WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Saturday again criticized two Olympic gold medalists, wrongly referring to the female boxers as men.
Trump made the comments as he spoke at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania and pledged to “keep men out of women’s sports,” then turned his attention to the recently concluded Olympics and the cases of two athletes who have come under international scrutiny over misconceptions about their gender.
Trump has long criticized transgender people at his rallies and specifically focused on transgender athletes, using language about gender identity that LGBTQ+ advocates consider wrong and harmful.
In the case of the two boxers, Imane Khelif of Algeria and Li Yu-ting of Taiwan, both faced misconceptions about their gender created by the fallout from the decision by the Olympic-banned International Boxing Association to disqualify both fighters from the world championships for allegedly failing an eligibility test.
Trump did not name the athletes but noted that “in the Olympics, there were two athletes in transition.”
“They were men. They became women and they were boxing,” Trump said.
Despite being born and raised as women, Khelif and Lin found themselves in the crosshairs of Western debates about gender, sex and sport after failing the unspecified and non-transparent eligibility tests for the now-banned International Boxing Association’s women’s competition.
Trump and other prominent figures have complained that Khelif was allowed to compete, and Trump has previously referred to Khelif as a man.
On Saturday, he did it again, calling the two athletes competing in the Games “crazy” and saying: “It’s so humiliating for women.”
