the inclusion of transgender women in his beauty pageants, and even in Olympic events. In 2012, he even claimed to personally end the ban on transgender women competing in Miss Universe pageants. “So I will say there’s, there’s great interest and if you look at it from a show business standpoint, that’s wonderful,” Trump said of a transgender woman competing in one of his events. Now, as a 2024 presidential candidate, Trump is vowing to ban trans women from competing in women’s sports and to push for a bill requiring the government to only recognize sex assigned at birth.