For Gavin Newsom, Talk Is Cheap
Hernandez will advance to the state championships—an honor now out of reach for the girls who spent years training for a chance at winning valuable and prestigious scholarships.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom invited conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk as the inaugural guest on his podcast, This Is Gavin Newsom, which launched in March. The biggest takeaway from the episode was the governor’s agreement with Kirk that it was “deeply unfair” for transgender women, aka biological men, to compete in women’s sports. Newsom’s stunning departure from Leftist ideology made national headlines.
Referencing transgender athlete AB Hernandez, a junior at Jurupa Valley High School in California, who just days earlier had won a girls’ triple jump event by an astounding eight feet, Kirk told Newsom:
So like you right now should come out and be like, ‘You know what, the young man who’s about to win the state championship in the long jump in female sports, that shouldn’t happen.’ You as the governor should step out and say no.
Fully aware of the hornet’s nest his comments would stir, Newsom made a valiant effort to thread the needle.
Well, it’s I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that. … It’s easy to call out the unfairness of that. There’s also a humility and a grace. You know that these poor people are more likely to commit suicide, have anxiety and depression and the way that people talk down to vulnerable communities is an issue that I have a hard time with as well. So both things I can hold in my hand. How can we address this issue with the kind of decency that I think you know it’s inherent in you?
Regardless of his attempt to reach a delicate middle ground, Newsom had said what he said.
Last week, Hernandez won CIF titles in the girls’ long jump and triple jump categories during the Southern Section track and field finals. Hernandez will advance to the state championships—an honor now out of reach for the girls who spent years training for a chance at winning valuable and prestigious scholarships.
In a Saturday night post on X, conservative star Megyn Kelly pleaded with Newsom to act. She wrote: “@GavinNewsom – I’m begging you, begging you to please do something to protect these girls. They have the right to feel the glorious joy of winning. The confidence that comes to a girl from giving everything & being FIRST. Pls – you know this.”
.@GavinNewsom – I’m begging you, begging you to please do something to protect these girls. They have the right to feel the glorious joy of winning. The confidence that comes to a girl from giving everything & being FIRST. Pls- you know this. https://t.co/hqPKo6rtaF
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) May 25, 2025
In preparation for a 2028 presidential run, Newsom has been trying to distance himself from his long history of far-left positions. Hernandez’s wins will force him to take a stand, one way or another.
So far, Newsom has remained silent. But sooner or later, he’ll be obliged to take a stand on this issue because, as he said, it is so “deeply unfair.”
X users overwhelmingly agreed with Kelly.
With him eyeing a 2028 run, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a slip of progressive morals here.
He knows what he should do, but even if he does, no one will see it as genuine.
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) May 25, 2025
A boy just won 1st place in both Girls Long Jump and Triple Jump at CIF Masters.
Girls were robbed of their chance to compete at state.Instead of fixing it, his mother sent Jessica Tapia and myself a cease and desist, asked to have CPS called on me, and gaslighted the girls.…
— Sonja Shaw (@realSonjaShaw) May 25, 2025
It will only stop when every single girl refuses to compete. Show up but don’t compete. It’s not fair, they should have to but honestly, it’s the only way this stops.
— Lion (@alion1776) May 25, 2025
Having campaigned exclusively in deep-blue California, Newsom is now confronting his first real taste of what a general election entails. He should bear in mind that his party is on the losing end of an 80-20 issue.
In early February, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order keeping men out of women’s sports. Unfortunately, one month later, Senate Democrats voted unanimously to block a Republican-sponsored bill aimed at preventing federally funded schools from allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports. In a 51-45 party-line vote, Democrats filibustered the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025, which needed 60 votes to advance.
We’ll wait to hear Newsom’s response.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on LinkedIn or X.
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Comments
At this point in his “career” gruesome is either a progressive scumbag or a flip flopping scumbag. Well actually he is both and definitely a scumbag.
He can’t run away from his record!! Don’t let him!!!
His attempt to recast himself as a moderate isn’t working at all. People are looking at him and saying “yeah, but weren’t you Governor all that time California was being destroyed”?
Gov. Noisome’s default position when confronted with the need for a controversial decision has always been to say as little as possible, then hide from the public and the media until the problem goes away. There is no reason to think he’s going to do anyhting different now.
Talk is cheap and Gavin a creep.
Talk is cheap and Gruesome fools the sheep.
The biggest flim-flam man of this generation. If only he had good judgment and less deception.
If only he was aborted just prior to birth as his aunt pelosi supports.
Won’t go that far. People see through the act, that he is in it only for himself and no other reason. The ones that fall for it are the same types that swallow every hoax, then pretend to be smarter running from their idiocy.
I don’t think people see through the act. He’s gotten himself elected time and time again despite taking aggressively progressive stands.
In 2018 he was elected governor with 61.9% of the vote
In 2021 he received 61.9% of the vote in a recall election
In 2012 he was re-elected governor with 59.2% of the vote
Vote totals like this is not people seeing through his crap.
“Vote totals like this is not people seeing through his crap.”
While I don’t disagree, who counts the votes and how the votes are collected has to be taken into consideration. It IS Cali, after all.
California is not representative of the nation, where common sense prevails.
He will appeal to progressives who are already onboard, prtend to care, and are easily duped, but the train is going in the wrong direction and can only succeed through deception..
It doesn’t matter what the left and right think. What matters is the people in the middle. That’s who decides elections.
As for Newscum, what he has going for him is the lack of a democratic bench. If not him who would be the candidate? I can see where he would be the favorite of the party’s money men and its inner circle because of his track record. his state, and his connection to pelosi.
It strikes me that an appropriate response would be for all biological females, and all straight biological males who are high school senior age or below to not take part in school district sponsored sports. Seek private alternatives. If all school district sports meets in California end up looking like . . . well, San Francisco . . . it will do wonders for California’s image.
It may help trigger a movement for non-Leftist Protected Classes to move out of the state and taking their economy with them.
Subotai Bahadur
“You are my wife… /
Goodbye, city life!…”
I’m getting less and less enamored of this “solution.”
Newsome is governor and has been long enough to stop this in California but hasn’t much like he did nothing to stop the conditions that caused the wildfires or raise gas prices to the highest in the country. More people are listening to Keith Olbermann’s insanity than Newsome’s podcast which doesn’t even appear on the charts. Rogan said last week or the week before that Newsome’s problem is the more people listen to him the more they get turned off of the Dems.
This is not “stunning reversal’, this is Newsome who, like any lefty, lies to fit the situation.
Anyone here read the novel, Red Sparrow?
Greasy Newsolini is such a transparently self-serving, unprincipled, prevaricating, disingenuous and posturing hustler, cad, poser and apparatchik, he makes Slick Willie Clinton look like Honest Abe.
He will avoid having to “take a stand” on this issue. It’s far easier to stand in front of his mirror and practice more responses like the one quoted. As though it’s some sort of “grace and humility” issue, as though “these poor people” may commit suicide, “have anxiety and depression” if they can’t win dishonestly against girl athletes. Sounds as though he’s incorporated some of Kamala’s “equity” theory. But this is a contagious disease among politicians running in one-party states that are nothing but echo chambers.
You might want to post using a handle without an email address (assuming it is yours). There a number of crazies (not to mention any names) that post here and I’m sure there are others that scan the comments. You wouldn’t want them to collect and use your address.
Newsom saying we should have the “grace and humility” to let “these poor people” win championships they didn’t earn, at others’ expense, to avoid “anxiety and depression”, is like saying we should let kleptomaniacs steal whatever they want, that they didn’t earn and don’t deserve, to avoid THEIR “anxiety and depression”.
Or like saying that the paranoid schizophrenics “voices” are real and ALL THE REST OF US must heed their words, to avoid stressing the schizophrenic.
In no other context do we say of a mental/emotional illness, “You know what? The illness wins.” In no other context do we force society to cater to a tiny minority’s maladjustment, or punish half of the normal population with the loss of earned and deserved opportunities.
Here’s a slightly off-topic thought:
What would happen if a young biological female were found to have been taking testosterone injections to help develop muscle mass to have a competitive edge against other females?
Officials would disqualify her for using performance-enhancing substances, right? It’s only fair to the girls who worked to earn their spots naturally.
So why do the trans-women get a pass? If they’re “female”, and they test positive for testosterone levels far outside the range of normal females, they should be disqualified for doping. It’s only fair to the girls who got their under their own hard work.
Just a thought.