Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says the culture war over transgenderism is bigger than just women’s sports. It is a fight for truth itself.
DeSantis commented on Tuesday as conservative journalist Benny Johnson dropped another clip of his recent interview with the Florida Republican.
As The Free Press reported on Monday, in Johnson’s first installment, the governor called out Bud Light for promoting transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, saying the company is “rubbing our faces” in wokeness.
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DeSantis also called the conservative backlash against Bud Light “righteous.” He added in reference to wokeness generally, “These companies, if they never have any response, they’re just gonna keep doing it.”
In the clip Johnson circulated on Tuesday, the journalist asked DeSantis about the transgender movement more broadly.
“It’s a total fraud,” DeSantis replied.
He cited former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas as an example. Thomas, said DeSantis, went from a “mediocre male swimmer” to a national champion after he claimed to be a woman. In doing so, the governor added, Thomas essentially robbed Sarasota native Emma Weyant, the runner-up to Thomas, of her crown.
“Some of this is taking away opportunities in athletics and some other stuff, and that’s really, really important,” DeSantis told Johnson.
“But I think there’s also the issue of: Are we going to be a society based on truth, or are we going to be a society based on deceit?”
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“If you take a man, and they dress up as a woman, and you tell me that I have to accept that they’re a woman, then you’re asking me to be complicit in a lie,” said DeSantis.
“And I just refuse to do that.”
“You’ve got to tell the truth. The truth will set you free. And let’s just be honest about what’s going on here,” he continued.
DeSantis closed by noting that Florida was among the first states to protect women’s sports by passing a law that prohibited biological men from competing against women. DeSantis enacted that law in 2021.
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