Parents’ right to protect girls is not “manufactured
Two days before Michigan’s Senate election, El-Sayed called the conflict over transgender students in sports “manufactured,” reviving his 2018 pledge on access.
Parents have the right to protect girls in sports and locker rooms, but Abdul El-Sayed said, “I think we manufacture these social issues” CBS released extended candidate interviews alongside its Sunday broadcast, and Ross Douthat asked, “What happens with transgender kids on sports teams and so on, right?” and described these as places “where rights are in conflict”. He added, “The notion that, somehow, you are going to prevent your child from being exposed to something that you may find disagreeable and that that is going to be because of school is so profoundly outdated.”1
Riley Gaines answered on X Monday: “You should let a man strip down naked next to your daughter because she has an iPhone and ‘the internet is real.’”2 Manufactured by whom?
“You should let a man strip down naked next to your daughter because she has an iPhone and 'the internet is real'.”
His 2018 pledge promised identity-based access
El-Sayed brought locker rooms into this debate himself. In a March 2018 interview with Pride Source, he said Michigan should "protect access to bathrooms, to locker rooms, to sports teams of choice for young people." The access he described follows a young person's gender identity, not sex3. Under that pledge, a boy who identifies as a girl gets the girls' locker room and the girls' team. Eight years later, El-Sayed tells voters the conflict is invented. He drew the line through the girls' locker room himself.
Parents have the right to protect daughters
Michigan families are already living the conflict he calls manufactured. In October, Monroe volleyball player Briley Lechner and her father sued Monroe Public Schools, the Michigan High School Athletic Association and district officials. Their attorneys allege school officials concealed an opposing transgender player's participation and allowed the teams to share locker-room facilities. On Oct. 13, Monroe's school board voted 5-2 to restrict girls' sports and girls' locker rooms to biological females, CBS Detroit reported3. A family objected, and an elected board answered to it.
The internet does not cancel parental duty
El-Sayed's best defense is the phone in a child's pocket. OutKick reports that El-Sayed argued smartphones and the internet make it unrealistic for parents to shield children from ideas they object to. Parents, he argued, should coach their children through what they encounter, because "the free flow of information is actually a beautiful thing3." Townhall reports that, in a clip it attributes to Drew Pavlou, an interviewer asked whether girls might be exposed to male genitalia in locker rooms, and El-Sayed replied, “They are going to see it anyway.”
No website undresses beside a girl after practice. The locker room belongs to the school, and the school answers to parents for who is in it. What a child might stumble on online does not excuse what adults choose to allow in a school.
Michigan voters can hold him to both answers
El-Sayed also tried to hand the question to someone else: who plays which sport "should be the question of the people who govern sports. I'm not running to govern sports, right?" Days before an election, he sounds like a candidate on defense. His opponent in Tuesday's race, Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers, is running for the seat held by retiring Democrat Gary Peters, and he posted a clip of El-Sayed's answer on X3.
Rogers has been clear: "Biological men should not be competing with our daughters, period," he said during his 2024 campaign3.
Should he compete on the girls' team, yes or no? Should a school be allowed to keep that from a girl's parents, yes or no? Michigan voters should hold El-Sayed to both answers when they vote Tuesday.
Sources
- Here's Why Abdul El-Sayed Said He Doesn't Oppose Men in Girls' Locker Rooms
- @Riley_Gaines_ on X, 2026-11-02: Holy moly. You should let a man strip down naked next to your daughter because she has an iPhone and "the internet is real". Who could vote for this arrogant, smug dunce?, 2026-11-02
- JACKSON THOMPSON: Abdul El-Sayed says males in girls' sports is manufactured issue | OutKick
FAMILY BRIEF The news and network for the American family.
