‘You Are Yourselves Predators’: Matt Walsh Slams California Assembly On Trans Sports, Bathroom Bill

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Daily Wire host Matt Walsh testified Tuesday before the California State Assembly on a bill that would ban trans-identifying male students from girls’ sports and bathrooms.

Walsh slammed Democrat lawmakers, telling them that they are “predators” if they force girls to change in locker rooms with boys.

“The man who identifies as a woman is either deluded and confused or he is a cross-dressing fetishist looking to play out his fantasies in public. In either case, the claim that he’s making, the claim to womanhood is not true,” Walsh told Democrats on the California’s Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism.

“And compelling women to take part in this untruth is evil, perverse, and predatory. If you would use the force of law to compel young girls to use a changing room with a boy, you are yourselves predators,” Walsh said.

Assembly Bill 844 ultimately failed to make it out of committee by a 6-2 vote on Tuesday.

The bill would have required participation in school sports and bathroom and locker use to be based on a student’s sex, not gender identity. It would have applied to both public K-12 schools and public colleges.

The measure would have reversed a decade-old law in the blue state. Since 2014, California has allowed students to play on the sports teams and use the facilities “consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.”

Walsh began his remarks at the hearing by saying he was not going to talk about “fairness” or “safety,” but “something even more important and even more basic … It’s truth.”

“Why shouldn’t men play in women’s sports? Because they aren’t women. It isn’t true. We should not allow men into women’s sports for the same reason we shouldn’t go around claiming two plus two equals seven. It’s just not true. It is a lie,” Walsh said.

“Transgenderism is a lie. It is, in fact, the most deranged lie that mankind has ever invented,” Walsh said.

“In a free country, nobody should ever be forced to participate in a lie,” Walsh told the lawmakers. “Will you side with the truth, a truth so basic that every toddler understands it, or will you disgrace yourselves by denying it? That is your choice to make.”

Also testifying was Taylor Starling, a high schooler in Riverside who said she was removed from her varsity track and field team and replaced by a trans-identifying male transfer student who was given “favorable treatment.”

“He did not have to attend practice while my team and I were running seven miles a day together,” the 16-year-old said, adding that she missed out on running in a top cross country invitational, the teen said.

Starling also said that when she tried to speak up by wearing a shirt that said, “Save Girls Sports,” her athletic director told her it was “like wearing a swastika in front of a Jewish person” and that she would face disciplinary action if she wore it again.

Before the hearing, Walsh noted that “even Gavin Newsom, after sniffing the political wind, now admits it’s unfair — let’s see if California Democrats can stop playing pretend and follow his sudden rediscovery of basic truth.”

On his new podcast, the California governor shocked his fellow Democrats by calling biological men competing in women’s sports “deeply unfair.”

Newsom was asked by his conservative guest Charlie Kirk whether he would “say no to men in female sports.”

“I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that,” Newsom answered. “It is an issue of fairness — it’s deeply unfair.”

However, when Newsom was lieutenant governor in 2014, he celebrated California’s new law allowing trans-identifying male students to compete in girls’ sports. He celebrated again when conservative groups failed to repeal that law.

On Friday, Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent Newsom a letter noting his shifting position and warning him to comply with federal law on prohibiting male students in girls’ sports and bathrooms or risk losing federal funding.

Newsom did not make any public comments about Assembly Bill 844.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Bill Essayli, a Republican, who slammed California Democrats ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, saying he expected them to reject his bill.

“I believe the Democrats will double down and reject this bill tomorrow,” Essayli told Fox News. “They want to make a public scene out of it so they can be heroes to their progressive base.”

At the hearing, Essayli noted that California K-12 schools receive about $8 billion in federal funding. Essayli added that he believes California will ultimately come into compliance with Title IX, either through the legislative or judicial process.

If not, he said, “we will not only be failing our female students and athletes, but we are also jeopardizing a critical funding source for our school districts.”

“As the governor said, it’s a question of fairness. And if we’re Nazis, the governor’s a Nazi, so you should impeach him,” Essayli said. “The governor gets it, 80% of the people get this, and if you double down today and you reaffirm this law, this failed policy, you’ll get it in the next election.”

Before lawmakers debated the bill, members of the public lined up at a microphone to voice their opinions. Many female high school athletes, their parents, girls’ coaches, and others showed up to support the bill. Others voiced their opposition, including several trans-identifying men, LGBT activists, and parents of trans-identifying children, many of whom were wearing face masks.

Just before the committee considered Assembly Bill 844, the lawmakers considered another similar bill, AB 89, which would have mandated that the California Interscholastic Federation, which governs high school sports, bar male students from girls’ teams.

That bill also failed in a 7-2 vote.



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