Well, the Democratic party’s anti-trans heel turn that many people have long expected may finally be upon us. After years of trying to bully trans constituents and their allies on the left into accepting more anti-trans candidates—particularly in red and purple states—many major candidates broke to the right last week, coming out against a variety of trans freedoms.
Perhaps most newsworthy was the Democratic party nominee for Texas senator, James Talarico, who flip-flopped away from his extensive voting record of supporting trans people in an interview with Fox News. “As a former public school teacher, I care a lot about our student athletes, I care a lot about our students,” he said. “And so I will oppose trans athletes playing in girls’ sports if it risks safety or fairness.” He also said he would “absolutely” vote for a ban on surgery for trans minors.
It should be noted that genital surgeries for trans youth are already basically non-existent to begin with and always have been. There are chest surgeries for some older trans teenagers, but these have been purposely misconstrued by the right to spark fears amongst ignorant cis people that literal toddlers are getting their sex organs rearranged. By speaking out against these “surgeries” without explaining the difference, Talarico regurgitated conservative talking points.
He also clarified that he believes there are only two sexes with some “genetic anomalies,” a derisive term used by the right to refer to intersex people.
While Talarico may be the most high-profile Democrat to appease bigots and try to make trans issues go away in a hotly contested red state race, he’s hardly alone.
Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic nominee for Texas governor, spawned an online backlash from some lefty trans posters by appearing to mock pronouns. “My pronouns are mom, Texan and soon-to-be governor,” she says in a recent campaign video posted to YouTube. When I made a post on Bluesky pointing out that none of those words are pronouns, and implied that it was wrong to mock trans people’s pronouns with this style of joke, a bunch of Bluesky liberals took umbrage.
In Iowa, a spokesperson for Josh Turek, the Dem candidate for Senate, made a statement to the New York Times, which stated, “Josh opposes taxpayer-funded sex changes, and anyone who says otherwise is lying.” The statement was in response to questions about a multimillion-dollar ad campaign by Elon Musk targeting Turek over trans rights. Presumably this would include Medicare and Medicaid, meaning Turek would support a Hyde Amendment-style (the federal law forbidding federal U.S. tax dollars to be used to fund abortions) ban for gender-affirming care.
Turek’s stance threatens the healthcare and livelihood of hundreds of thousands of American trans people, including federal prisoners, U.S. troops and retirees. It’s not a small-potatoes concession on Turek’s part; it’s one of the most extreme anti-trans positions a candidate can stake out for themselves.
This is not a zero sum game, nor are these candidates scratching around the edge of anti-trans policies. Trans people in the U.S. have watched long-held right after long-held right disappear in the last five years. We have centrist pundits labelling trans rights that we had in 2023 as “extremist” or “maximalist” in 2026.
I understand all the arguments for these Democratic candidates. That they must do this in order to get elected in more conservative areas. That trans people would be in safer hands with an anti-trans Democrat than an average Republican. That these Democrats have to lie about this issue in order to get elected (like Obama opposing gay marriage in the 2008 election). I really do understand the political calculation here.
They think that with this move, they can peel off a slice of conservative independents or conservatives who are squishy this election cycle. But I think this is a relatively short-sighted tactic.
For one, LGBTQ2S+ people in red states are likely these candidates’ most engaged supporters this cycle. They are desperate for a reprieve in the decade-long crusade against trans freedom in these red states. These are your on-the-ground volunteers, the people driving your voters to the polls, the folks making voter calls on your behalf.
Is it worth making those folks less engaged by making public promises to abandon them once you get into office? The candidates may think they are engaging in a clever political triangulation, but it could cost them their base.
@xtramagazine More adults in the United States identify as queer or trans than ever before, according to a new HRC report. But the organization is warning that the Trump administration’s attacks on population data collection may threaten public knowledge of changes in sexual orientation and gender identity demographics in the years to come. The Human Rights Campaign found that 12 percent of adults in the U.S. identified themselves as LGBTQ+, a large increase from Gallup’s most recent estimates of 9 percent. THe HRC also found that one in five LGBTQ+ adults identify as gender-diverse. And of LGBTQ+ adults in the U.S, 30 percent identified as lesbian or gay, with a whopping 65 percent identifying as bisexual, pansexual or another non-gay/non-straight sexuality. But, the HRC report also included a warning about the future of access to data like this. Since taking office for his second term in January 2025, Trump’s administration has attacked government collection of data, particularly when it comes to gender and identity. “Removing LGBTQ+ people from federal data collection does not make our communities disappear; it makes them harder to see, understand, and serve,” the report reads. We break down what you need to know. 🌈 #lgbtqnews #unitedstates #gay #trans #gaynews ♬ original sound – Xtra Magazine Advertisement
And have we thought through the long-term effects of candidates winning with this strategy? It would send a message to every Democrat running in a red state that the path to victory requires abandoning trans people. It’s a very dangerous development for trans people across the U.S.
And ultimately, the tactic hasn’t actually stopped any of the attacks from Republicans on the issue. Just this week, Ken Paxton, Talarico’s opponent in Texas, went up on the air with ads sharing the Democrats’ past support of trans issues, reusing the 2025 Trump line “Talarico is for they/them.”
With the state of the midterms right now, this will likely end up being the biggest Democratic midterm sweep in a generation. I think that at least one deep red state will shockingly elect a Democrat to the Senate this fall. But I keep coming back to Turek’s promise to ban federal dollars from being spent on any transition care.
A major hospital system in my extremely blue region of extremely blue Massachusetts recently shut down their youth gender-affirming-care program after funding threats from the Trump administration that were withdrawn after the program ended. The hospital’s move likely violates state law here. Turek supports that. I think of the thousands of families with trans kids who fled red states to come here or to other blue states. Restricting care in their own states isn’t enough—now, Democrats like Turek want to project red state bigotry into our liberal states via federal office in order to pluck life-saving care out of the hands of desperate families.
I cannot in good conscience support that. Vote how you will, but be aware that trans people in this country are living on a knife’s edge and the only thing standing in the way of our utter obliteration are pro-trans Democrats. We need as many as possible in the halls of Congress this fall.
A couple of red state Democrats tried turning against trans issues two years ago, Colin Allred in Texas and Sherrod Brown in Ohio to name a few, and they all lost. I hope that doesn’t end up happening in newly winnable purple states this year.
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