Wesley Yang@wesyang
Sep 7, 2025
10 tweets
"When you get to the issues around sports, trans issues, that's now no longer about celebrating your rights. It's about denying other people theirs." -- Gavin Newsom
Newsom articulates what will in the end prove to be the decisive fact about the trans rights movement: that trans rights and women's rights are zero sum -- to give to the former group is to take from the latter group.
"Marriage equality was about everyone's rights. Your marriage was not diminished because a couple that had been together 30 years got married and happened to be the same sex, but your child may not have that same opportunity to get on the podium if a trans athlete is competing for that limited spot."
Tremendous effort has been expended by the trans rights movement to deny this fundamental antagonism and keep it out of public circulation.
Newsom just put it out there.
"When you get to the issues around sports, trans issues, that's now no longer about celebrating your rights. It's about denying other people theirs." -- Gavin Newsom
Newsom explains why he pivoted on trans inclusion in sports. (The actual reason is that polls shows it's an 80-20 issue with 67 percent of Democrats opposed.)
He does what Harris wasn't able to do on this or any other issue where she flip-flopped. He provides a largely dishonest, halfway credible sounding explanation of why he flipflopped.
From the Shaw Ryan show: youtube.com/watch?v=5BBq3Q
The 67 percent opposition to trans inclusion among Democrats is why Newsom is betting that going on right-wing podcasts and disavowing the trans sports issue completely won't hurt him -- and may indeed help him -- in the primary.
He's done the math and has decided that poking the bear and being piled on by Trans Activists is not something to fear but something to embrace -- something to make happen and to lean into when it happens.
For example, here's an attack on Newsom from a trans activist account that's been gaining some traction on Bluesky.
The man who made this account identifies as a little girl and makes diaper fetish art based on real babies.
You want this man as your enemy.
Strangio understands that the same logic that applies to sports applies to every other aspect of "trans inclusion." Strangio knows that the loss of any "trans right" because the public judges it to be zero sum with the rights of "real girls" will inexorably lead to the loss of all other "trans rights" because the logic that applies in the one context applies in every other context.
Fundamentally, "trans rights" is about cannibalizing the rights of others in order to force them to falsify reality.
After a decade of doing his utmost to push the cause of trans rights onto the public, Newsom is doing what canny politicians do when their pet causes turn out to be a bar to their future political ambitions because they were morally and intellectually unsound from day one: he is simply breaking with his prior stances.
As @Matthew Yglesias points out, it is always costlier to stick with the unpopular position than it is to deal with charges of hypocrisy.
With one wickedly disingenuous grin -- "What? Me hypocritical?" Newsom will dispel the charge so long as he is representing the will of 67 percent of his own party's voters and come out ahead.
He will of course as a matter of certainty appoint federal judges who are all in on trans rights. This is a reversion to the earlier, more successful strategy of using courts, executive agencies, and hiding trans advocacy in legislation where it piggybacks more popular causes like gay rights.
The question no interviewer has asked him is: "You say that trans inclusion is deeply unfair. Why is it deeply unfair?"
You then have to press until he gives the answer: because "trans girls" are boys.
The Lia Thomas had already happened prior to this state championship. It was only a matter of time before it happened at the high school level. x.com/wesyang/status
Wesley Yang@wesyang
Sep 07 25
View on Twitter
Newsom explains why he pivoted on trans inclusion in sports. (The actual reason is that polls shows it's an 80-20 issue with 67 percent of Democrats opposed.)
He does what Harris wasn't able to do on this or any other issue where she flip-flopped. He provides a largely dishonest, halfway credible sounding explanation of why he flipflopped.
Wesley Yang
@wesyang
Writing on Substack. Author https://t.co/XpCqfzGhUI. Tips accepted here: https://t.co/yOYgoS3FtN…
Missing some tweets in this thread? Or failed to load images or videos? You can try to .