Politics

Healey: Dems who platform trans athletes debate are helping the GOP

"You’re just playing into the hands of exactly what they want," Gov. Maura Healey said.

Gov. Maura Healey. Pat Greenhouse / The Boston Globe, File

March 12, 2025

4 minutes to read

Gov. Maura Healey took a swipe at California Gov. Gavin Newsom Wednesday, criticizing him for inviting the rightwing media figure Charlie Kirk onto his podcast and for agreeing with Kirk’s stance on transgender athletes participating in female college and youth sports.

On the debut episode of Newsom’s new podcast, he broke with many high-profile Democratic leaders and said that Kirk was right to be concerned about transgender athletes creating an uneven playing field.

“I think it’s an issue of fairness, I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness — it’s deeply unfair,” Newsom said. “I am not wrestling with the fairness issue.”

Newsom went on to praise Kirk for how he and other rightwing influencers have “weaponized” this particular issue in recent years.

Healey was asked about diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives broadly and the Newsom podcast specifically when she appeared on GBH’s “Boston Public Radio” Wednesday. Healey, who became the nation’s first openly lesbian governor when she was elected, defended DEI programs but did not wade into substantive details on how she sees the issue of competitive fairness when transgender athletes are involved.

Instead, Healey continued to insist that Republicans were using the topic as a distraction.

“This has been the Republican game, to pick a really discrete issue—the number of transgender people in this country is very small, the number of transgender athletes in this country is even smaller—and blow that up into something when what we should be focusing on is how and where is Trump going to deliver on his campaign promise which was to lower costs, which is not what he’s doing,” Healey said.

In that sense, Healey appeared to agree with Newsom’s assessment that GOP leaders have “weaponized” the issue. But she distanced herself from Newsom and his decision to sit down with Kirk.

“Let’s get back to saying the words,” she said. “Make people say, and explain, why they oppose diversity, why they oppose inclusion. Antics of more discussion or platforming of Charlie Kirk, to me, that’s not what I’m about.”

Healey has increasingly involved herself in the national resistance to the Trump administration in recent weeks. A lengthy interview with The New York Times and an appearance on “Late Night with Seth Meyers” even prompted some local observers to wonder if Healey is mulling a run for the White House in 2028. The governor is planning to seek reelection next year, and told The Boston Herald that she would serve a full second term if successful.

Newsom, who is term-limited as the governor of California, is widely expected to run for president in 2028. He has been a longtime ally of the LGBTQ community and made waves when he decided to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples as mayor of San Francisco.

In his conversation with Kirk, Newsom did point out that transgender people are “more likely to commit suicide, have anxiety and depression,” and he bemoaned “the way that people talk down to vulnerable communities.”

But Newsom’s comments on transgender athletes caused fierce backlash from other Democrats and LGBTQ advocates. The situation echoes controversy surrounding Rep. Seth Moulton, the North Shore congressman who said in the wake of President Donald Trump’s victory that he doesn’t want his two young girls “getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.”

Those comments also prompted similar backlash, and Healey accused Moulton of “playing politics with people.”

Moulton said that some of his quotes were mischaracterized and that he is still a staunch ally of LGBTQ people. But he has stood by his larger point, which is that Democrats should not be afraid to speak candidly on topics like this and should not avoid controversy.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills made headlines when she sparred with Trump over his efforts to deny federal funding to the state over transgender athletes.

As part of that exchange, Trump said “we are the federal law.” Healey attended the event where that back-and-forth happened and told the Times that she “heard somebody who thinks he’s king.”

In the Times interview and again on GBH, Healey stressed that DEI programs are essential and that this is another instance of Trump using culture war issues as a distraction.

“I believe in diversity. I believe that we should continue to have women and people of color at the table. I believe it is wrong to exclude somebody because they have a disability, it is wrong to exclude somebody because of their sexual orientation. That’s not what Massachusetts is about and actually under federal law that’s not what this country is about. So let’s move on,” she said on GBH.

Healey implied that people like Newsom are inadvertently helping Republicans by shifting the public conversation away from Trump’s desire to gut the federal government and to enrich wealthy people at the expense of everyday Americans.

“You’re just playing into the hands of exactly what they want, to distract everybody from the four-and-a-half trillion dollars in tax cuts that they’re going to want to jam through by cutting Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare. Period.”