Dem
47
GOP
53
Needless to say, when it comes to trans issues, the Democrats are in a tough place. If they lean too much in one direction, they alienate one group of voters. If they lean too much in the other, they alienate a different group.
Let's actually start here with an interview done by Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), who might be the Blue Doggiest Democrat left in Congress once Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) retires. After the Supreme Court's Title IX decision was announced, she sat for an interview with CNN, and said that in the "rush to moralize," many Democrats are losing the "nuance" in the debate over transgender athletes in girls' sports. Gluesenkamp Perez observed that a lot of parents think that sports is the best chance that their assigned-female-at-birth children have of getting a college scholarship, and if their child is pushed aside by a trans girl, then that won't happen. In other words, this isn't necessarily about about hate, it's also about economic opportunity.
We would take the view that it's actually the Representative who is missing the nuance here (which, admittedly, may be deliberate because she has to keep voters in her R+2 district happy). First, there are very few trans-girl athletes, and certainly no team with more than one or two of them. If they are pushing an AFAB out, it's not the best player on the team, it's the weakest. And if you are the tenth- or twelfth- or twentieth-best player (or, really, anything other than the first or maybe second-best player), you weren't gonna get a scholarship anyhow. Sorry, mom and dad.
Now, it is a fact of sports that artificial lines are drawn to keep competition fair and safe. Heavyweight boxers can't fight bantamweights. 19-year-olds can't play in the NFL. Biological males can't play in the WNBA. Reasonable people can debate exactly where those lines should be drawn, including in circumstances where gender is involved (the Olympics has been wrestling with this for years). The actual problem, which most Democrats (including possibly Gluesenkamp Perez) realize, is that girls sports rules/rulings become slippery slopes that end up being extended to much more important things, like restrooms and rules about disclosing to parents. We don't even have to guess about this; the Kavanaugh ruling is not only going to make it legal for schools to ban trans girls/women from girls'/women's sports, but also to ban them from girls'/women's restrooms.
In any event, there were some interesting developments this week that suggest that at least some prominent Democrats have decided neutrality does not work here, and who have made a decision as to how they will play their hands. First up is Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), who has said she will sign Bill S2260, which passed the New Jersey legislature the same day as the Kavanaugh decision came down. The law makes clear that, in New Jersey, both abortion and transgender-affirming treatment are "legally protected" reproductive care. This means that the Garden State has now joined every other state with a blue trifecta in passing such a law.
Even more interesting is what happened in Illinois with Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL)—who, as you may have heard, is pondering a run for president in 2028. On Sunday, he signed three pro-trans bills into law. The first allows trans people to update the gender on their state IDs. The second requires insurance companies cover up to a 6-month supply of prescribed hormone therapy. And the third removes testosterone (and prohibits the addition of estrogen, mifepristone, and misoprostol) from the list maintained by the Illinois Prescription Monitoring Program. Some folks were abusing this list to prevent trans people from getting prescribed medications.
Once Pritzker had signed the three bills, he took the rest of the day off work, and headed over to Northalsted (Chicago's gay enclave), where he marched in that city's gay pride parade. It is, of course, one thing for someone who answers only to blue-state voters to hug LGBTQ, and especially T, citizens closer. It is another thing for someone with national aspirations to do it.
One other bit of news. Early last week, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) announced that the city has set aside $15 million to help subsidize providers of youth gender-affirming care. The money will also be used to fund a hotline for New Yorkers who need information about gender-affirming care, and also to fund research in areas currently being underserved by the Trump administration.
We recognize, of course, that Mamdani is very lefty. However, recent election results suggest that Democratic Socialist voters, and young voters (groups that obviously overlap a lot), may be ascendant right now. And Mamdani's maneuver reminds us that both of those groups are not only pro-LGBTQ, but that it's an important issue for them. It could be that keeping them happy could make up for the loss of trans-skeptical voters. We would not presume to draw firm conclusions from just a few news stories, but the events in New Jersey and Illinois are, at very least... interesting.
Incidentally, we would not propose that a Democrat cannot have some nuance when it comes to trans issues, and that they cannot at least partially meet (some) voters where they are. It is possible to say, "I understand the concerns in [AREA X] and [AREA Y], but I also believe it's important to take [STEP Z] and [STEP A] when it comes to trans people/trans kids." That would almost certainly better than the Kamala Harris approach, which was to avoid the issue like it was the plague, thus allowing the Trump campaign to define her "position" for her. (Z)