Matilda star Mara Wilson goes viral after annihilating Trump over trans sports ban

Actress Mara Wilson has eviscerated president Donald Trump over his decision to sign an executive order banning transgender women from female sports, with her takedown going viral on social media.

Earlier this week, Trump continued his spate of attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, signing a blanket ban on transgender athletes competing in female sports categories.

Trump’s trans sports ban, signed on National Girls and Women in Sports Day, provides the Department of Education with the power to investigate high schools it believes are non-compliant. Already, The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has confirmed that female student competitions under its jurisdiction will now be limited to those assigned female at birth.

“If you let men take over women’s sports teams or invade your locker rooms, you will be investigated for violations of Title IX and risk your federal funding,” Trump said of the ban.

In a post on BlueSky, former child star and bisexual icon Mara Wilson – best known for roles in Matilda and Mrs Doubtfire, and for her book Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame – responded to order, with viral effect.

“I know pointing out hypocrisy doesn’t matter anymore, but if there’s one person I wouldn’t want to be the judge of who goes into locker rooms, it would be the man who openly boasted about walking into dressing rooms of underage girls,” she wrote in a scathing post, which has received almost 50,000 “likes”.

Wilson was referring to a 2005 interview with Trump on the Howard Stern radio show, in which he boasted about being “allowed” to stroll backstage at beauty pageants while contestants were changing.

“You know they’re standing there with no clothes. Is everybody OK? And you see these incredible looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that,” he told the programme.

Until 2015, Trump owned the Miss Universe organisation, which included the Miss Universe pageant and its sister pageants, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA.

Trump’s own admission of going backstage while contestants were changing was corroborated by several of the pageants’ former contestants ahead of his first term as president in 2016.

“Mr Trump just barged right in, didn’t say anything, stood there and stared at us,” one contestant recalled to The Guardian, suggesting he adopted a “I can do this because I can” attitude.

“He didn’t walk in and say, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I was looking for someone,’” she shared. “He walked in, he stood and he stared. He was doing it because he knew that he could.”

On Bluesky, a stream of social media users are thanking Wilson for reminding users of Trump’s past actions.

“Pointing out hypocrisy has a low success rate of changing minds, but I believe it’s important to push back against the tide for the benefit of the people around us,” one person shared. “Otherwise, people who see it for what it is will feel more isolated than they actually are.”

“Preach it Sistah!!! Good God! and you’re right hypocrisy doesn’t matter any more. There is NO shame too big for any of them to just disregard. Thanks for your comment,” a second added.

Elsewhere in reactions to Trump’s trans sports ban, author JK Rowling used X/Twitter to celebrate the president for bringing the order into action.

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