Biden's attorney-general pick waffles on boys showering with girls

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By Mary Margaret Olohan
Daily Caller News Foundation

President Joe Biden’s nominee for attorney general Merrick Garland avoided directly addressing whether biological males should compete in women’s sports during the first day of his confirmation hearing.

Garland discussed the much-contested issue with Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy before the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday.

“I’m going to ask you if you agree with this statement,” Kennedy told the attorney general nominee. “Allowing…biological males to compete in an all-female sport deprives women of the opportunity to participate fully and fairly in sports and is fundamentally unfair to female athletes.”

“This is a very difficult societal question,” Garland told Kennedy, to which the senator responded, “I know, but you’re going to be attorney general.”

Sen. John Kennedy asks Judge Garland if he believes biological men should compete in female sports:

GARLAND: “This is a very difficult societal question.”

KENNEDY: “I know but you’re going to be Attorney General.” pic.twitter.com/Rsd9ItyI6G

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) February 22, 2021

Should boys be allowed to shower with girls?

Garland said that he may not be the one to make “policy decisions like that” but that he is not “adverse to it.” The attorney general nominee also said that he had not had a chance to think through Kennedy’s question yet.

“I think every human being should be treated with dignity and respect. That’s an overriding sense of my own character, but an overriding sense of what the law requires,” he said. “This particular question of how Title IX applies in schools is… something that I would have to look at when I have a chance to do that. I’ve not had the chance to consider these kinds of issues in my career so far, but I agree that this is a difficult question.”

Biden’s pick for Education Department secretary Miguel Cardona, the current Connecticut education commissioner, also in early February that schools have a responsibility to let biological males participate in girls’ sports if they identify as transgender.

“If confirmed, it’s my responsibility and privilege to make sure that we are following the civil rights of all students, and that includes activities that they may engage in in high school or in athletics,” Cardona said.

“I think that it is critically important that education systems and educators respect the rights of all students, including students who are transgender, and that they are afforded the opportunities that every other students has to participate in extracurricular activities,” he continued.

This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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