Florida Man Wins Women’s Poker Event

John Simmons

newsbusters.org

John Simmons is a Culture reporter, specializing in exposing liberal bias in the world of sports. He graduated with a degree in journalism from Liberty University and has written for numerous publications and websites, including The Boston Globe, The Liberty Champion, and The Standing for Freedom Center.

A Florida man entered a poker tournament on Saturday, and won big. Now you might be thinking, why is this important? Don’t guys enter poker tournaments all the time?

But like any “Florida Man” story, there’s a humorous, yet odd, twist to the story.

70-year-old David Hughes won the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown in Fort Lauderdale, Florida this past weekend. But the tournament was for females only.

Nevertheless, Hughes simply identified as a woman and was allowed to play. Florida casinos cannot prevent men from doing so because of anti-discrimination laws.

Whether Hughes has inherent advantages than his female counterpoints is less clear than in other forms of competition, since poker is a game of cards. But it nevertheless angered the women at the tournament, who were justified in their frustration.

Eventually, one of the women took matters into her own hands. Ebony Kenney, offered a $300 “bounty” to any of the players who would target Hughes and knock him out of the tournament, with the reward eventually reaching $2,000 thanks to others contributing.

You can just hear the passive aggression oozing through the screen.

Despite the incentive, Hughes managed to reach the end of the tournament and win $5,555 in prize money.

But Hughes didn’t just enter to get a big payday. Other players at the event said they heard Hughes mocking transgenderism and society’s unwillingness to draw a distinction between the two genders.

British poker player Charlie Carrell thought the stunt was funny, and said that Hughes actions highlights the stupidity of the transgender movement, and that there’s a need for boundaries to be put in place.

Poker Hall of Famer Linda Johnson, however, was less enthused by Hughes’ actions, but still called for the separation of the genders.

“I love ladies-only poker tournaments. I would have no problem with them having a men’s only and I wouldn’t enter it as I would not qualify for it,” Johnson wrote. “I would have no problem if they had a tournament for 26-year-old, motorcycle riding, Mohawk-haircut seniors and I wouldn’t enter it because I wouldn’t qualify. I don’t think men should play in ladies-only tournaments.”

Now both reactions seem to echo relatively simple logic: keep men with men, and women with women. But the bigger point is that Hughes once again showed how transgenderism and “self-identification” helps bypass that boundary.

If anyone can simply say they identify as the opposite gender, then we get a situation like this, with women losing out on a payday because a man hijacked the system. That is, in effect, transgender’s royal flush that no one can top.

Unless, of course, everyone stops going all in to support transgenderism not just in poker, but any other competition setting. Only then will this progressive agenda – and those who support it – be forced to fold ‘em and walk away.