Liberal media blast DeSantis' transgender athletes bill: 'This is disgusting'

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Gov. DeSantis signs bill banning trans athletes competing in female sports

Florida governor joins 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' to discuss his commitment to protecting integrity of women's sports

The mainstream media were up in arms Tuesday over Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, signing a new law limiting girls' sports at public schools to biological girls.

Liberal media outlets were outraged with DeSantis' public signing of the Fairness in Women's Sports Act, which he said would help protect equal opportunities for women to obtain college athletic scholarships. Reporters appeared to take personal offense with the fact that the bill was signed into law June 1, the first day of Pride Month. 

"Florida governor Ron DeSantis continues his quest to become the pretender to the MAGA throne," MSNBC host Joy Reid said during her show Tuesday night. "He banned transgender women athletes from participating in sports on the first day of Pride Month, nonetheless," she added, before taking shots at his "derelict handling of the pandemic."

FLORIDA'S DESANTIS SIGNS LAW PROHIBITING TRANSGENDER ATHLETES FROM COMPETING IN FEMALE SPORTS

"This is disgusting," Temple University professor Marc Lamont Hill responded.

Bulwark writer Tim Miller accused the governor of "bringing his daughter as a prop." 

"This is grotesque," he wrote.

The law came as a slap in the face to the LGBT community whose members were marking the first day of Pride Month, a CNN commentator said.

"Five years ago this month, a gunman killed 49 people and wounded 53 others at the Pulse nightclub, which served LGBTQ people in Orlando, Florida," Keith Boykin wrote. "Today, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis disgraced their memory by signing an anti-trans bill on the first day of LGBTQ Pride Month."

CNN also condemned the action in a Tuesday story, arguing that "a person's gender is an innate sense of identity," and that "the factors that go into determining the sex listed on a birth certificate may include anatomy, genetics and hormones, and there is broad natural variation in each of these categories." 

"For this reason," the story reads, "the language of ‘biological sex,’ as used in this legislation, can be overly simplistic and misleading."

DeSantis has been a frequent target of Democrats and members of the press as Republicans tout the Florida governor as a possible 2024 presidential contender. 

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A reporter at the signing suggested DeSantis was intentionally sending a message with the timing of the bill.

"It's not a message to anything other than saying we're going to protect fairness in women's sports," DeSantis fired back. "We believe that it's important to have integrity in competition, and we think that it's important to be able to compete on a level playing field."