At the attacks of Trump’s second term on trans rights and people, there has been passionate resistance from judges, schools, doctors, and activists. There has been almost none from Democratic politicians. The reason for this reticence is easy to guess. Harris’ loss was an alarming sign to the Democratic Party to change tactics. According to a Blueprint poll, the third-biggest reason for swing voters not choosing Harris was that “Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class.” The Harris campaign barely mentioned trans issues, yet the perception of her pro-trans stance still hurt her. Many Democratic politicians feel that the party needs to distance itself from trans issues in order to succeed. In fact, however, it is not trans rights themselves that alienate voters. Instead, Trump has fastened an association in people’s minds between trans rights and broader left wing problems. It is these problems that people are thinking about, and that the left wing must address.
Democratic politicians are nervous to touch trans rights, but really they don’t have a choice whether they are associated with trans rights or not. This is why Harris’ lack of focus on trans rights did nothing to shift her reputation. Trump is intentionally trying to make Democrats look pro-trans. Trump’s campaign spent $215 million on anti-trans advertising, and once in office, Trump devoted more than 10,000 words of his executive orders to anti-trans language in only his first month as president. Trump painted Harris as pro-trans (remember “transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison”?) and continues to assert that, for example, schools engage in “radical indoctrination” of “gender ideology” because of progressives. This is part of a broader political strategy.
Anti-trans rhetoric is strategic for a few reasons. Trump has been accused of scapegoating—that is, making up an issue in order to distract from real problems—and it is easy to see how Trump’s anti-trans logic, focusing on enforcing “biological reality” and on removing certain types of speech from K-12 schools, connects to other political goals. Anti-gay political action and censorship in grade schools have risen along with Trump’s anti-trans onslaught. But above all, Trump harnesses anti-trans sentiment as a way of capturing the frustrations that people have with left-wing culture, specifically with regard to the “woke” policing of speech, and the inefficiency of the Democratic Party.
According to The New York Times, 49% of Americans think that the country has gone too far in accommodating trans people. The most common reason, over any other (including the perceived threat of trans women toward all-female spaces), is that they feel that their speech is being censored. Trump is aware of this. In his trans military ban, he stated, “A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member” (Italics mine). It is interesting that he chose to emphasize the onus that trans military members supposedly place on others, in the form of forced speech. These gripes are part of a broader context.
Pro-trans sentiment exists within a broader progressive culture. Today’s progressive culture is characterized by fast-changing PC terminology. It is difficult to keep up with what terms you are supposed to say, and if you don’t use them, you might get canceled. These terms, firstly, are often determined by academic or activist groups, and not by the actual groups they describe. Some obvious examples are “Latinx”, “unhoused”, and “AANHPI”. Many people who belong to these groups do not want to use the terms for themselves. In addition, because there is such a strong culture of purity tests, people speak the way they do in order to avoid getting canceled rather than out of actual concern for the group in question. Thus, there is little tolerance for any viewpoint that differs from the perspective of the most progressive, most linguistically “woke” contingent.
This phenomenon gives the left a condescending, elitist, and out-of-touch feel. Since 1996, the Democratic Party has gone from having a largely low-income, low-education voting base to a high-income, high-education one. There are many reasons for this; one could argue that Trump’s rhetoric targets poorly informed voters, and red states tend to have more censorship in education (think of all the people that googled “tariffs” after Trump won). However, it is also because left-wing culture is largely focused around the debates of elite, highly educated people, instead of the real struggles of most voters.
Trans discourse—which is distinct from trans people—exemplifies this tendency. One obvious example is pronouns. It is logically inevitable that if you view someone as a particular gender, you use the accordant pronouns to speak about them; and it is reasonable for a person to distance themself from someone who doesn’t view them as the gender they are. However, the particular culture that has developed around pronouns is not logically inevitable. In many left-leaning places, everybody is expected to give their pronouns during introductions and in paperwork. This is meant as a way of asking or expressing gender with respectful distance, and normalizing trans people. But in practice, how many cis people have pronouns in their bio to make trans people’s days better? By and large, it is an act of signaling (to mostly other cis people) that they belong to a particular set of progressive people. To be asked your pronouns is to be drawn into a broader system of virtue-signaling conventions.
If anybody questions this system, or other fast-changing terms (“gender-affirming care”, neopronouns, why you can’t say “pregnant women” anymore), or why the same term is used for people with physical dysphoria and people who don’t want to transition physically, they are glibly told something like, “Every identity is valid.” It’s not that this isn’t true, but it embodies the left’s reputation for shutting down alternative viewpoints and condescension.
Trump’s response is apt: as aforementioned, he accuses trans people of controlling speech; he focuses on attacking trans-related language that some people are the most confused by (“Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you”); and he uses the most vilifying, sensationalizing language possible to talk about trans people (“radical gender ideology,” “mutilations”). When people feel like they are being pressured to use language they don’t agree with or understand the reason for, they are going to feel liberated by Trump’s rhetoric. Then, of course, the right can justify censorship projects in the name of free speech.
Trump is not just enforcing anti-trans legislation top-down. We have seen organizations like the National Park Service and the NCAA excluding trans people before Trump explicitly required it. This suggests that many powerful people were happy to express anti-trans sentiment as soon as it became socially acceptable; namely, they were just pretending before to be pro-trans because they were scared. That is the wrong motivation and a sign of a toxic environment.
The focus on correct language and ideas also often comes at the cost of efficient action and popular policy. On February 1st, the DNC’s elections “devolved at times”, opined The New York Times, “into almost a caricature of left-wing litmus tests of inclusivity. Candidates were asked to pledge to expand transgender representation, add a new Muslim caucus and affirm that racism and misogyny had contributed to former Vice President Kamala Harris’s defeat.” At the University of Chicago’s own Institute of Politics, Pete Buttigieg criticized the inability of this identity-focused approach to reach people. He mentions diversity training. On a similar tack one can think of corporate pride, which requires corporations to perform LGBT+ support (which has no connection to whether they actually treat their LGBT+ employees well.) This practice (distinct from pride parades, which are by and for LGBT+ people to enjoy) is questionable: it is invasive to make someone actively wear pride gear or else seem homophobic; and we should not conflate performance with practice.
Among the groups being let down by performative identity politics are trans people. In the aforementioned Blueprint poll, trans rights are defined as a “cultural issue,” juxtaposed against “helping the middle class.” These associations are startling, and only make sense in the context of performative speech, which appears to supersede improvement of daily life. But trans people are of flesh and blood. Forty percent of transgender adults have attempted suicide in their life, and thirty percent of transgender youth have attempted suicide in the past year. Gender-affirming medical care led to 60% lower odds of depression and 73% lower odds of suicidality in youth, according to a 2022 study. Regret rates of gender-affirming surgeries are 1-2%, much lower than the regret rate of all surgeries on average (14%). Gender dysphoria is severe enough to cause suicide without other factors.
Trans people also face danger from outside. On February 8, 2024, 16-year-old Nex Benedict was severely beaten by classmates in a high-school bathroom in Oklahoma, and died shortly after. It is debated whether the direct cause of death was the injuries, which were severe, or suicide, possibly instigated by bullying. However, it is attested that the school board attempted to cover up the event, that State Senator Tom Woods’ remark was that his constituency “doesn’t want that filth in Oklahoma,” and that no criminal charges were made in connection with the event. Even with the ambiguities, the event became famous because it exemplifies how many institutions fail to protect trans people from serious attacks or prosecute the perpetrators, leaving trans people open to violence. Transgender people are four times as likely to be victims of violence, and about half of all violent attacks towards trans people are not reported to the police.
Not having an accurate ID puts trans people at greater risk of attacks, searches, and discrimination; after all, even if they pass, their ID or credit card marks them as trans, both to civilians and to law or security officials. The rise of laws like anti-drag laws and bathroom laws, as well as the removal of gender identity from anti-discrimination law in some places, also leaves trans people open to police abuse and un-penalized violence. The stakes of the new anti-trans laws are high and immediately tangible for trans people.
Yet progressive voices, both in government and outside of it, are ill-poised to protect trans rights. The average American supports rights like anti-discrimination protection, ID change, and medical care for trans adults, according to a study by the Washington Post. Yet there are still many debates to be had. The dominant pro-trans approach to trans children is a good example of the lack of nuance, of tolerance for diverse perspectives, and of strategy among progressive groups.
In US v. Skrmetti, gender-affirming care for minors is currently being debated in the Supreme Court. The lawyer in favor, Chase Strangio of the American Civil Liberties Union, is taking the angle of discrimination: people can take the same hormones if they are not doing it in order to transition, and thus forbidding gender-affirming care is sex-based discrimination. This may be true, but many on both sides think he could have instead defended the right of parents over the state to decide whether their children should receive gender-affirming care, as it is more specific to children. Indeed, if Strangio loses, there may be ramifications for gender-affirming care for adults because he lumped children’s and adults’ trans issues together.
It is not just about strategy. Children’s and adults’ medical care are manifestly different: they have different doctors, different medications, and different rights. Many who support validating trans identity for people of all ages, and medical transitioning for adults, have doubts about gender-affirming care for children. Yet, the pro-trans climate is one in which you can get canceled for voicing hesitation about gender-affirming care for minors. This alienates many would-be allies, at a time when trans people (minors and adults alike) cannot afford it.
It is also worth noting that people speak of gender-affirming care for minors as if it were the only way to allow children to live their true gender identity. This is reductive to trans experiences: verbal affirmation, social acceptance, clothes, and non-medical gender-affirming products also play a huge role in mitigating dysphoria and allowing people to live honestly. That might sound like a pedantic point, but lack of nuance and of attention to lived experience is part of the left’s inability to reach people.
Personally, I am in favor of gender-affirming care for minors: I strongly believe that one can know they are trans at any age, and besides, puberty blockers have been shown so far to be reversible. However, the particular way that the topic is discussed and mobilized by pro-trans activists showcases a lack of nuance and of tolerance for differing views, which can make progressive institutions poorly equipped to fight for the rights of trans people themselves.
Democratic Congresswoman, herself a trans woman, Sarah McBride has commented that “we have to create more space in our tent.” This does not mean dropping trans rights because of mixed popularity. Politicians are capable of doing more than following popular opinion: people listen to politicians they support. However, a party can only have such trust and influence if it makes people feel heard and welcome, and appears to be efficient. After all, discourse and messaging are only a means to an end. The purpose of a political party is to effect real changes that all Americans, including those who are transgender, actually need.
Image: Fra Filippo Lippi, Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement, tempera on wood, ca. 1440, (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).