Newsom’s Bizarre Interview with MAGA Podcaster Platforms Anti-Trans Conspiracies

With Dems like these, who needs the GOP?

Gage Skidmore - Wikimedia Commons

California Governor and podcast personality Gavin Newsom has continued his right-wing media tour, feeding into the anti-trans hysteria with his signature coiffure and million-dollar smile.

Earlier this year, the Governor said he “completely aligns” with some of the gender politics of far-right extremist Charlie Kirk and faced widespread backlash from constituents.

Nonetheless, he appeared to double down on the sentiment and then some this week on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast. The whopping four-hour conversation (which was not exclusively about LGBT issues) started by questioning the participation of trans athletes in women’s sports, cascaded into sowing doubt about evidence-based gender affirming care, and landed on fake news about schools providing litterboxes to kids who say they’re animals.

Newsom emphasized that he thinks conservatives are exploiting and weaponizing rhetoric about trans kids—but that hasn’t stopped him from feeding into it. Intentionally or not, Newsom has lent his Democratic branding and credibility to entertain the musings of anti-trans actors. Meanwhile, the far right has openly admitted to manufacturing a crisis around trans athletes to serve as a “beginning point” and get “opponents of the LGBT movement comfortable with talking about transgender issues,” as per Terry Schilling of the American Principles Project.

On this latest podcast, the meandering conversation started on America’s so-called “masculinity crisis”—a reference to real problems facing boys and men, such as higher rates of suicide and social isolation, or a nod to conservative pearl-clutching about the perceived “feminization” of American boys, depending on who you ask.

“Most of these kids, many of them [are] not even having any relations, sexual relations, with other women,” Newsom said.

The conversation went from lamenting how American youth don’t have enough sex, to hand-wringing about whether the LGBT rights movement may be pushing “sexuality” onto kids.

“Speaking of sexuality and divisiveness,” Ryan said, “One of the things in the last administration that really divided people was gender affirming care, LGBTQ [sic].” They incorrectly equated sexual orientation and gender identity, leading to a conversation about what Newsom called “the trans issue.”

“That's now no longer about celebrating your rights. It's about denying other people theirs,” Newsom said. “Marriage equality was about everyone's right [...] But your child may not have that same opportunity to get on the podium if a trans athlete is competing.”

Science shows no one biological attribute, including sex, fundamentally determines one’s athletic success. For every Lia Thomas or AB Hernandez winning medals, there are countless other trans athletes across the country whose names are unknown; athletes who are average or below average. Like all people, trans athletes’ abilities vary greatly. But athletes at all ages and ranks are being attacked by anti-trans activists in the name of sport, from gold-medal Olympians to children playing Little League.

Newsom’s rhetoric also falsely implies that the rights of trans women and girls are innately in competition with those of presumed-cis people. In reality, anti-trans vitriol routinely leads to violence against everyone; it fuels witch hunts against athletes even accused of being trans, such as the case with Imane Khelif. It has resulted in death threats, anti-trans harassment and doxxing campaigns against countless young girls, both cis and trans.

After one such case in Newsom’s own state, where the young athlete AB Hernandez overcame literal angry mobs over her participation in youth sports, the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) amended its rules for a so-called “compromise,” giving a consolation spot to any presumed-cis girl who lost to a presumed-trans one.

Newsom said CIF’s rule change is “not the answer.” It’s not wholly clear what he thinks the answer is, but appeasement was never a winning play; even as Newsom broke the Democratic Party line to question trans inclusion, the Trump Administration sued the state, claiming that the “compromise” was too affirming of trans people. The Trump Administration has been clear that nothing less than the complete erasure of trans youth and life will satiate them.

Naturally, Ryan’s line of questioning didn’t stop with sports, either. He suddenly turned to the idea of trans kids in general. “Is eight years old too young?”

“The trans issue for me is so novel,” Newsom said. “I'm trying to understand as much as anyone else the whole ‘pronoun’ thing.”

Newsom added that “gender-affirming care for children” is a “tough” topic—that while some constituents have told him that it “saved [their] child’s life,” he’s also read reports like the one “the UK just came out with,” a likely reference to the widely-rebuked and highly-propagandized “Cass Review.”

Newsom did not weigh in on the common use of GAC for cis children. Gender-affirming hormone treatment is never given to young children except in cases of precocious puberty, where it is the standard protocol for anyone regardless of their gender identity. Gender-affirming surgery is also never performed on trans children this young, but unnecessary genital surgery on intersex youth often is.

Then Ryan and Newsom agreed that human brains are not “fully developed” until age 26—the number anti-trans activists often cite in policy proposals to eradicate evidence-based health care for trans youth. There are no major, reputable medical organizations that endorse this policy, and no states have adopted it into law, but Puerto Rico is considering a GAC ban to the age of 21 years old.

Finally, and perhaps most disturbingly, Ryan compared trans kids to “furbies” who are “showing up to school in a kennel” and using litter boxes. He might mean “furries,” an internet subculture where people dress up in colorful animal costumes, which is often falsely, and pejoratively, conflated with transness. “Furbies” are a popular singing-owl toy from the early aughts.

Either way, these claims are false. And Newsom dismisses it—but not fully. “That’s been overhyped,” he said. “There have been a few instances of that.” (There have not.) “Most of that is bullshit, but if that’s occurred, that’s ridiculous.”

A spokesperson from Newsom’s office told Erin in the Morning afterwards: “We believe Shawn was referencing a widely reported child abuse case involving a Memphis mother who placed children in dog kennels in the back of her car. To be clear, the Governor does not subscribe to the repeatedly debunked and baseless right-wing conspiracy theories mentioned elsewhere in the podcast.”

Meanwhile, Newsom continues to self-identify as a “champion” for LGBT rights, even as LGBT organizations have condemned his anti-trans pivot. Reports have also emerged that he was trying to kill LGBT protection bills behind the scenes throughout the last year or so.

“I’m more open-minded than I've ever been,” Newsom says of anti-trans sentiments. “I think the sports issue really opened that door for me, the nuances in the space.”