The American Civil Liberties Union has long insisted that “trans women are women,” and the backlash against male-born athletes in female sports hasn’t changed that.
Chase Strangio, ACLU LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project co-director, drew double-takes for insisting in an interview that there are “no examples of men impersonating women” in women’s sports, contradicting President Trump and other defenders of single-sex female athletics.
“The policies that are claiming that transgender women in sports are men are wrong,” Mr. Strangio, who was born female and identifies as a man, told PBS. “The president is lying when he says that there are men impersonating women and participating in women’s sports. There are no examples of men impersonating women that I’m aware of.”
The comments came in response to President Trump’s Feb. 5 executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
Mr. Strangio added that “it is incorrect to refer to transgender women and girls as men and boys.”
The “Amanpour & Co.” interview was conducted Feb. 28, but the lawyer’s comments went viral Monday after the account End Wokeness posted the clip on X.
“There are no men impersonating women playing women’s sports.”
—a woman impersonating a man
— Terry Schilling  (@Schilling1776) March 31, 2025
Those taking exception with Mr. Strangio’s take included Sen. Mike Lee, Utah Republican, who asked: “Was he born yesterday?”
Paula Scanlan, who swam on the University of Pennsylvania 2021-22 women’s team with transgender athlete Lia Thomas, replied: “This lawyer is also a woman pretending to be a man lol.”
The women’s sportswear company XX-XY Athletics responded: “Woman pretending to be a man says President Trump is lying when he says men are participating in women’s sports.”
The dispute underscored the pivotal role of language in the transgender rights debate.
Supporters insist that biological males who identify as female are actually female, and that those who disagree are transphobic, hateful or simply wrong.
Advocates for single-sex women’s sports argue that refusing to distinguish between biological women and biological men who identify as women is inaccurate, unfair and delusional.
“These people live in a fictitious reality and they demand you play along,” said conservative commentator Roger O’Handley, known as DC Draino, on X.
Mr. Strangio is no random ACLU staffer.
The Northeastern University-educated attorney argued in December before the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Skrmetti, the challenge to state laws barring gender transition drugs for those under 18.
