Democrats are still reeling from the wave of defeats on Election Day that included Kamala Harris losing to Donald Trump. In the process of casting about for an explanation, one theory is that Trump won because the Democratic Party is disconnected from the concerns of average Americans. An example of this alleged disconnect is Democrats’ relative support of transgender Americans, compared to Republicans who’ve been engaged in a coordinated attack against trans people.
“The Democrats have to stop pandering to the far left,” Rep. Tom Suozzi, a New York moderate Democrat who won re-election Tuesday, told The New York Times the next day. “I don’t want to discriminate against anybody, but I don’t think biological boys should be playing in girls’ sports. … Democrats aren’t saying that, and they should be.”
There is no other way to put this but: No. Democrats absolutely should not be following Suozzi’s advice here. It is an instinct based on fear that should be rejected loudly and firmly from all corners of the party. From a human decency perspective, this moment, when trans people are most endangered, is not the time to throw them under the bus. It’s also wrong as political strategy in that the party would be trying to appeal to voters who would be no more inclined to lend the Democratic Party their support even if it abandons trans people.
From a human decency perspective, this moment, when trans people are most endangered, is not the time to throw them under the bus.
It’s true that Trump and other Republicans went all in on anti-trans messaging this election cycle. According to data from Ad Impact, the GOP spent roughly $215 million on network TV ads alone calling transgender people a threat to the American way of life. That included at least $77 million in Senate races in 10 states between mid-July and late October and doesn’t include any online ads on the issue. That was significantly more than the GOP spent trying to whip up anti-trans sentiment during the 2022 midterm elections. That campaign strategy was a massive failure for the GOP then. There were no real gains to be shown for the GOP based on that rhetoric.
And what was the response to that deluge of spending from the Democrats being targeted? Well, not much in Ohio and Texas, where much of the GOP’s spending was focused. Disturbingly, Sen. Sherrod Brown, who was running for re-election in Ohio, and Rep. Colin Allred, who was trying to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, chose to accept the premise that trans youth involvement in sports is somehow wrong. “Let me be clear: I don’t want boys playing girls’ sports, or any of this ridiculous stuff Ted Cruz is saying,” Allred said in an ad that drew sharp scrutiny from LGBTQ groups.
Similar to immigration and the GOP's obsessive focus on “border security,” that level of engagement with conservative attacks only validates them. As Katelyn Burns wrote for MSNBC last month, there is no way to argue that trans girls playing school sports are really “biological boys” without implying a similar belief that trans women are merely “biological men” and treating them as such in policy and in practice. (It is also worth noting that Allred and Brown lost their races despite downplaying their previous support for trans rights.)
There’s no also evidence that pulling back on protecting trans rights would benefit Democrats. A recent survey from Data for Progress showed that a majority of voters are more likely to support a candidate supportive of transgender rights than one who opposes them. Those numbers are more encouraging when you see that includes 80% of Democrats and 46% of independent/third-party voters. Among the latter group, 27% responded that they “don’t know” which hypothetical candidate they’d support of the two. It is worth noting that these findings may wind up varying depending on geographical location but are still helpful through a national lens.
And while I can see why that might give some Democrats pause, it seems unlikely that all the uncertain respondents would join the 33% of independents who’d prefer a candidate attacking trans rights. In fact, when given a choice between Candidate A “who says the government should stay out of people’s private lives and that there is too much legislation targeting a small minority of the population” and Candidate B “who says that we need new laws that restrict access to transgender health care and keep ‘biological boys’ out of sports,” 54% of independent/third-party voters said they’re more likely to back Candidate A.
Issues related to trans rights, including the trans athletes canard, have also consistently ranked near the bottom of most voters' priorities in polling. This would give some credence to the notion that Democrats are spending too much time focused on the issue — or at least it would if it were Democrats who were running on it. Instead, Axios reported in late October that Democrats had “spent nearly $9 million to refute the GOP attacks or hit back at Republican opposition to broader LGBTQ rights.” That is more than nine times less than the onslaught of ads demonizing trans Americans. For those who think that the problem is that Democrats were too vocal in their defense of trans rights, I beg you to explain that gap.
The urge to find a scapegoat is strong, as guesses become narratives become conventional wisdom.
Moreover, it can’t be said with any certainty that the slew of anti-trans ads influenced the election’s outcome at all. A study from Ground Media and GLAAD last year found that viewing a Trump ad against transgender people yielded no significant impact on voter choice, mobilization or likelihood to vote at all when compared to an ad that didn’t mention trans issues. But in deconstructing a race in which any number of factors could have been the supposed tipping point, the urge to find a scapegoat is strong, as guesses become narratives become conventional wisdom.
What we do know, though, is that LGBTQ crisis services have had a major spike in calls since Election Day. We know that anti-trans legislation has been pouring out of the states and could soon make its way to the federal level. We know that Trump’s incoming administration will roll back any protections that have been put into place under President Joe Biden. We know that despite wins like Rep.-elect Sarah McBride’s victory in Delaware, transgender Americans will not just feel deeply unsafe in this environment, but also face increased risks to their health and safety.
I know that I am not going to be in the category of those most vulnerable over the next four years. It is a moral imperative in that case for me to speak out for those who are. This is as true at the individual level as it is at the party level. There is no excuse for cowardice in this moment of upheaval, especially cowardice that would sacrifice trans Americans at the altar of bigotry.
