Update: This transcript has been updated in accordance with the Trans Journalists Association style guide; Media Matters has replaced incorrect references to Thomas’ gender in brackets in the transcript. For example, if a transcript incorrectly refers to someone as “he,” we change that language to say "[she]."
On YouTube, Charlie Kirk calls for men to confront and physically prevent trans student athletes from competing
Kirk: “This is my challenge to every man across America. This is happening in your local schoolboard, it's not enough to showing up to meetings and all this. You need to intervene”
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From the March 29, 2022 edition of Saving America Tour with Charlie Kirk, streamed on YouTube
CHARLIE KIRK (TURNING POINT USA PRESIDENT): So, [Lia] Thomas has destroyed female sports as we know it. OK? I'm sure [Lia] Thomas is a nice person. I guarantee you [Lia] Thomas needs counseling and therapy. I want that for that person. I want the best for them. I want every human being to be able to flourish. But I also don't like cheaters and you shouldn't either.
So, [Lia] Thomas is a cheater. [Lia] Thomas is a [woman] who is suffering from gender dysphoria. It's a legitimate psychological condition. A gender dysphoria is where you think you're in a different body than you actually are. We're not the first civilization to deal with this. For thousands of years, this has been a phenomenon and for the last sixty years, we've had non-medical ways of having – counseling and therapy – to be able to deal with this in a rather understated and private way. Just in the last couple years, we've decided to elevate and platform gender dysphoria as some sort of identity crisis.
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This is not your fight. You are a woman. Where are the men? So, here's where I'm really upset is that we believe that men are protectors – protectors of the innocent, protectors of what is the natural law. I'm not going to say that women don't have fight in them. But men need to lead.
So, at the NCAA tournament what I would've loved to have seen in a different America – in a 1950s America, let me tell you what would've happened. Yeah. Let me tell you what would've happened – is that the fathers of every other competitor would've come out of the stands and formed a line in front of [Lia] Thomas and saying, hey tough guy, you want to get in a pool? 'Cause you're going to have to come through us. Instead, I saw these videos of these masked beta male low testosterone fathers kinda hunched over, not wanting to offend anyone as they work for the corporate machine. And I say that's why this is happening.
Women have been left to fend for themselves, and guess what? Now, men are terrorizing them. [Lia] Thomas is a [woman] terrorizing other women. Why are we putting up with this? And the reason is that we've allowed men to become weak.
And so, I'm about done with this whole topic. My patience has run thin. And so here is my challenge for every man across America. This is happening in your local schoolboard, it's not enough to showing up to meetings and all this. You need to intervene. You need to show up to the sporting event and be like this is not happening actually. You're not competing against my daughter. She has XX chromosomes, you have XY chromosomes, get off the court, get out of the pool. It's not going to happen anymore.