At a joint session of Congress March 4, Donald Trump gave one of the most partisan and divisive speeches known in American history.
Among the derogatory comments laid out during the 99 minutes at the center podium, Trump continuously blamed former President Joe Biden and speaker Nancy Pelosi. He offered praise a-plenty for his administration’s quick following of his executive orders and gloated about his anti-Transgender and D.E.I. attacks.
“We’ve ended the tyranny of so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion policies all across the entire federal government and indeed the private sector and our military,” Trump said just after the start, going on to promise, “our country will be woke no longer.”Trump would go on to revisit points like this throughout the event, celebrating what would mainly amount to wins for far-right talking points. “We have removed the poison of critical race theory from our public schools, and then signed an order making it the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,” Trump said. “I also signed an executive order to ban men from playing in women’s sports,” he added.
In an effort to bolster his attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, Trump brought in the likes of Payton McNabb and Riley Gaines, both individuals he claimed were affected by transgender inclusion in sports.
McNabb, Trump said, was “seriously injured” three years ago when her girls’ volleyball game was “invaded by a male” who spiked the ball “so hard in Peyton’s face, causing traumatic brain injury.” Gaines had previously been an NCAA swimmer, and her claim to fame is finishing in fifth place behind a trans opponent.
“Take a look at what happened in women’s boxing, weight lifting, track and field, swimming, or cycling, where a male recently finished a long distance race five hours and 14 minutes ahead of a woman for a new record by five hours,” Trump touted.
Ahead of the address, GLAAD, the LGBTQ activist group, provided a fact sheet about the two women to be highlighted.
“Payton McNabb, a former high school volleyball player injured during a match with a transgender player,” GLAAD wrote, “is a paid spokesperson for an anti-transgender group that also advocates to ban medically necessary, best practice health care and to force schools to dangerously out LGBTQ youth without their consent.”
For Gaines, GLAAD wrote that the former athlete, “parlayed her fifth place finish into a career of testifying in states she does not live in to support[ing] full bans on transgender youth as young as kindergarten from playing sports.”
Both women have been found to work with the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), which, as the GLAAD fact sheet explains, “has ties to Project 2025, has lobbied against access to contraception, and activates against transgender people under the guise of “protecting women” but has taken actions that do not protect women and instead tries to harm LGBTQ people.”
“The Trump White House is using the address to Congress to continue its baseless and unhinged disinformation campaign against transgender Americans,” GLAAD said. “The invited guests being deployed to smear transgender people are paid spokespeople for anti-LGBTQ groups that demand schools dangerously out LGBTQ students without their consent, who go against every major medical association supporting medically-necessary health care, and do nothing to promote women and girls in sports or protect everyone’s safety and well-being.”
“Every American must demand that leaders stop targeting innocent people to enrich themselves and their billionaire friends. Media must elevate the truth about LGBTQ lives and hold the administration accountable to words and actions that hold all of us back.”