In states, some Democrats back anti-trans bills

The momentum for anti-trans legislation in the states grew throughout the Biden presidency, and picked up once his successor began changing federal policy. Legislators have picked up Democratic votes along the way.

In Michigan, eight House Democrats voted for a Republican resolution that urged the state’s high school athletics associations to keep trans athletes out of women’s sports. In New York, where Democrats hold solid majorities in the state legislature, three of their senators voted to advance a bill to bar “biologically male students at birth” from competing with women.

None of those Democrats explained their votes. In Pennsylvania, just one of the senators who supported the Save Women’s Sports Act explained why on the floor: Lisa Boscola, whose Lehigh Valley seat moved toward Trump last year.

“Separating biological males and females for sports, especially after puberty, is necessary for fairness,” said Boscola in her floor speech. “What’s frustrating me more than anything is that each side of this issue argues it’s all or nothing. I do not see it that way.”

National and state Democrats have debated how much heterodoxy they can accept on these sorts of bills. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the first openly transgender member of Congress, has talked with colleagues about opening a “big tent” for Democrats who might disagree with them on gender.

“You have to allow people to grow,” McBride told Semafor last year. “You have to create space for people to grow. And the fact that there is still room for growth for some people does not make them evil.”

Some Democrats who’ve backed Republican bills have gotten rough receptions from party activists. But they have not been kicked out of the tent.

Just two of McBride’s colleagues voted for the federal version of a “women’s sports” bill this year; one of them, Rep. Henry Cuellar, faced a potential condemnation from Texas Democrats, which mentioned that vote among the reasons for the party to cut him off. Last week, the party killed the condemnation resolution.

After last year’s elections, when Republicans spent more than $215 million on transgender-focused ads against Democrats, the GOP has grown confident that any legislation about this is an effective wedge. There have been setbacks, especially in Montana, where a coalition of Democrats and libertarian Republicans have blocked bills that would punish public drag shows and remove children from their parents’ homes if the children identified as transgender. But where the GOP has a majority — including Montana — the sports bills have passed.

“The support of five Democrat senators of the Save Women’s Sports Act shows the bipartisan commonsense nature of the legislation,” said Pennsylvania Sen. Judy Ward, one of the bill’s GOP sponsors, in a statement to Semafor. “By voting for the legislation, those Democrat members stood with me, my Republican colleagues, female athletes, and the majority of Pennsylvanians to ensure that women’s rights to fair and safe competition are protected.”

Pennsylvania Democrats, who control the state House, are not expected to take up the sports bill. Shawn Thierry, a former Texas Democratic legislator who voted with Republicans on gender bills, said that her former party needed to allow more dissent. (Thierry jumped to the GOP after losing her primary last year.)

“I commend any Democrat elected official who is willing to take a principled stand on this issue to protect children,” Thierry told Semafor. “However, it takes more than just pushing a button to take a vote and then skulking away and hoping no one noticed. You have to speak out, if you truly believe in something.”

There are some signs of voter fatigue about anti-transgender legislation. On Tuesday, Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert lost to Democratic challenger John Ewing Jr in a historic upset; a pro-Stothert PAC had run ads and mailers accusing him of supporting “transition surgeries for minors” and “men in girls’ sports.”

Ewing had never taken a position on the sports issue, which is moving through the Senate in Lincoln after a Democratic filibuster stopped it last year. Stothert’s ads instead linked him to “radicals” who opposed sex-based restrictions on sports and public spaces, a common tactic that takes advantage of the progressive views of most Democratic political groups.

“We need to understand this as a victory against trans hate and discrimination — it’s what otherwise moderate Mayor Jean Stothert made the entire end of her campaign about,” wrote Nebraska state Sen. Megan Hunt on X. “Regular Americans don’t react to or receive the call to trans panic. Enough. We are speaking to the future.”

The average Democratic view of anti-trans politics is somewhere between Hunt and California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Both expect a backlash to the Republican focus on this. Hunt says the backlash is here; Newsom suggests that it’s coming but that letting trans women play in women’s sports is “deeply unfair.”

Newsom, whose podcast has worked through his confusion with how Democrats lost last year, has a lot of quiet company. According to the Pew Research Center’s tracking, 45% of self-identified Democrats now believe that athletes should “compete on teams that match their sex at birth,” up from 37% in 2022.

That doesn’t mean 45% of Democrats want legislation to mandate that, taking the choice away from schools and parents. But some of their members in conservative districts are being forced, by Republicans, to make a choice. They’re choosing to vote against the position of every LGBTQ equality group, and the last Democratic president.

You can expect Republicans to keep testing how many Democrats they can pull away on these votes. It’s harder to predict how Democrats will react, as advocates worry that they can’t count 100% on support from their party.