Matt Walsh tells California lawmakers to keep men out of women’s sports ‘for the simple reason that they are men’

Walsh told the committee that he wasn’t going to talk that day about "fairness, although it’s certainly true that allowing men to compete in women’s sports is deeply unfair. And I’m not going to talk about safety, although it’s certainly true that allowing men into female sports teams and into their bathrooms is incredibly unsafe. I’ll let others highlight those important points."

Walsh said he wanted to talk about something "even more important and even more basic. It’s the most basic thing of all: the truth. You must keep men out of women’s sports and out of their facilities for the simple reason that they are men. Men are not women. A man who claims he is a woman is still not a woman."

"So 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 continued, "The man who identifies as a woman is either diluted and confused or he is a cross-dressing fetishist looking to play out his fantasies in public. In either case, the claim he’s making, the claim to womanhood, is not true, and compelling women to take part in this untruth is evil, perverse, and predatory."

Addressing the lawmakers, Walsh told them, "If you would use the force of law to compel young girls to use a changing room with a boy, you are yourselves predators." He later added, "As lawmakers, you have an obligation to the truth. It is a truth that I know you all recognize, because every human who has ever lived on earth recognizes it: that men are men and women are women. It is that simple, and the question before you is just as simple. The question is this: 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."

Walsh was speaking in support of California Assembly member Bill Essayli and his bill AB 844, which was introduced in February. The bill states that sex-segregated school programs and activities, such as sports teams and competitions, as well as the use of facilities, including bathrooms, locker rooms, showers, and overnight accommodations, be based upon the pupil’s sex that they were born as and not their self-identified gender.

Following the testimony portion of the meeting, countless people came up to express their support of the bill, including parents, current and former athletes, and other members of the community. One of those who expressed their support of the bill was Melissa Batie-Smoose, the former assistant volleyball coach for San Jose State University.