Trump targets 'cult of gender ideology'

On Saturday, Donald Trump made stops in New Hampshire and South Carolina for the first major campaign events in his 2024 presidential bid, finding opportunities to make remarks against main competitor, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), even before exiting his aircraft and making way to the podium.

In an interview with reporters aboard his plane to South Carolina on Saturday, Trump said "Ron would have not been governor if it wasn't for me, and that's okay . . . then when I hear he might run, I consider that very disloyal."

During the speech he would go on to give in South Carolina, Trump took up a popular talking point among Republicans, protecting children from "perverts" and steering the country away from "woke" gender and sexuality politics.

"We're going to stop the left wing radical racists and perverts who are trying to indoctrinate our youth, and we're going to get their Marxist hands off of our children" Trump said. "We're going to defeat the cult of gender ideology and reaffirm that god created two genders called men and women."

Responding to the applause that erupted after those statements, Trump then doubled-down, going into the topic of "men playing in women's sports," and how he plans to put an end to it.

"We're not going to allow men to play in women's sports, and by so doing, you know what happens, we're going to save the dignity of women, and we're going to save women's sports itself," Trump said, calling such a thing "ridiculous."

Trump has already laid groundwork for this plan, announcing this week that he will be pushing to "cut federal funding for any school pushing far-left sexual or political content on our children."