Democrats are wrestling with the role the party’s broad support for transgender rights played in its failure to capture the presidency and either chamber of Congress, with sharp views being exchanged in a party reeling from its losses.
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a five-term congressman who previously has voted with most other Democrats to safeguard transgender rights, touched off a firestorm of criticism when he railed against Democratic support for transgender athletes in women’s sports in an interview with The New York Times on the party’s election night losses.
“Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face,” Moulton said. “I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”
Massachusetts Democrats widely panned Moulton’s remarks, in part because he referred to transgender girls as “male,” a descriptor commonly used by opponents of transgender rights to communicate that trans people are not who they say they are.
Steve Kerrigan, chair of the state Democratic Party, told the Boston Globe that Moulton’s comments “do not represent the broad view of our party.” In a post on social media, state Democratic Rep. John Moran, who is gay, called Moulton “weak.” A city councilor in Salem, Moulton’s hometown, called for Moulton to resign.
Moulton isn’t alone: A second Democrat, Rep. Tom Suozzi (N.Y.), told The New York Times that Democrats “have to stop pandering to the far left” to win elections.
“I don’t want to discriminate against anybody, but I don’t think biological boys should be playing in girls’ sports,” Suozzi said.
Other Democrats said the party doesn’t need to abandon its support for transgender rights, but it does need to rethink its messaging, particularly in swing districts.
“We need to improve our messaging. I got clobbered on all the transgender messaging in my district, and it was very painful,” said Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), who narrowly won reelection this month.
Gonzalez’s opponent, former Rep. Mayra Flores (R-Texas), seized on Gonzalez’s support of transgender rights on the campaign trail, mirroring attacks Republicans launched against vulnerable Democrats across the country this year.
In races including Gonzalez’s, Republicans used Democrats’ votes against policies targeting transgender rights as ammunition, cutting them into attack ads that painted their opponents as extreme and out of touch with most Americans.
“All I’m saying is: Don’t ever whip me to take votes that I know are losers in my district,” Gonzalez said.
The degree to which transgender issues drove the results of the election is still up for debate.
One of President-elect Trump’s most-effective ads — a 30-second spot featuring “The Breakfast Club” host Charlamagne tha God’s on-air response to remarks by Vice President Harris that incarcerated trans people should have access to gender-affirming care — shifted the race 2.7 percentage points in Trump’s favor, The New York Times reported, citing an analysis by Future Forward, a large super PAC supporting Harris.
According to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 people who cast ballots in this year’s election, more than half of voters said support for transgender rights in government and society has gone too far, including 85 percent of Trump voters and roughly 25 percent of Harris voters.
But transgender issues ranked far below matters like the economy, Democracy and national security when it came to driving people to the polls, according to Gallup. It also fell below relations with China and Russia and trade with other countries.
When voters were asked their most important issues in this year’s election, just 4 percent said opposition to transgender athletes and surgeries drove their vote, according to exit polling released by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group.
“Let’s be clear, the party that was focused on culture wars, the party that was focused on trans people, was the Republican Party,” Rep.-elect Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the first openly trans person elected to Congress, told reporters outside the Capitol. “I do not believe, from what I’ve seen from the voters in Delaware, that the voters in my state were responding to those attacks.”
A large portion of Delaware, McBride noted, is part of the Philadelphia media market, which President-elect Trump and Republicans flooded with ads targeting transgender rights in the final stretch of the election, part of a multimillion-dollar campaign. Yet McBride coasted to victory in her district.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), whose daughter is transgender, said on a postelection call organized by the Working Families Party that “some conservative Democrats” are “quick to jump in and blame the most vulnerable, instead of just looking at themselves.”
In a statement to independent journalist Erin Reed, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) compared some Democrats’ belief that support for trans-inclusive policies cost them the election to the party’s blame on same-sex marriage for Democratic losses in 2004.
“After the 2004 election, a lot of pundits said it was time for Democrats to stop standing up for gay people. They were wrong, and history showed we could stand up for what’s right and still win elections,” he said.
The remarks from Moulton were particularly notable and painful to some, given his voting record.
Twice, once in 2022 and again in 2023, Moulton co-sponsored House Democrats’ Transgender Bill of Rights, which, among other protections, would guarantee trans student-athletes the right to participate on sports teams that match their gender identity.
He also backed the Equality Act, legislation to make sexual orientation and gender identity protected classes, and is a member of the Congressional Equality Caucus, which works to promote LGBTQ equality in the House.
Last spring, Moulton voted against passing Rep. Greg Steube’s (R-Fla.) Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which had sought to change Title IX — the federal civil rights law prohibiting sex discrimination in schools and education programs that receive government funding — to recognize sex as “based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”
A spokesperson for Moulton did not respond to questions about why Moulton twice co-signed legislation to allow transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports or whether his position on trans issues has changed. Moulton did not back House Republicans’ transgender athlete ban, the spokesperson said, because Moulton believed it was too sweeping and politically charged.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D), the first openly lesbian governor of a state, said Moulton’s comments to the Times were “playing politics with people.”
“We shouldn’t do that,” Healey said, adding, “It’s really important that the party have discussions about a whole bunch of issues, and I think it’s important that members of the party be open to having those discussions.”
During a recent appearance on MSNBC, Moulton said he stands by his position but acknowledged he “didn’t get all the words exactly right.” He told The New York Times on Friday that members of the LGBTQ community have thanked him for his remarks.
“Some of them believe the trans movement has gone too far. It is imperiling the progress we’ve made,” Moulton said.
Suozzi, who has similarly supported federal legislation to advance transgender rights, has received far less criticism from Democrats over his comments to the Times. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mike Lillis contributed.
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