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Dec. 8, 2022 - Tulsi Gabbard Show
46:17
The War on Women - Part 2 w/ Carla Esparza | The Tulsi Gabbard Show
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Today we are picking up our conversation about Title IX with a world-class athlete who's held multiple world titles in the sport of mixed martial arts.
Now her success as a world champion was made possible in large part by the opportunities that Title IX presented for her as a collegiate wrestler, a true fighters fighter, Carla Esparza.
How's it going?
How's it going?
It's going good.
It's tough.
It's a grind, but yeah, I love the process for sure.
What does that look like?
What's an average day in camp look like for you?
Well, today was my rest day and I went to see Fight Dog for treatment, had a 90 minute massage, went to get, you know, treatment on my leg.
And so it's my rest day.
Yeah.
But like a normal training day would be like MMA training for like two hours in the morning, potentially, you know, some recovery afterwards and then like maybe a two to three hour break at home to rest and eat and then back to wrestling or some other type of training jujitsu.
I grew up doing martial arts, learning martial arts just as a kid and practiced different, you know, taekwondo, Filipino stick fighting, our niece.
I did Brazilian capoeira for probably the longest time.
Well, you just got even cooler.
Started jujitsu, thanks.
I'll take it from you.
But I grew up loving martial arts.
There was a minute, literally just a minute, where I think this is when Gino Carano was first breaking out and televised women fighters in MMA was becoming a thing.
And I was like, oh...
Maybe I want to do that.
And then it passed.
And then it passed.
The world's right here.
Totally.
Totally different direction.
But I admire you guys so much.
I admire just the skill, the strategy, just the mental discipline, obviously the physical discipline that goes into doing what you guys do.
And I think a lot of people...
I don't know.
It's one of the things that I've tried to talk to people about, where some people have misperceptions of what mixed martial arts is as a sport.
And even here in Hawaii, when Max Holloway won his first belt You know, his community threw a huge parade for him and everyone was celebrating his success and, you know, a lot of the kids in the community came out and, you know, they really looked up to him and they saw, you know, it comes from a part of the island that, you know, has got some social challenges and, you know, not maybe as well off as some of the other parts of the island.
People struggling, frankly, to live and I saw in these kids' eyes like, hey, You know, there's Uncle Max and seeing opportunity for themselves.
And it hurt when I saw some people even on our local news characterizing this as like, oh, they're celebrating violence or they're celebrating like some archaic, you know, you know, blood sport, essentially.
Well, martial arts is such a beautiful thing.
I mean, First, it's a sport.
There's fitness.
There's a self-defense aspect of it because we don't always know what the world is going to throw at us.
You have little ladies getting attacked in the street.
You have women, children trying to be abducted.
You have all these situations and you never know.
So it's better to be prepared and not need to use it than to not have it.
So on that level, it's so amazing, the fitness, the self-defense aspect.
But I mean, it's a sport like any other.
We go, we train, we work hard every day, we support our teammates.
And the martial arts aspect of it just alone, I think, you know, it just...
It gives people such a good outlet and teaches people such a good discipline to walk into light with.
Do you ever run into people who tell you, maybe even in a nice way, like, I don't like seeing women getting bloody or women don't have a place in such a violent sport?
You know, women have come such a far way in the last few years.
When I first started, I started wrestling almost 20 years ago.
So back then, it's like, what are you doing?
You're going with guys.
You're going to get hurt.
Don't hurt your pretty face.
You know, all these typical things you would hear from people.
Because you started wrestling in high school.
Is that right?
Yeah, I wrestled on the boys team in high school.
Was that because there wasn't a girls team?
Exactly.
There were no girls teams and wrestling was growing, growing, growing on the girls side.
But, you know, it's huge now.
There's actually more female wrestling teams in college now than men.
No kidding.
I didn't know that.
Yeah, it's great to see that.
And I was fortunate enough to be able to wrestle at Menlo College.
But yeah, I mean, women have come such a far way.
And, you know, now it's the norm.
I think people understand martial arts and MMA a little bit more.
So it's not seen as such a brutal thing.
And now a woman in the jujitsu class is the norm.
Sometimes I've been to classes where there's more women than men, which is super cool.
Yeah, I think more and more people are talking about jujitsu, I think, a lot through social media.
But also, you know, my younger sister is, she worked in law enforcement as a deputy U.S. marshal for almost 12 years.
And so she's got a lot of thoughts about law enforcement reform and And better training for law enforcement officers at every level, whether it's, you know, county, city, state, federal.
But jujitsu is kind of an element of training that is starting to become, I think, more normalized when you're talking about, like, those everyday altercations and Recognizing opportunities and our law enforcement officers actually having the skills to de-escalate the situation rather than being in a position where,
in order to prevent someone from hurting another human, seeing the only avenue as an escalatory one.
Oh, I'm 100% on board with that.
I actually supported a group and donated to a group called Adopt-A-Cop, which I know the owner, Mitch Aguirre, and they just, they pay, basically you adopt a cop and you pay for their membership, like wherever it may be.
And a gym agrees to, you know, give them a sponsored rate and they basically get sponsored an officer until they get to blue belt level.
And I am so for this because like you said, why we should be having We should push for reform and officers being more knowledgeable because there's all this outcry about officers hurting people, but we're not giving them the skills to safely handle these situations.
Right.
And that's really the key, right?
I mean, it is 100% like, hey, give our officers the skills and the tools so the choice is not just nothing or a gun.
There's a lot of space in between there where martial artists like yourself, you recognize, oh, well, there's a ton of things that you could do to submit someone or to put them in a position where they're not able to commit a crime or hurt anyone else that martial arts can give them in a very practical way.
But I think it's also that mindset, right?
And the discipline.
And I'm just wondering if you could talk about that, because I imagine all the way back in high school, but through your many years of fighting in this sport, that mindset, that martial artist mindset is kind of central to it.
What's the difference between somebody who's literally a street brawler versus a martial artist, right?
I think a huge difference is that composure.
You have that self-control because you've learned to get hit in the face, to be in these scary situations and not freak out.
You've learned to just kind of Wait through them.
Wait for the right moment.
And, you know, you're not running on emotions.
You're not running on anger or fear.
You're running on, okay, this is the next step I need to take.
And you're running in a more logical sense.
Right.
And your body is, of course, more used to, you know, these actions.
You kind of have this muscle memory of like, okay, this person's hitting me on my face.
I'm going to go under, get this takedown, you know, control them.
You know, you just have the steps that have been trained, that you've trained.
Right.
Yeah.
You've been fighting for almost 20 years now, but I can't help but look at the picture behind you.
So your nickname is Cookie Monster.
That's a pretty happy, jolly picture, but you present quite a threat in the octagon.
So tell us about Cookie Monster.
It's so funny.
So, obviously, I have a huge sweet tooth.
My coach, Colin Oyama, who's actually from Hawaii, he saw me at the gym and he likes to say this wasn't a one-time thing, but somebody brought a bunch of cookies to the gym and I think I just grabbed a bunch of my shirt and I was like, okay, let me go about my day.
And he's like, you're always eating cookies.
You're such a cookie monster.
And it just kind of stuck from there.
I actually tried to get rid of it because it didn't sound tough to me.
I wasn't like the killer, the knockout artist.
Chris Cyborg.
Yeah.
But I've definitely grown to love the nickname.
You had...
I think you made history in your recent title victory of the longest gap between holding titles as a strawweight.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
How did you go through that period?
It was like seven or eight years?
Yeah.
And I've heard a lot of fighters' interviews just saying like, you know, it's always about kind of chasing the title if you're not the title holder.
And if you are, then it's fighting to keep it, right?
Seven years is a long time.
How did you go through that period for that length of time and continue to persevere?
You know, that is probably one of my proudest records that I hold is that seven, eight year gap of winning the belt, losing it, and then coming back and winning it again.
I think It shows how far you can fall and you can still work your way back up to the top.
It's never over until, you know...
Until it's over.
For me, it was a very humbling experience.
I really had to go back to the drawing board, take a real look at myself and my flaws and where I needed to improve.
And I really had to make an evolution and make a lot of changes to get back to the point where I'm at right now.
And what's your process to continue to evolve and grow in the way that you need to to compete at the very highest levels in mixed martial arts?
I think taking a look at my flaws, taking a look at my victories, kind of seeing how did I win?
What worked for me then?
What do I need to improve on?
What caused me to lose?
Really dissecting these things.
For me, it was I needed to put on size.
I was being outsized.
I needed to change my mindset.
I was thinking very negatively back then.
Skill-wise, I was put in positions in In two fights in a row, which caused me to lose.
And I think that really flipped the switch for me and made me really have to look at myself and say, hey, something's not working and I need to make a change.
Yeah.
I want to go back a little bit to your experience in wrestling in high school.
I've got a very good friend of mine, someone who I was elected the same year with to Congress back in 2012. He's a congressman from Oklahoma.
His name is Mark Wayne Mullen.
I've come to know him and his family.
They're like my own family.
But he has three daughters.
And three boys.
All of them are wrestlers.
And, you know, the three youngest are the girls.
And they are incredible.
Absolutely incredible.
Like, so talented.
I grew up with three older brothers, so I know what it's like to live in kind of like a, you know, a rough and tumble, you got to fight for yourself kind of household.
Yeah, for sure.
And those girls embody that toughness, and I just love the combination of these little girls.
They're so cute and they're so beautiful, these little blonde girls, and yet they're going on the mat, rolling with boys and girls, and like, okay, their hand is raised in victory, and then it's like, all right, on to the next.
Or like, hey, Dad, what's for dinner?
It's so cool to see the kinds of opportunities they have now as compared to when you first started wrestling where you had no other option than to wrestle on the boys team.
And it's largely because of laws like Title IX that we're seeing so many opportunities now for girls and women in sports and in other parts of our lives.
How would your journey have been different If, you know, Menlo College didn't offer you that scholarship because, you know, they didn't have to or there wasn't a demand for your skill?
Honestly, I don't really know where my life would be right now.
It would definitely have taken a completely different direction.
I would say I speak for a lot of athletes, not just wrestlers, but sports changed my life.
It gave me a great outlet.
Yeah.
And it set me on a great path where maybe I wouldn't have been on otherwise.
Maybe I wouldn't have been doing the best things.
Maybe I wouldn't have had that motivation to do well in school to stay out of trouble.
Yeah.
How did your competing on the boys' team in high school inform something you've been outspoken about now, which is, look, you know, Fairness and equality and respect for everyone is important, and we have to acknowledge there are biological differences between men and women, which was the whole premise of Title IX and why it was created.
Exactly.
For me, being on the boys' wrestling team wasn't an option.
I would have loved to have been on a female wrestling team and had that experience.
But, you know, there just wasn't the option.
So wrestling against boys and in practice and especially in competition, I 100% felt a difference there.
Between the males and the females.
When I was finally able to compete against girls, I was like, this is a lot easier.
I'm not getting my head pounded.
I'm not getting thrown around.
And granted, I am exceptionally strong for a female, and I did do well on that end.
Because you had to.
Because I had to, but it wasn't the same.
I wasn't winning state championships.
I wasn't Becoming an All-American on the boys team and that wasn't going to happen.
You know, I, along with so many other females, fought so hard and dealt with a lot to build combat sports up, to build wrestling up, to build sports up for women, to give the girls today these opportunities that they have.
to make it a norm for them to be able to compete against other women.
And that's where it's so really disturbing at kind of a visceral level to see the direction that some of the...
I won't say it's the majority because it's not the majority, but there is kind of this loud public pressure coming from people in Washington and people who are on cable news who seem so eager to erase women.
Everything from Nancy Pelosi and leaders in Congress saying, hey, we're We're not going to use the word mother and father anymore in legislative language.
We're going to use the term birthing parent.
Sister and brother will now be replaced with sibling.
It's hard to understand the hypocrisy in their argument where these very same people who claim to be feminists fighting for women's rights, fighting for equality, touting the accomplishments of Title IX, at the same time saying, well, touting the accomplishments of Title IX, at the same time saying, well, actually, we can't define what it means to be
And we deny the objective truth and reality that there are biological differences between men and women.
And therefore, you know, I mean, really, they're actually trying to redefine Title IX so that it includes gender identity.
therefore stripping away the core definition, which is that biological difference between men and women, therefore opening the doors in all sports for biological males to compete against biological females.
I completely agree that, you know, That inclusion is important and people should be able to, you know, live their lives.
But we have all of these hurdles that women in sport have had to pass to get where we are today.
Sports are so competitive.
One scholarship...
Can make the biggest difference.
Making a team can make the biggest difference.
And then just to have somebody come and take that opportunity from a female is completely unfair.
For me, it doesn't make any sense because the science proves otherwise that there are advantages for biologically born males transitioning to female trans women.
So, you know, just what you're talking about, just real quick, what you're talking about is, you know, let's say you've got a 25-year-old male, or a 20-year-old male, for that matter, if you want to look at the recent example of the swimmers at Penn, right?
You have someone who has gone through puberty then deciding, "Well, no, I identify by a different gender and therefore will compete as a biological male against biological females." Whether they've been taking hormone treatments for a year or whatever the case may be, as some of the rules are, right?
They're saying like, okay, you're allowed to compete as a biological male against biological females if you've been, I don't know, suppressing testosterone for a year or something along those lines.
You're saying that there are still well-settled biological differences.
Yeah, so, you know, let's take testosterone out of the mix.
We still have, on average, a woman is 5'3 and a male is 5'9.
Height can play a huge factor in sports.
You have more, you have denser bones, you have, you know, wider wingspan, very important for swimming.
You have all of these advantages.
Even outside of testosterone, which, you know, the study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine showed that even after two years, the trans women still had a 15% advantage in running over cisgender women.
So it's crazy to me that people are just putting inclusion over safety and fairness in sport.
It doesn't make sense.
Do you see the UFC ever allowing biological males to compete against biological females?
I do not see the UFC allowing trans females in the UFC, just based on what I know about Dana White.
And he's made comments about it in the past when Fallon Fox was fighting.
Fallon Fox actually fought in my old college teammate and best friend, Ashley Evans-Smith.
And she even...
She said publicly and to me privately that the power difference was very real.
It was like fighting a man.
And that's completely unfair.
And she was the only person to beat Fallon Fox, but that's because her skill level was that much higher.
Another fighter that fought Fallon, Tamika Brents, was saying, you know, I'm very strong for a woman, but I was definitely overpowered.
She had her skull broken.
I don't think it's fair.
Even more recently, there's a fighter, Alana McLaughlin, I believe, in Fighting for Combate.
And she kind of demolished her opponent as well.
When we come to combat sports, it's a safety issue.
When we're talking about other sports, I think it's more of a fairness issue.
But when we're talking about contact sports, especially combat sports, This is a huge safety issue.
People are going in there to get hurt.
People are going in there to hurt their opponents.
When you have an advantage, it puts people's safety at an unfair risk.
Do you think that if this changed, if trans athletes were allowed to compete in the UFC, what impact would that have on women in mixed martial arts as a whole?
As a whole, I think that you definitely have Women's safety at more risk.
You'd have a lot more people taking a lot more damage because of an unfair advantage.
You'd have women losing opportunities that they fought their whole life for just to get into the UFC because it was taken by someone who had a natural physiological advantage.
You know, I mentioned my friend Mark Wayne Mullen and his little girls who love wrestling and they're really, really good at it.
He and I introduced legislation together, a Democrat and Republican, basically to protect, it's called the Protect Women's Sports Act.
And it's very simply and specifically upheld the original intent of Title IX. I think it's something that is unfortunately lost on a lot of lawmakers, again, who are really more concerned about the popularity contest that exists within Washington than they are actually about Worrying about the impact and consequences of what they're saying.
And how little girls like Lara, Mark Wayne's daughter Lara, how she and her life and her opportunities would be impacted.
I think she's 13 now.
And again, very competitive on the national level.
Her outlook would completely change as a result of this.
And right now, there are 20 states that have passed laws protecting women's sports, Almost half the country, but there are a number of other states that are doubling down in eroding Title IX. And at the federal level, they're threatening to withhold federal funding in education and sports if states protect female athletes.
If they say, no, biological women will compete against biological women.
Right.
I think this poses such a danger and puts people in an incredible predicament that again results in the erasure of women.
Because if you're not standing up for girls and women, what are you doing?
Exactly.
I'm not one normally to speak out on a lot of issues, but...
As a female athlete and as someone who has seen women's sports grow so much over the years, to see it take two steps forward and one step back because of this, I felt that I had to speak out on it.
Having little girls work hard and do everything they possibly could to be the best and have their opportunities taken is just...
So unjust and so unfair.
Even on a larger scale, you have the International Olympic Committee taking away any restrictions on testosterone saying that everyone is equal, which goes against all science, which goes against the whole purpose behind a testing body like USADA. Right.
USADA is popular amongst fighters, I hear.
I mean, I personally love USADA and I've been outspoken about USADA because I love to be a part of a clean and safe sport.
And I think this should be true of all sports.
Yeah, that's a really good point.
Can you talk a little bit more about your own journey?
I think it's really important, first of all, just to recognize your courage in speaking up.
Not for yourself.
You have had such an incredible career already.
You will continue to go on, but you're not just starting out like a lot of these young girls may be as they're looking to like, hey, what opportunities are there for So first, I just want to congratulate you, but really thank you because you have courage to speak up for others and to fight for others at a time when it's not always popular to do so.
And I know it comes with some negativity and it comes with some attacks.
Well, first and foremost, I'm speaking up because maybe one day I'm going to have a daughter or my friends have daughters or someone that I know is going to be competing and I don't want any opportunities taken away from them unfairly.
For me, I took those steps and I wrestled against boys and I dealt with a lot of A lot of issues, you know, not having respect, not having opportunity, having to just take anything, any opportunity that came my way, whether it was easy or hard.
You know, there was definitely a lot of hurdles to pass, but it was worth it.
And because of the steps that I've taken and so many other females before me, the women and the girls today now have so much opportunity.
And that's why I want to fight for this cause so much because all of the work that we put in to bring female sports to where they are today can't be for nothing.
So how did you start?
I started wrestling in college.
And then from there, I just kind of trained boxing or jujitsu on the side just to kind of stay in shape and for fun.
And I didn't even know what mixed martial arts was at the time.
I just kind of jumped into it.
And from there, I was like, this is really fun.
And my coach was like, you should fight this MMA thing.
Like, MMA what?
Yeah.
It was definitely a lot smaller.
I mean, even on the men's side, MMA is...
It's only been around, or the UFC has only been around for, I think, less than 30 years.
Yeah.
So this is all still new territory.
So I began fighting.
I fought for $800, and I think I paid $850 for my medicals.
Oh, wow.
You know, I fought upweight classes.
I fought 125, which my normal weight class is 115. I took any opportunity I could get.
I would fight on three days notice, one week notice, anything else.
And anywhere just to have these opportunities because they were far and few between.
So it was definitely a lot different and there wasn't that much respect.
We were more of a spectacle on the card.
It was like, oh, look at those chicks fighting on that card.
It wasn't until years later that we really started gaining respect from fans as not just this sideshow of chicks fighting as real professional athletes.
They came in there to handle their business.
At what point, how did you support yourself as you were going through this?
You said you paid $800 to fight, but you had to pay $850 just for the medical.
How did you support yourself?
And then at what point did it become something that actually became your main gig instead of a side gig?
Well, I started fighting.
I think I was just turned 22, so I just finished college, so definitely didn't have a lot of money.
Worked a little bit on the side as a personal trainer, and then I had to live at home at my parents' house because...
I couldn't afford to live on my own.
Every time I fought and made any money, that money went directly to my gas and my food.
I basically didn't have any fun spending money.
As I said, I commuted an hour and a half each way every day.
So, you know, you just made it happen.
You try to find sponsors, anything you could to kind of survive in the sport.
You were making maybe $3,000 in a year, and that was a good year.
You know, I did it as long as for me.
I planned to do it as long as it made sense for me, as long as I could do it with knowing that I wasn't going to make any money.
It wasn't until Invict FC, the all-female promotion came in and started paying a little bit more.
And then the UFC came and paid a little bit more.
And now I'm at a place where I can do this for a living, this thing that I love.
What did your mom and dad think about your life choices?
Maybe then versus now.
Yeah.
My parents have always been super supportive of me as a person, no matter what I chose to do.
I think they got a little bit used to these combat sports through wrestling first, so I don't think MMA was as much of a shock to them.
But they still haven't been to a fight in person.
They watch them on TV because I think They'd be a little bit too nervous in person.
Yeah, that's incredible.
Do you have brothers and sisters?
Nope, only child.
Okay.
So thank God they were supportive of your adventure in life that you chose.
Not everybody gets so lucky.
Yeah, I was definitely lucky.
I know I've heard of a lot of females back in the day that even had to lie to their parents or keep their fighting a secret because it was so against the norm.
Yeah.
I heard you recently got married.
There you go.
Oh, I actually have a wedding picture.
Oh, wow!
Look at that.
That's awesome.
I know Brian, our mutual friend, sent me pictures.
Didn't he officiate your wedding, actually?
Oh my gosh, yeah, Brian, he's the best manager slash wedding officiant.
Yeah, there you go.
He's got a few slashes in there.
Does your husband go to your fights?
So funny enough, the first time I fought when we were together, I actually met my husband like a couple weeks after I fought and then Yeah.
I can't imagine.
I just ask because I can't imagine the nerves.
You know what I mean?
Oh, yeah.
He said he was so emotional.
The cameras were on him when I was fighting, so he said he put sunglasses on so that they couldn't see how emotional he got.
That's smart.
You watch these old boxing movies and stuff like that.
I don't know.
I get so invested when I watch you guys fight.
I don't know.
I love it.
My husband laughs when I'm watching fights, even from home, because...
I will physically cringe or react to whatever's going on in the ring.
Again, just so much respect for what you do.
What you do in the cage is one thing, but just as we started talking about the preparation and the hard work and...
The hardship, this whole cutting weight thing, just all of it that people don't see on television is really mind-blowing and, again, just a testament to you as an athlete and a professional in what you do.
Yeah, it's definitely not an easy job, but it's a fun one.
Every job comes with the good and the bad and I wouldn't change it for the world.
Fighting is so fun and it gives you a feeling like nothing else.
I had a chance to spend some time with some of the college athletes, the swimmers, who were involved very publicly in the Penn swim meets.
One was a swimmer who had actually tied with Leah Thomas for fourth place in one of the national competitions and was told that She was not allowed to stand on the podium and that they did not bring a medal for her and that they would send it to her in the mail even though it was a dead tie.
She had a dead tie with Leah Thomas.
They basically just said, don't complain.
Be quiet.
We've made this decision to feature Leah Thomas and we'll send you your medal in the mail.
There's so many other stories that they've told About that whole experience that really did play out on the national level, I think sparking an important conversation, but it speaks to the kinds of ongoing battles I think we're going to continue to see in a very public way as our country grapples with this question that, yes, it's about women and girls in sports, but it's actually a question about something much bigger than that, which is...
are we as a country going to deny the existence of objective reality and truth?
Because if we have people in positions of power who are making laws and decisions that are affecting young versions of you 20, 25 years ago and their opportunities in life, yes, in sports, but in a lot of other 25 years ago and their opportunities in life, yes, in sports, but in a lot of other ways as well, if they refuse to accept that
They refuse to accept that there is such a thing as objective truth, in this case, the truth that there are biological differences between men and women, girls and boys, then we have no foundation as a society.
Then I can say anything that I want and I can say it's true, right?
Because if there is no such thing as truth, then it's my truth versus your truth.
And it's this whole thing that people are like, oh, you know, hey, believe in your truth.
No, there's truth.
Something is either true or it's false.
And in this situation, I think that's something that I really want to highlight because let's say there's someone out there who maybe doesn't have a daughter or a son or doesn't have a personal stake in this whole question.
I think it's important that we look at kind of the bigger issue at stake here, which is what happens to us as a society when we throw out Truth and fact.
Exactly.
When the science and the data are showing one thing, 100% is, this is the answer.
And we're saying, well, I don't think that that's important.
I think that people's feelings are going to take precedence over the science, over the data, over the facts.
And that's just not right.
We're, again, taking opportunities away from people in such an unfair way.
And it just, it creates this dangerous situation where, you know, in any country, in anywhere in the world, you have the levers of power shift from one side to the other side or from one party to another party.
And if we're saying, if we're accepting that, hey, there is no longer such a thing as truth and fact and science, then Right.
And it's not about one side or another.
Exactly.
It's not my opinion or your opinion.
It's what are the facts.
Right.
And if we're just running on what one person wants, this is how it's going to be because I want it right or wrong.
And then we get into a dangerous place.
Yeah, I agree.
And I think that's where it's, I think it's important.
And you've talked about this before, too.
Standing up and protecting women and girls in sports, standing up for Title IX, standing up for the fact that there is such a thing as a woman that is clearly defined biologically and in other ways doesn't mean you're against anyone else or someone else or you're anti-anything else.
I think that's an important thing to say because a lot of people are scared to talk about this.
We should be standing up for each other as women, as a society, without that fear that by standing up for women and girls, by standing up for the truth, does not automatically mean you are against anyone else.
Just because we're looking at the science and the facts and we want fairness doesn't mean that we're against any group or any person.
You know, as I said before, I'm perfectly happy with letting people live their lives and do what they want.
But on that note, we have to keep things fair and we have to keep people safe.
And that's why we have divisions.
That's why we have age divisions.
That's why we have gender divisions.
That's why we have weight classes.
Because...
There is a difference.
We categorize people in a way to make things safe.
And that's where following that logic, continuing to stand up for fairness does not come at the cost of...
Inclusion doesn't come at the cost of excluding others, which is exactly what we are seeing here.
You know, I want to bring up an example from the UK that is a good one, because I think it's important for us to, you know, for people who are watching or listening, like, it's easy to kind of just throw your hands and be like, my gosh, you know, the outlook...
It seems kind of bleak, but it's important that we not give up because, as you said, there's so much at stake.
The UK's Attorney General recently made clear that schools are legally permitted to refuse use of a student's preferred gender pronouns and that schools must provide single-sex bathrooms in those schools.
You know, for a long time, it seems like Europe maybe was, I don't know, farther left or maybe what someone considered more progressive than the United States.
But in this issue, it seems like they are recognizing that there is a difference between boys and girls.
And that they shouldn't be going and using the same bathrooms together because as we've seen in, I think it was in Virginia, at a public school, you know, a boy said, oh, well, identify as a girl and then went in and a girl was raped.
We're seeing this now under this Biden administration allowing trans women to now go to women's prisons.
And we're seeing women being raped in prison.
And being impregnated.
Who's held responsible for that?
Will they prosecute that as a crime?
You know, I mean, these are all questions that should be asked and challenges that need to be made, frankly, towards the idiocy of their policies, but there's just so much fear around it, and rightly so, you know?
I think more women...
just having the bravery to speak out.
Yeah.
As you mentioned, there can be backlash.
There can be a lot of negativity when speaking out.
But I think that the girls and the women coming up in sports and to come up in sports are worth it.
I think that we have to speak out for them.
I'm reminded of kind of the great people that we've looked up to throughout history, you know, who fought for justice.
People like Martin Luther King, people like Rosa Parks, different people who have taken a stand for what is right, have done so at great cost to themselves.
And great sacrifice and harm.
And so for those who are out there who are afraid to speak up, it's important.
It's important to do so and to draw that strength from within and to draw that strength from knowing that you're standing on the side of truth and on the side of justice and equality for women.
As I said, I've been there.
I've been through the struggle.
I've had limited opportunities and I know what it's like to be there.
And I think because of the struggles and hurdles I've had to deal with, it makes me want to speak up that much more for these girls and not give them the type of hurdles and the impossible hurdles to beat and to deal with.
Because let's be honest.
I think common sense tells us with someone with that much of an advantage that you can do everything and you're just never going to win.
And the polls and the data actually show this, that the vast majority of the American people, even Democrats, recognize and understand truth and the biological differences between men and women, but a lot of people are just afraid because of the pressures that exist.
Thank you for your voice.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for taking time, Carla, especially as you're in fight camp and getting ready for this.
And I know it was short notice.
I really, really am truly grateful.
And on your rest day, no less.
So thank you.
Yeah, I know.
Thank you so much for pushing this issue because, you know, I know that you, even in your platform as You know, in politics, you know, you're constantly fighting this battle, and you're a pioneer yourself.
So, you know, I know you understand this, and I'm sure you have, you know, as an athlete as well, you have as much Stake in this and as much, like, passion to help the women and girls coming up in the future.
Well, you're generous.
You're generous to call me an athlete.
Oh, thank you very much.
I won't go, I, you know, yes, anyway, thank you.
I'll just take that compliment coming from you.
But thank you.
Yeah, it's, you know, it's...
As I'm sure you experience in your own way, you develop a coat of armor when, yeah, attacks are going to come, but when you know that you stand on the side of what's right and what's true, who cares?
Let them come, right?
Exactly.
And I wanted to mention something you were talking about earlier about You know, people not listening to science and just going on their opinions.
It reminded me of in the movie Big Daddy when they're just like, the little boy is like playing cards and he's like, I win.
He's like, Adam Sandler's like, I just had that card.
How do you win?
Because I win.
Yeah, exactly.
And it's just like, this doesn't make any sense.
That's a great example.
Like, I win because I said I win.
It's true because I said it's true.
Like, wait.
What?
That's not how it works.
Yeah, exactly.
That's a good example.
Thank you so much again.
Thank you.
It was really nice to talk to you.
Thank you.
Enjoy the rest of your day.
I hope you actually do get some actual rest.
Take a nap.
Good.
Thanks so much.
And if you're ever in Orange County and you and Abraham want to pop over or go for a hike, let me know.
I'll take you up on that.
Thank you.
Take care.
Bye.
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