Dems know they have a problem with this trans shyt
Inside Democrats’ Reshuffling on Trans Issues
Democrats are talking about how to handle transgender rights politically, after infighting and flailing over the issue in the last year. “We have to create more space in our tent,” said Rep. Sarah McBride.
Inside Democrats’ Reshuffling on Trans Issues - NOTUS
Sarah McBride speaks during a news conference at the House Democrats 2025 Issues Conference.
Democrats are starting to have serious conversations around how to handle transgender rights politically ahead of next year’s elections — after, by their own admission, they were caught flat-footed on the issue in 2024.
The upshot, so far: Don’t be so dogmatic that you risk alienating voters and allies.
Rep. Sarah McBride, the first openly trans member of Congress, and her staff have spoken to her Democratic colleagues about the topic, NOTUS has learned. The Delaware congresswoman has cautioned moderate Democrats that the tenor and tone of their comments — particularly on questioning trans athletes in sports, which is where most of the debate has focused — might inflame and splinter factions instead of being productive.
“We have to create more space in our tent. If, for instance, we want to have a majoritarian coalition — not just electorally, but specifically on issues around trans rights — that, by necessity, is going to have to include people who have a range of thoughts,” McBride told NOTUS.
“A binary choice between being all-on or all-off is not constructive for anyone,” McBride continued. “It impedes the very needed path toward winning electorally, winning hearts and minds and, most importantly, winning progress.”
Republicans have already clearly signaled their plans to lean on trans issues in next year’s campaigns, after their success in 2024. President Donald Trump said last week that he has directed his party to not bring up trans issues “because there is no election right now.”
“But about a week before the election, bring it up because you can’t lose,” he told reporters from the Oval Office.
The Pew Research Center found that Americans’ support for restrictions on trans people increased between 2022 and 2025. For example, 58% of survey respondents in 2022 said they supported requiring trans athletes to compete in sports that “match the sex they were assigned at birth.” That increased to 66% in 2025.
In 2022, 46% of respondents supported making it illegal for health providers to offer gender-affirming care to trans minors. That number rose to 56% in 2025.
Some members — like Reps. Seth Moulton and Tom Suozzi, both of whom have recently met with McBride — received immediate intraparty backlash for publicly saying they oppose having trans athletes participate in women’s and girls’ sports. McBride thinks that type of response is unproductive.
“I think it is an incredibly problematic instinct that many have to excommunicate people who aren’t in lockstep with you on every policy, or even aren’t in lockstep with you on the messaging,” she said.
McBride is by no means the only House member who has been ruminating on the topic.
Rep. Greg Landsman, whose district was targeted by House Republicans’ campaign arm, which opposed his support for trans rights, told NOTUS that Democrats are having “very informal” conversations on the topic.
They look like, “you pull somebody aside and you just say, ‘What do you think?’ or ‘This is what I’m hearing’ — how Americans talk. We’re not enacting legislation like [Republicans] are that is intended to just be mean as fukk and it’s not solving problems,” Landsman said.
“I do think there is, on the positive side, a growing appreciation that Democrats could be a little judgy and annoying about this, and maybe we should be open-minded and appreciate that not everyone is where we are,” he continued.
The conversations were particularly prevalent in January, when the House voted on a bill to ban trans athletes from participating in sports teams of their preferred gender. The bill passed with only three Democrats defecting from the rest of the party. One of those votes came from Rep. Vicente Gonzalez.
“I’ve had some people be critical of my vote, but I think the vast majority of people in my district agree with me, and I think the vast majority of people around the country do too,” Gonzalez told NOTUS.
The South Texas congressman said he “spoke to especially front-line battleground members. I told everybody what vote I was going to take before I took it.” Ultimately, only Reps. Henry Cuellar and Don Davis — to whom Gonzalez confirmed he spoke with beforehand — joined him in separating from the rest of the caucus. (Cuellar and Gonzalez voted in support, Davis voted present).
Had House Democratic leadership not whipped against the bill (NOTUS viewed the notice sent to congressional offices at the time), Gonzalez said, “I think you would have seen 20 or 30 members vote with us.”
Gonzalez told NOTUS that he spoke with caucus leaders, although declined to name who, to demand that leadership not whip future bills that had to do with trans issues.
(In response to this, a spokesperson for House Minority Whip Katherine Clark told NOTUS in a statement, “We don’t disclose conversations with Members regarding our whip strategy.”)“I don’t agree with whipping those types of votes,” Gonzalez said. “I think everyone should vote their conscience, their ideology, the values of their district, and that’s how we win races.”
Clark said in a statement that the “Republican strategy is to divide Americans instead of bringing the country together around solutions.”
House Democrats’ most common messaging strategy on trans issues, advised by McBride after the election, has been to treat Republicans’ anti-trans attacks as a distraction and to pivot to other issues.
Moulton has also been making an effort to ensure the caucus is more receptive to nuanced opinions around trans issues.
In January, Moulton spoke separately with Rep. Mark Takano, chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, and Rep. Becca Balint, co-chair of the caucus, about ensuring that the caucus is open to different opinions on trans issues, according to two sources familiar.
Both lawmakers, one of the sources said, were receptive to Mouton’s stance.
Takano told NOTUS in a statement that a “critical” part about being Equality Caucus chair is his “commitment to creating spaces where every Member of Congress can have their genuine questions listened to and answered, without judgment.”
“We recognize that there is more work to do to win some of the hearts and minds of the general public, given people’s lack of familiarity with the trans community and the prevalence of right-wing anti-trans propaganda and disinformation, and we are working to make sure members have the information and support they need to be that bridge,” Takano added.
Similarly, Balint said in a statement that “it’s critical to have hard conversations around this, both inside and outside of Congress.”
In an interview, Moulton told NOTUS that Democrats needed to borrow a page from Republicans’ playbook.
“Republicans clearly don’t agree on everything, but they’ve succeeded in recent years in broadening their tent so that whether you’re a MAGA Trumper or a much more traditional Republican, you can still get behind the party and they’re not being kicked out,” he said.
The congressman added, though, that he believes there’s no room within the Democratic Party for views that completely oppose trans rights.
“That crosses the line of civil rights,” Moulton said.
Moulton, who confirmed that he has spoken with McBride about trans issues, was optimistic about the informal conversations taking place within the caucus. But he added that there haven’t been any broader conversations brought by leadership around how to handle trans issues “because people are still scared to have them.”
But with a broader discussion now taking place among the American public, some Democrats are attempting to slowly start one within the party.
“I do think I understand, as a trans person, how to meet people who aren’t trans where they are, and how to find commonality with people,” McBride said. “Part of that is creating room for a lack of understanding, for disagreement, for grace and, therefore, to create room for growth.”
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Oriana González is a reporter at NOTUS.
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