A former gubernatorial candidate in Lagos State, Babatunde Gbadamosi, has called on world football governing body, FIFA to discourage transgenderism in football.
He said this in a tweet while reacting to Nigeria’s Super Falcons’ barren draw against Canada in their opening Group B game at the ongoing FIFA Women’s World Cup on Friday.
Gbadamosi claimed that Canada “cheated” by featuring Quinn, a non-binary, transgender footballer in the game, saying “our 11 women played against 12 Canadian women, because the man has to count as two women”.
According to American LGBTQ advocacy group, Human Rights Campaign, transgender, or trans, is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity is different from the sex assigned to them at birth, while non-binary is an identity embraced by some people who do not identify exclusively as a man or a woman.
By playing in the game against Nigeria, the Canadian midfielder made history, becoming the first out trans and non-binary footballer to play at a World Cup.
The 27-year-old started the game and played the full 90 minutes but was unable to help Canada secure victory.
Reacting, Gbadamosi, a politician and socio-political commentator, called on FIFA to award the game to the Super Falcons, noting that “Nigeria would have won that game EASILY if Canada did not have the advantage of an extra player”.
He queried whether Nigeria’s football governing body, Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), was aware of the development before the game and what the federation did about it.
“Why were no efforts made to protect our daughters from this ugly development?” he further queried.
Gbadamosi called on all African nations to boycott the event.
“How on earth are women supposed to play in such a physical game against biological men pretending to be women? What kind of sick, twisted depravity is this for Christ’s sake?
“How many other teams in this “Women’s World Cup” have brought men pretending to be women to play for them? Is the USA team also made up of “transgenders”?
“African teams NEED to BOYCOTT the @FIFAWorldCup women’s competition, because if this had been an African team that did this, we would never have heard the last of it,” he said.