https://juliaserano.substack.com/p/on-democrats-who-cave-in-response
"Necessary background: In October 2024, I published
Trans People and Sports:
Everything You Need to Know, an in-depth essay countering all the
misinformation and disinformation regarding this topic. In it, I pointed out
that
every single U.S. state that has passed laws banning trans athletes has
gone on to pass additional anti-trans laws—in fact, 27 out of 29 such states
have banned gender-affirming care for trans youth as well. Furthermore, many of
these same states have also passed “don’t say gay” laws and other policies that
negatively impact LGBTQ+ people more generally. In all seriousness, MAGA
Republicans (which is virtually all Republicans these days) don’t give a shit
about women’s sports—some even openly discuss eliminating them. In their minds,
trans athlete bans are just the first step toward pushing all LGBTQ+ people out
of the public sphere.
In February of this year, my essay Trans rights aren’t tanking the Democrats
was published in
Boston Review (it also exists as a video essay). In it, I
reviewed numerous lines of evidence demonstrating that 1) poll after poll shows
that U.S. voters rank transgender issues among the least important to them, 2)
Republican’s anti-trans attack ads do not help them win over new voters,
although it may help them mobilize their deeply anti-LGBTQ+ white evangelical
base, and 3) Democrats who cave on trans rights in response to said ads will
not win over new voters either (for all the aforementioned reasons), although
they are likely to alienate their own largely pro-trans/LGBTQ+ base. If you
doubt this, the essay links to numerous polls and political analyses in support
of these points.
I ended the essay with multiple ways Democrats can counteract Republican
anti-trans ads: “critique them as baseless fearmongering, as government
overreach, as interfering with personal family decisions. . . a distraction
from ‘kitchen table’ issues,” and so on. They can make boilerplate statements
about how all people deserve equal rights, or (to quote Kentucky Governor Andy
Beshear) “all children are children of God.” Or they can go on the offensive
and call their trans-obsessed opponents “weird” or “genital inspectors.” Sadly,
today in September 2026, Democratic politicians can also reply to
women’s-sports-related questions by saying: “in the last few years, trans
athletes have already been banned from the Olympics, World Aquatics & World
Athletics, the NCAA, and in K–12 in 29 different U.S. states—so why are
Republican’s still so irrationally fixated on this issue?”
Democrats can choose from any of those options and more, tailoring them to best
fit their campaigns and constituencies."
Via Janet Logan.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
