Get out of my kid’s locker room, Mr. Trump

Donald Trump has repeatedly used the phrase “locker room talk” to dismiss the braggadocio boasts of sexual assault that recently surfaced from a session he taped for Access Hollywood. He’s even taken to waving a sweaty towel over his head at his latest rallies in what I can only assume is some perverted nod to this old boy's club excuse and a dog-whistle to his supporters that such talk will be just fine as part of a Trump administration.

I want to say to Mr Trump and all who defend his words that as a father of two sons and two daughters I hope his idea of “locker room talk” never takes root in the halls of the schools and sports facilities where my children learn teamwork, fair-play, integrity, and responsibility to one’s community, peers, and competitors.

The locker room is a place of anticipation, vulnerability, shared experience, and bonding. It is where the team prepares for the challenge ahead, assesses the failures and the triumphs of the struggle, and where teammates share their secrets and their fears. It is where coaches reinforce the values they expect their players to uphold.

In thirty-five years of participation in team sports, as an athlete or parent, I have never once heard anyone in the locker room espouse the merits of sexual assault at all, let alone as if they were discussing the latest score in baseball.

If one of the players in our schools was caught talking the way Mr Trump was, he would be off the team, done and done. There is no room for misogyny and condonment of criminal sexual assault in modern sports, in our schools, our gyms, or our locker rooms. By attempting to dismiss his antiquated world view as something that happens in locker rooms everywhere, Mr Trump has not only tarnished the sports world, he attempts to normalize such speech for young men (and women) all over this nation. This is not leadership, it is not honorable, and it is not acceptable.

For the sake of young athletes everywhere, I hope that coaches and sports leaders across the country repudiate Mr Trump’s idea of what should be spoken behind the closed doors of a locker room.