Democrats’ ‘Trans’ Intransigence – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

Despite a few highly publicized climb-downs of prominent liberal politicians and in the wake of an election where exit polling has shown it to be a clear electoral loser, the Left has obstinately held to its belief that men who aren’t women but think they are should be allowed to compete against real women in sports. (RELATED: Nebraska’s Stand with Women Act Opposed by Faith Leaders)

The few pols who have woken up and smelled the polling have proved to be lonely — and abandoned — figures. Maybe it takes an 80–20 split on an issue — 80 percent for banning; 20 percent against — to get Gavin Newsom’s attention, but the California governor called trans participation in women’s sports “deeply unfair.” Congressman Seth Moulton (D-MA) told the New York Times he didn’t want his two little girls “run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete,” and his fellow representative Tim Suozzi (D-NY) said he doesn’t “think biological boys should be playing in girls’ sports.” (RELATED: Gavin Goes ‘Soul-Searching’)

Anyone hoping this ripple would grow into a tsunami of common sense is disappointed, however. A tsunami of a different sort — of blowback — mussed Newsom’s hairdo. And Moulton collapsed like the ‘78 Red Sox, voting against a House bill that banned exactly what he didn’t want to see — male athletes running over little girls on a playing field.

Elsewhere, Dems have doubled down on their contrarian position. Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who got into it with President Trump at the White House over males playing women’s sports in her state, defied a Trump executive order and got her state denied federal school funding (the issue is now in the courts). Minnesota says it won’t comply with Trump’s EO, and the California Assembly recently voted down bills banning transgender participation in women’s sports in the Golden State. (RELATED: Trump’s Executive Order Ends ‘Trans’ Tyranny and Protects Females)

The question is why. Why cannot Dems bring themselves to abandon such a transparently destructive political position?

Well, there is the backlash. We mentioned the hurricane-force winds of disdain Newsom’s coiffure had to endure, but Moulton also faced tirades from fellow Democrats for simply saying the party should be broad-minded enough to at least discuss the issue. State party chair Steve Kerrigan said Moulton’s comments “do not represent the broad view of our party.”

That seems to be true. Bills banning guys in girls’ sports were voted against in the House and the Senate by every single Democrat.

But avoiding backlash is a political calculation. Others blame another political creation — the primary system, which mandates that candidates for office cater to a base more extreme than common sentiment. If you want to get the Dem nomination, you have to mollify the screamers.

The Left’s stubbornness on this issue, however, seems more ideological than pragmatic. Said Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA), “There is no poll result that could make me turn on marginalized people.” She added, “[T]hrowing anybody in our coalition under the bus just simply cannot be the answer.”

Michael Baharaeen, writing at the Liberal Patriot, says transgenders’ vulnerable status ingratiates them with the liberal cause, the more so because “many Democrats have become convinced that conservatives — at least a lot of them — always seem to be in need of a group to pick on.” Liberals see transgenders as the latest in a string of embattled minorities and are determined to offer balls-to-the-wall support of “women” who have them.

And once you go full throttle on civil rights, you can’t easily lay off the gas. Leor Sapir in City Journal contended, “Rights claims are by their nature absolutist and uncompromising.” He elaborated,

[T]he reality is that embracing rights claims, in lieu of sober policy analysis, has become a deeply embedded feature of contemporary liberalism. That shift has been institutionalized across American society, from universities to corporate board rooms, from public schools to the military, from the interlocking layers of state and federal bureaucracies to the information superhighways of Google and AI. It is precisely why Democrats will struggle to walk back their support for radical transgender policies.

Democrats spent years lecturing the public that boys’ participation in girls’ sports and mastectomies for teen girls who identify as boys are non-negotiable “civil rights.” If they change course now, they will either have to admit they were wrong before or become rights-violators by their own definition.

Transgenderism has seen considerable “success” in the past 15 years. It has been instituted in the policies of the Department of Human Services; it has been enshrined in public schools; bathroom and locker-room rules permitting transgenders to use the facilities corresponding to their “gender identity” have been passed all over the country; Title IX was altered by the Biden administration to include gender identity among those rights protected from discrimination in education; and the public debate has been controlled by a left-wing press that has adopted the lingo and the views of the transgender world.

This victorious march through the institutions has made leftists think they will eventually turn public opinion. After all, that’s what happened with gay marriage.

Following decades of censure and obloquy — from homosexuals’ days as putative perverts in the 1960s to their portrayal as tragic figures during the AIDS crisis of the ‘80s and ‘90s — gay causes started gaining public approval toward the end of the last century. A Gallup poll from 1996 revealed 27 percent of Americans thought same-sex marriage should be valid, versus 68 percent that didn’t. In 2010, those numbers were 44 percent for and 53 percent against. Around the Obergefell decision (2015), it was 60–37, and in 2024, 69–29. The current numbers are even higher in younger cohorts.

The numbers on the trans issue are going the other way, however. Whereas sentiment against homosexuality softened as people became more comfortable with it — through contact with gay people, for example — opinions about transgenderism have hardened with increased contact and education. While 54 percent of Americans thought sex was defined at birth in 2017, 60 percent believe it now. And the now-well-known 80 percent of Americans against biological men competing in women’s sports is up from 67 percent just two years ago.

The more Americans learn about the transgender issue — of transgender motives, of surgeries for minors, of youthful indoctrination, of schoolkids coming home with new names and pronouns, of health officials playing politics on trans issues — the less they like it.

The wonder of it is that Democrats don’t respond to this new reality.

Allowing men to play women’s sports, like supporting MS-13 gang members, to the point of rescuing them from El Salvadoran prisons to bring them “home,” is a Democrat ‘own goal.’ (RELATED: Five Quick Things: The Hill They’ve Died On)

We can only hope they continue to kick the political ball into their own net.

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