DeSantis Shreds Transgender Ideology: ‘A Total Fraud,’ It’s A ‘Lie’ That Must Be Pushed Backed On

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis slammed transgender ideology this week when asked about ongoing controversies involving the hot-button topic.

The governor, who criticized Bud Light’s decision to partner with transgender-identifying influencer Dylan Mulvaney, took a shot at the transgender movement as a whole when asked if it represented an “an existential threat to women.”

“A total fraud,” DeSantis said in a video posted to Twitter on Tuesday. “I mean you have a swimmer that competes on the men’s team for three years at Penn and then switches to the women’s team and then wins the 500-yard freestyle national championship for women. When you’re a mediocre male swimmer and now you win the women’s, and so you had a second-place finisher, she was actually from Sarasota, she should have been the national champion.”

DeSantis’ remarks were in reference to Lia Thomas, a male who claims to be female, who beat Emma Weyant, a woman, in the 2022 NCAA championships 500-yard race.

“I did a proclamation from our office saying she was the best woman swimmer in the 500 yard because she was,” DeSantis said. “That swimmer was not the best women’s 500-yard champion, okay? The number two [swimmer] was the best woman, so that’s just the bottom line.”

DeSantis, perhaps foreshadowing something that might be a key theme of a potential presidential campaign, said that the larger issue was the truth.

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“And so some of this is yes, it’s taking away opportunities, and athletics and some other stuff, and that’s really, really important,” the 44-year-old governor said. “But I think there’s also just the issue of, are we going to be a society based on truth? Or are we going to be a society based on deceit? And if you take a man and they dress up as a woman, and you tell me, I have to accept that they’re a woman, then you’re asking me to be complicit in a lie, and I just refuse to do that. So we’ve got to tell the truth. I think the truth will set you free.”

“If you take a man and they dress up as a woman and you tell me I have to accept that they’re a woman, then you're asking me to be complicit in a lie,” @RonDeSantisFL tells @bennyjohnson.

“I refuse to do that.”

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— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) April 18, 2023