Hovde slams trans Olympic boxer, questions Baldwin’s opposition to gender sports rules

(The Center Square) – An Olympic boxing match between an Algerian and an Italian is now a campaign issue in Wisconsin’s race for U.S. Senate.

Republican candidate Eric Hovde used the match between Italy's Angela Carini and Algeria’s Imane Khelif to make a point about keeping biological males from competing against biological females.

“Well, we've had another example of how crazy this world has become at the Olympics. I don't know if you've seen, but in women's boxing they've allowed a transgender – a man by birth – to compete even though the International Boxing Association banned him last year. The Olympics has their own rules, and allowed this person, Khelif, from Algeria to compete,” Hovde said in a video he released on social media.

Khelif won in just 46 seconds when Carini asked to have the fight stopped.

She later told reporters she’d never been hit so hard in her life and feared for her health.

Hovde said the match is the exact kind of thing that will happen if Democrats continue to oppose rules that would save women and girls’ sports for biological women and girls.”

“To think that we're allowing men to compete in female sports is insanity to begin with. But to allow a male boxer to fight against a female boxer, I mean, you gotta be kidding me,” Hovde added.

Hovde said he will support federal legislation that would keep men out of women’s sports. His campaign also was quick to note the Wisconsin Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin has supported the idea of allowing biological men to play against biological women.

Baldwin voted to kill an amendment that would have prohibited funds from being used by education agencies or institutions that allow biological men to participate in girls’ sports. And she co-sponsored the Equality Act, which would force schools to allow transgender women, defined as biological males who identify as female, to compete in women’s sports.

“If I get to the U.S. Senate I'm going to fight hard to let women’s sports be for women, and men’s sports for men, and not allow men to compete in female athletics,” Hovde added.