The “Women’s Issue of Our Time” According to Anti-Abortion Nikki Haley

Would you believe it’s trans women in sports?

by Evan Urquhart

An oft-repeated line from the stump speech of Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is quickly becoming a mainstay for anti-trans propagandists. The line was quoted by a reporter for Fox Business yesterday as part of a question for White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Correspondent Hillary Vaughn asked Jean-Pierre, “Former Governor Nikki Haley and presidential candidate says “The idea that we have biological boys playing in girls’ sports, it is the women’s issue of our time.” Does the president agree that this is a women’s rights issue?”

Jean-Pierre’s answer, that the question of transgender students’ participation in sports is complicated, and that there are “a wide range of views” became the subject of news stories on Fox as well as in Newsweek and the Daily Mail.

Is transgender participation in sports “the women’s issue of our time?” No, obviously not, don’t be ridiculous. That’s just a dumb thing one particular politician has said a bunch of times until it entered the popular lexicon among anti-trans freaks. But let’s pretend we’re taking it seriously anyway, for the purposes of this article.

How might we determine what the women’s issue of our time might be? One method would be to look at polling on what Americans report is the most important problem facing the country today. Gallup polls this question monthly and out of 48 issues that register often enough to be listed in the poll only one would traditionally be considered a “women’s issue.”

It’s abortion.

screenshot from Gallup

About three percent of Americans listed abortion as their top concern in recent months, with no other “women’s issue” even making the list. So, that might be one way to determine what the women’s issue of our time would be. However the Gallup poll asks all Americans about their top political priorities, not just women, so perhaps we should look at polling of women in the U. S. A survey from Gender on the Ballot conducted in February showed that women’s top concerns were economic and there was no specifically “women’s issue” that made the list of the top 9. However, again, abortion seemed to come before other issues, with 25 percent of women saying it was one of their most important issues when deciding who to vote for and 50 percent saying they were less likely to support a candidate who opposed abortion rights.

Gee. It really does seem like abortion might be the women’s issue of our time.

While abortion is consistently the only “women’s issue” that registers as a top concern among voters, the question is admittedly clouded fact that women are people and most of their day-to-day concerns are ones they share with the rest of the human race. So let’s look at this from another angle. What do major women’s rights organizations say are the top issues for women in 2023?

The National Organization for Women lists six core issues on their website. Those are: Reproductive rights and justice (meaning abortion, birth control, and sex education), economic justice (meaning equal pay and workplace discrimination issues), ending violence against women, racial justice, LGBTQIA+ rights, and constitutional equality (meaning passing the Equal Rights Amendment). The first three of these seem like good candidates for the top women’s issue, with economic justice reflecting the priorities of actual women as shown by the polling, and violence against women having been the subject of one of the most prominent social justice movements in recent years.

Where does the participation of trans girls in girls sports rank? Well, no transgender woman has ever received an NCAA scholarship to play sports. Only one transgender woman has ever competed in the Olympics, and she failed to place. The most successful American trans woman in any sport is Lia Thomas, who won one major race and placed fifth in her other event, then left the sport. In the state of Arizona there are only two transgender girls attempting to play on girls’ teams. In Kansas, there are three in the whole state. Lawmakers pushing bans in many states have been unable to provide any examples at all. Meanwhile, experiences of sexual harassment are commonplace, with one survey claiming 81 percent of women had encountered it in some form.

So, what’s the women’s issue of our time? It’s obviously abortion, and anyone suggesting otherwise is a Republican who doesn’t want to acknowledge the urgency women feel about protecting their reproductive rights. Other contenders would be the impacts of sexism and discrimination on women’s economic lives and violence against women. Women don’t identify trans girls in sports as a major concern, and that makes sense because there are so few trans girls playing sports we’re still talking about Lia Thomas every time this topic comes up.