Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley created headlines during a recent GOP debate when she called keeping transgender women out of women’s sports the “women’s issue of our time.”
On Monday, Fox Business correspondent Hillary Vaughn asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre if the Joe Biden administration agreed with that stance.
Pierre refused to call the issue a “women’s issue” and called the discussion “complicated.”
The White House Press Secretary was asked today if President Biden agrees that the issue of "biological boys plays in girls sports" is a "women's rights issue"
KJP didn't give a direct answer, deflecting with "It's a complicated issue and there a wide range of opinions on this" pic.twitter.com/8K900tgtC8
— boysvswomen.com (@boysvswomen) August 29, 2023
“So we’ve talked about this many times. This is the Title XI, specifically. Look, and again, we’ve talked about this multiple times. It’s a complicated issue, and there are a wide range of views on this. The Department of Education proposed a rule, as you know, that gives schools the flexibility to establish their own athletics policies, and so while establishing guardrails, right, to prevent discrimination against transgender kids,” Jean-Pierre said. “That is something that is incredibly important, that the president wants to make sure that we also do that as well. So I’m just not going to get ahead of that.”
Vaughn then referenced Biden’s granddaughters and asked if the president cares if “girls are allowed to compete in sports without fear of injury” or if it’s “fair for girls to have to compete against biological males.”
Jean-Pierre did not answer the volley directly.
“I just answered the question. It is a complicated issue. It is truly a complicated issue with a wide range of views, a wide range of views. There is no yes or no answer to this. It is complicated. There’s a rule that the Department of Education has put forward, and we’re going to let that process move forward,” she said. “Again, we want to make sure that while we establish guardrails with this rule that we also prevent discrimination, as well, against transgender kids. But again, a complicated issue with a wide range of views, and we respect that.”
