With a month to go before the midterm elections, conservatives are escalating their attacks on transgender Americans in the belief that transphobia is an effective strategy for galvanizing voters. Elon Musk ’s super PAC and other prominent conservative organizations have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on TV ads attacking transgender people. Similar attacks could be heard during most of the speeches at the GOP ’s midterm convention in Dallas. This is nothing new, but extends Donald Trump ’s playbook from 2024, when the president spent more money on ads promoting anti-trans rhetoric than on any other topic.

Although Democrats are more united in support of transgender people than they were a few years ago , the party remains divided. A majority of Democratic officials support transgender rights, but others have distanced themselves from the issue. This is especially true of Democrats in the most competitive races, where some candidates have taken the GOP’s bait and adopted conservative talking points, particularly on participation of transgender athletes in sports. Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, for example, recently released a statement clarifying that she “doesn’t support boys playing in girls’ sports.”

Meanwhile, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a presidential hopeful, has said he largely agrees with Donald Trump about trans girls and women in sports. “I don’t want to be on that side of it — I’d be lying to you if I said differently,” Newsom recently stated in an interview. “I haven’t been able to figure out how to make it fair from my perspective.” In Texas’ pivotal Senate race, Democrat James Talarico has also begun to distance himself from his previous support of transgender rights. In an interview with Fox News , Talarico indicated he would vote in favor of a national ban on gender-affirming surgeries for trans youth. Elsewhere he has redirected away from media questions about trans athletes to maintain a focus on America’s affordability crisis.

Democrats are terrified of being “soft” on the larger question of trans rights.

Democratic timidity on the issue is not really about sports. NCAA President Charlie Baker testified in 2024 that he knows of fewer than 10 transgender college athletes out of 510,000 total participants. Instead, it appears that Democrats are terrified of being “soft” on the larger question of trans rights. But these moral compromises and political concessions may not give the party the strategic edge that Democrats expect. A CNN poll indicates that voters viewed trans issues as less important than 10 other topics at issue in the upcoming elections, including the economy, election integrity, voting rights, inflation and healthcare. At the same time, Democrats have found success even without running in opposition to transgender rights, as in the case of Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign in Michigan.

At the same time that anti-trans messaging may fail to move the needle with centrist voters, it risks turning off portions of the Democratic base. “Transgender constituents in [my] district are now stuck between a rock and a hard place, left wondering what the point of their vote is if both candidates view them as disposable and subhuman,” transgender activist and writer Erin Reed recently told Newsweek.

Of course, not all Democratic leaders approve of the decision by some to abandon their trans constituents. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker have been unwavering in their support and critical of their party colleagues who are willing to sign away human rights in search of votes. “We don’t throw anybody under the bus,” Beshear said on CNN. “That is not the party that we are. We start as a party of compassion and empathy.”

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