Alabama, South Dakota, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, and West Virginia have all enacted legislation blocking transgender athletes from bidding against biological females in girls' sports. Florida could be next, even though the bill was delayed in the state Senate last month.
In an extensively published campaign video, former Olympic decathlete Caitlyn Jenner, now running as a Republican aspiring to unseat Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom in a recall election, said, “I came here with a dream 48 years ago to be the greatest athlete in the world. Now, I enter a different kind of race.”
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Left uncited is the reality that those athletic accolades were obtained as Bruce Jenner, playing against other biological males in men's sports. The 71-year-old member by marriage of reality TV’s Kardashian clan came out as a transgender woman in 2015.
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Not regarding the historic nature of Jenner’s candidacy, her path to public office is a common one for California Republicans. Song-and-dance man George Murphy, Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan, and the even bigger box office star Arnold Schwarzenegger all attained statewide fame as celebrities turned politicians, two of three becoming governor.
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Running on a mix of economic conservatism and social liberalism has also been a well-worn path for Republicans in the Golden State. Schwarzenegger, also originally chosen in the recall of an unpopular Democratic governor, and Pete Wilson both took it to the governorship, though Wilson raised taxes in his first term and took a sharp right turn on immigration to win reelection in 1994.
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The subpoena of celebrity in national Republican diplomacies is not limited to California. Actor Fred Thompson was selected to the Senate from Tennessee and ran a serious campaign for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008 before falling to John McCain. Former President Donald Trump, a New York tycoon, was a reality TV star before following Reagan’s footsteps all the way to the White House.
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But Jenner would be racing at a time when Republican-led states are increasingly questioning legislation decreasing gender reassignment and related procedures for minors and the participation of transgender athletes in sports corresponding to their gender identity rather than their biological sex. Republicans with an eye on the 2024 presidential nomination are following suit. “Across the sporting world, the game is being rigged against women and in favor of biological men,” former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley wrote in an op-ed for the National Review.
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