Democrats divided on trans athletes in women’s sports amid GOP pressure

An executive order, which President Donald Trump signed on National Girls and Women in Sports Day, prohibits transgender women from competing in women’s sports and is the third order he has signed that targets transgender people. Photo / Getty Images

Prominent Democrats are pushing their party to rethink its approach to transgender issues, particularly when it comes to women’s sports.

At times they have warned that the party has fallen out of step with the United States public and it needs to recalibrate for future elections.

Some elected officials and strategists have urged Democrats to embrace restrictions on trans athletes.

Many others want to strike a more sympathetic tone towards those who oppose trans competitors’ participation after an election in which US President Donald Trump and other Republicans used the issue to cast Democrats as out-of-touch.

But another swathe of the party views this trend as a dangerous shift – an abdication of Democrats’ values and a capitulation to Trump, who has moved in his second term to curtail trans rights.

Across the country, Democrats are far less eager than Republicans to talk about trans issues – an indicator of the political vice they feel they are in as they confront GOP attacks and pressure from opposing camps in their party.

The issue flared again this past week after a trans athlete won gold at a high school track and field championship in California. Many Democrats say the debate over trans athletes in women’s sports should be left to school districts and sports groups.

“It’s a hard and really legitimate conversation for people to have and for communities to have,” said Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut.

“And I think this speaks to a broader problem that our party has. We look at people who, you know, don’t line up with us on a host of social and cultural issues, and we judge them pretty harshly too often.”

As Trump vowed “large scale fines” over trans teen AB Hernandez’s medals in California, Governor Gavin Newsom – a Democrat who broke with much of his party this year on trans athletes – stayed quiet.

A representative for former Vice-President Kamala Harris, who is now eyeing a potential run for California governor or another White House bid, did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.

Several other potential Democratic presidential contenders did not reply to requests to clarify their views on trans athletes’ participation.

On Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers often appeared wary of wading into the subject on the spot, even as many denounced Trump’s rollbacks of LGBTQ rights at the outset of Pride Month.

Trump and Republicans are eager to bring it up.

“A Biological male competed in California Girls State Finals, WINNING BIG, despite the fact that they were warned by me not to do so,” Trump wrote last week on social media after Hernandez was allowed to compete at the California championship. He threatened “large scale fines”.

Most Americans support protecting trans people from discrimination in jobs, housing, and public spaces, according to a Pew Research Centre survey early this year.

At the same time, polls show that most support banning gender transition care for minors and oppose trans athletes participating in women’s sports.

One recent poll found that 89% of Republicans, 74% of independents and 44% of Democrats believe that someone’s gender is determined by their sex at birth.

Democratic strategists say they are trying to figure out how to blunt anti-trans attacks in the Midterm elections and beyond.

Some argue that Democrats are allowing a political vulnerability to fester by mostly avoiding the subject.

Third Way, a centre-left think-tank, is urging Democrats to embrace some restrictions on trans athletes while also taking the position that local groups and school districts, not politicians, should make the rules about participation in sports.

“There’s absolutely no question that Republicans were able to use this issue to paint Democrats as a whole, and the Harris campaign, as way outside the cultural mainstream,” Jon Cowan, the co-founder and president of Third Way, said of trans issues.

“And since the election, there’s been no kind of reckoning or redirection on the part of the party.”

However, some trans rights advocates see a party backing further away from a moral debate.

“They’re absolutely moving to the right,” Charlotte Clymer, a trans activist and Democratic operative, said of the party. “If not by specifically taking anti-trans positions, then by the increasing silence.”

Others are advising candidates to call trans issues a distraction and redirect to other topics such as Republican proposals to cut Medicaid spending.

Some Democrats are casting Republicans as “anti-freedom” and accusing them of interfering with parents and doctors.

Strategists have said they plan to study ways to combat the kinds of targeted attacks focused on trans issues that Trump’s campaign used to try to make inroads with minority voters.

Trump’s team believed their ads on gender identity were effective with black men, for instance, and highlighted reactions from that demographic in one commercial criticising Harris’ comments on gender transition care.

Pete Buttigieg, who made history as an openly gay presidential candidate and could run again in 2028, called for “empathy” in a recent podcast appearance – empathy for trans students in a “terrifying” position but also “empathy for people who sincerely want to make sure that sports are safe and fair”.

Leigh Finke, the first trans woman elected to the state legislature in Minnesota, said she sympathises with the political bind many Democrats feel they are in.

She called the issue of trans competitors in women’s sports “a trap”, said Democrats should focus on other things such as economic inequality, and emphasised how rare trans athletes are.

The president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association recently estimated that fewer than 10 are competing across NCAA sports.

But Finke also argued that the backlash to trans athletes in women’s sports is part of a broader Republican movement to “get trans people out of all civic spaces and social spaces”. If Democrats cede ground on sports, “they’ll just move on to the next space”, she said.

The issue was front and centre in last year’s election.

Ads for Trump told voters that “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you”.

A Washington Post analysis of data compiled by AdImpact shows that Republicans spent nearly US$215 million ($356m) on network TV ads that targeted transgender rights, at least US$111m of which specifically mentioned sports.

Harris largely steered clear of gender identity in her campaign – saying when pressed that she was “not going to put myself in the position of doctor” – but Republicans zeroed in on past comments, including her support for making gender-affirming surgery available to federal prisoners and detained migrants.

After the election, some Democrats, including Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, suggested their party was out of step and said they opposed trans athletes in women’s sports.

The backlash was fierce: Moulton’s campaign manager resigned, local Democrats threatened a primary challenge and a protest sprang up in Moulton’s hometown.

More recently, Newsom – a potential 2028 presidential candidate who led Democrats on gay rights early in his career – suggested on his podcast that “it’s deeply unfair” for trans athletes to participate in women’s sports.

His comment drew pushback from fellow liberals that continued at the California Democratic Convention last weekend.

“Shame on any of us who throws a trans child under the bus,” former Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz said in a speech there.

“That child deserves our support. Don’t worry about the pollsters calling it distractions, because we need to be the party of human dignity.”

The controversy over California’s track and field championship has put Newsom back in the spotlight.

Trump noted Newsom’s comments on fairness last week while accusing his blue state of violating an executive order aimed at banning trans athletes from women’s sports. The two played phone tag, Newsom’s office said, but had not connected.

Before the track meet, Newsom’s office praised rule changes at the California Interscholastic Federation, an independent non-profit, that allowed additional women to participate after a trans athlete qualified. When Hernandez, the trans athlete, finished first in the high jump, she shared the gold medal with two other women.

That did not satisfy Trump. And some Democrats said the California sports association’s rule changes meant to address complaints about fairness were not a broad solution.

“It doesn’t work for team sports,” said Finke, the Minnesota lawmaker. “It’s not a policy solution as much as it is trying to work around an individual crisis.”

Some LGBTQ rights advocates said most Democrats have not wavered on trans issues and praised politicians such as Maine Governor Janet Mills, who vocally defied Trump’s executive order on trans athletes.

Early this year in Congress, only two Democratic lawmakers voted for a Republican Bill to ban transgender athletes from women’s sports. Many others said federal lawmakers should stay out of the issue.

Democratic strategist Mark Riddle said his group recently found that voters across the political spectrum responded positively to a comment that Rahm Emanuel, a possible 2028 Democratic candidate, made at a conference this year.

“I am done with the discussion of what locker room kids use,” Emanuel said. “I am done with the discussion of bathrooms. We better start having a conversation about the classroom.”

“Voters want to move on from the culture wars,” Riddle said.