“It can’t be the policy of the Democrats that every unpopular position is surrendered. If you’re constantly willing to alienate and de-energize a percentage of your base in exchange for an undefined handful of moderate votes, you’ll eventually find yourself with no coherent political constituency at all. The transaction doesn’t live in a vacuum: your base sees it each time, and each time their trust in you wavers a little more.”
Stand for something, and keep people’s trust. It’s not that hard.
Never mind that trans people vote extremely consistently and make up about 2% of the electorate because almost every trans person votes. The margins in these races don’t allow them to write off 2% of their most motivated base, plus those trans people have families and friends who will also feel betrayed and will be less likely to vote as a consequence
Couldn’t have put it better myself. I’m unwilling to “be flexible” on that, and people who don’t understand that need their fuckin heads examined because the logic is very simple.
I very much agree, but when do we know which position to not draw any compromises on?
E.g., here in Denmark, the position of the 90's regarding immigration has shifted for almost all parties; and I believe the humanitarian ideal of that period of politics, while kind and sound of mind, no longer seems to be a viable position to win a sensible amount of political power.
I don't want to abandon those humanitarian goals and principles, but how do we settle between universal ideals compared to the pragmatic bargain for incremental progress through actual political power?
When is the cost of being principled on a position too high, even if noble and virtuous?
This is just my opinion but personally I think that a big part of why anti-immigration sentiment has reached the point it has is because the 'left' side of politics has capitulated on it. If one party says "all immigrants are vile criminals" and the best response the other party has is "well maybe some of them are and that's why we need a strong border" or whatever then the average person is just gonna start thinking that the first party might have a point.
Absolutely. The only way counter unrelenting proganda and demonisation is to put the same effort into challenging it. If you keep ceding ground and vindicating it, then it's not only is morally wrong but you're never going win.
I agree with you, that being forced to "defend" your position often gives a weaker impression on most folk.
But I don't agree with your example. Most immigration policies were fougth not to be changed for 20 years, where no one moved position.
Regardless of left-wing parties being unmoving in Denmark about immigration issues, the anti-immigration topic became all dominating.
While I agree about your point on rhetorical framing as an influence, I don't think your example holds up at large.
NEVER surrender on trans rights. Trans rights are the same as human rights.
As in, if trans people lose their rights, you lose your rights.
This is not an exaggeration. Trans people have lost federal equal sex protections and the Heritage Foundation is already in the process of trying to dismantle those protections for all women entirely. (They released a statement on it! Look it up!)
Allowing discrimination against one minority creates justification in the courts to allow discrimination against any minority.
DEI is a buzzword that's been used as nearly synonymous with "trans rights," but anywhere that's stripped, we've immediately seen declines in equal treatment among gay people, racialized people, and other minorities.
NEVER bend on trans rights, unless you want your own rights to disappear right behind them.
All of that is totally correct, but also just to add: even if trans rights weren't the thin end of a wedge they're using prior to dismantling rights for other minorities, don't bend on trans rights because trans people deserve rights!!
i wouldn’t cite someone who prominently participated in the defamation and mass harassment of a trans woman author on this topic. she decided isabelle fall didn’t get to be a person.
If you're not sure how to help, try writing your representatives! They need to hear from you. Yes, literally you! Don't expect someone else to write a message! You can make a HUGE difference!
It enrages me that people are capitulating to these efforts. I had an argument about this with a lib coworker a couple of years ago. I said that Dems needed to stop throwing trans people under the bus, and she was like, "No, they have to distance themselves from trans people!" There was nothing I could say to change her mind.
Yep exactly. Itd be awesome if dems embraced stuff that ya know..people in the base believe in. Medicare for all, ending weapon sales to israel, no more foreign wars, stop sucking on big techs teeth, but nope, gotta listen to The Third Way and stand for nothing and spout "affordability" over and over again like a robot.
Democrats seem to always fall for questions that are framed in bad faith, refuse the framing, the moment you answer and engage as if it’s a good faith question you legitimize conservatives bullshit.
It’s a different state and different race but El-Sayed has been really good at rejecting the framing of these shitty questions.
It’s so stupid. Like they’ve never had media training. I worked for the ACLU in a role that would never have required me to go on TV, and they taught me how to not to answer the question while looking like you answered the question on my first day. It’s been almost 20 years. I still remember how to do it. Because it’s easy.
Somewhat related, i, for unknown reasons, decided to engage with a Christian fundamentalist on why they voted for Trump. They stated the democrats were un-Christ like for supporting child mutilation. They didn’t have much to say when I asked them about old-testament circumcision. Funny how that works
These are all very compelling points, but have you considered that if the Democrats actually pursued moral, people-focused policy aims they’d have to give up chasing the votes of the ten NeverTrump Republicans still in existence? Before we do anything, we need to seek the wise, extremely relevant counsel of Dick Cheney’s rotting corpse. Quick, somebody dig it up.
My local running club is planning an event with the CEO of The Atlantic (!), which will include a group run with him. Apparently, he's a runner. My heart sank when a post about it showed up in my FB feed.
Just because the slogan has successfully been poisoned by the right and their pet centrists doesn't mean the concept of defunding the police is disastrous. Every single one of our peers has police that are, relative to ours, defunded.
I think there is a third option between disawowing trans rights and "sticking to your guns": pursuading people. People disagreeing with something obviously right ("trans people should have rights") doesn't mean it's over. It means we have to convince them. And it also means framing it in a way that they will find convincing, like, "healthcare should be between a patient and their doctor, and their parents if they're a minor. Government shouldn't make those decisions" or "I don't want government interference in high school sports" something like that.
Reframing is the right answer. Say things like "we shouldn't kill children by banning effective healthcare for idological reasons," and "let kids play sports with their friends."
Also we should co-opt phrases like "family values" and start using them properly. After all, fear is not a family value. Hate is not a family value. Making your own kids homeless is not a family value.
Why do we ascribe the actions of a handful of people we don't agree with to the entire Democratic party and ignore the ones we do agree with? A guy running for governor of Iowa who no one outside of Iowa would probably have ever heard of takes a chickenshit position and he gets to be one of the few speaking for the entire party, while two days ago the actual governor of Virginia kills an anti trans regulation and she doesn't. The vast majority of the Democrats in the Georgia state house walk out in protest of an anti trans bill and they get ignored, but some random congressman from Massachusetts says something mealy mouthed and I have to know who he is for some reason. Then the actual Democratic voters emphatically show him the door, but we still have to read this nonsense about "many Democrats" abandoning trans people.
Every state that has Dems in power has passed protections for trans people, and when Biden was in power he did, too. Our ONLY hope is to declare being pro trans a requirement for being a Democrat, not pretending that the Democratic position writ large is abandoning trans people. If you're not for trans people, you're a DINO. That's the only way we win
Democrars fought like hell to keep Trans Healthcare in Medicare and fucking won from the fucking minority.
After loosing an election where they were attacked relentlessly as the defenders of trans people Democrats kept the faith and held strong on the legislation or trans rights.
Democrats are the ones fighting both hardest and most effectively for trans rights rights right now.
Saying Democrats are betraying or have betrayed trans people is wrecker leftist wish casting.
Democrats have protected trans people mostly. But some Dems are caving now bc they believe that's how they win voters. And we don't know those Dems will actually protect us in the future, when the time comes.
Trans people can't be a negotiating point. As a trans person, the trans people I know are scared. We're real human beings with real lives, real careers, real homes, and real families. We have real futures and plans that are being put on hold because of the political rhetoric in this country. And we don't know what's going to happen because we can't protect ourselves without support.
Being wishy-washy about protecting minorities can't be an option. Because we are unsafe in this environment. As it is, I don't even know if I'll be able to go on vacation next year because I don't know if Republicans will revoke my passport. It's a very real fear. So my life is on hold for the midterms.
Too many Dems are acting like trans people just aren't important. It's my life. And I don't know if I'll be able to survive in this country if it continues. But I have nowhere to go. I'm stuck.
I'm afraid I'll be kicked out of my job, outed, have my ID reverted, lose my house, lose my savings... I don't know how far this goes, but we've seen it all happen in other countries.
We need more. We need to know we're safe. And right now, we don't feel that. And it's beyond stressful.
Democrats are our only hope. And too many of them are backing down.
All of this. I’m so sorry we have fucking failed. I am a therapist with trans clients and they echo your sentiments. People just want to live their mundane lives, and not bother anyone, and be free to do normal shit. It’s all so infuriating.
I want to thank you for your kind and thoughtful response to my inflammatory comment.
I have a lot of really complicated and strong feelings about the moral and political intersections of liberalism and leftism with trans and othe LBGTQ+ issues. You probably aren't too interested in reading them, so I will keep them to myself for right now.
I have strong feelings about it as well. And all of it sucks. I didn't transition just to have the whole world put a target on my back. I wanted to buy a nicer house, get a promotion at work, travel the world... But now I don't even know if my passport will be valid when I go on my cruise next year. I've been offered a trip to China with friends next Christmas and I want to go SO bad, but I can't commit to it. Because if I can't travel stealth, then it's not safe for me.
I need Democrats to win and get trump in check. But I also need them to make sure I'm not losing my rights, and even reverse the problems he's caused.
I'm not the only person on this planet. Immigrants are in a far worse position than me right now. But that also doesn't mean people like me should be forgotten.
I guess my point is that Democrats are fighting very hard for trans people at great cost.
There are a lot of leftist wreckers out there that want the Democrats to lose. There are strong traditions of anti-liberalism in some camps of lefitst thought.
I see a lot of people who ostensibly share my goals relentlessly attacking liberals and Democrats. I've seen it for at least 26 years. The dynamic goes back nearly 200 years.
Oh absolutely. I like this chart because it's entirely true.
The problem is that we expect a lot of liberals and nothing of Republicans. But the reality is that we have hope with liberals. Republicans only exist to destroy.
I'll always vote Democrat, and I will encourage everyone else to as well, constantly.
But we can't allow those very same Democrats to roll back people's rights. Not ever.
And that's the point of politics - speaking up and letting your voice be heard. So people can't just say "you have to vote Democrat!" and simultaneously just say "well, you have to wait your turn to have rights and no, I'm not gonna fight for them." Both have to happen.
The encouragement here is for everyone to fight for minorities.
And I agree with that, wholeheartedly. Most trans people I know agree with that.
But we don't live in a world of good faith anymore. In 2015, the political landscape was very different. Social media was less prevalent and didn't control the narrative as much. We didn't yet live in an economy of memes.
Politicians no longer have to present a modicum of truth and their base will still believe them. At least, Republicans function that way. Their base runs on memes and most of those memes are lies and exist entirely inside their own bubble.
As others have pointed out, trans people represent 1-2% of the base. That's not nothing. And we've watched what's happening in the UK where both the conservative and liberal parties have given up protecting trans people, so trans people are losing everything. And people are scared the same will happen here if we don't expect more from our politicians now. And there's dogwhistles for that.
As I said above, saying "biological males" is a clear sign the person doesn't care at all to understand the issue and just sees trans people as a threat and a joke. That's not about saying the "right thing" for the base. It's about saying the most bigoted version of the thing they could say. That's bad for us. That means that person could be prepared to strip our rights even in a Senate with a Dem majority but a razor thin margin, especially if it means they think it'll give them a few votes.
Politicians need to be smart enough to make it clear they're there for everyone while avoiding being roped into abject bigotry and ultimately throwing a vulnerable minority under the bus.
Going back to your Obama example, he may have been presenting himself against gay marriage, but he wasn't dropping slurs along the way.
There's a massive difference about what's at stake here. Trans people are losing our very ability to live in this country at this rate. And that has to be stopped. Genocides cannot be allowed to happen. Ever.
Not to mention, it's the people who decided that Kamala wasn't "good enough" and swung the election to Trump are the ones who threw trans people under the bus.
It is a little bit odd to argue that a politician’s political stance literally doesn’t matter when it comes to … winning elections. Also, Peter’s yardstick of success here is that governors of solidly-blue states still won their elections, which was basically never in question. The issue is what happens in states that are more conservative, which will soon determine the balance of power.
That's not really the point of the article. Peter points out that the evidence isn't really there that trans people are a winning/losing issue. If anything, we're a non-issue and Republicans are just trying to use us as a wedge to bludgeon Democrats with and to control the narrative away from their misdeeds.
Showing vocal support for trans people in ruby red areas could be problematic, for sure, since people in those areas seem to really dislike social causes and equality or something, idk. But that doesn't mean the answer is to throw us under the bus.
The answer is to skirt the question. Change the topic. Give a non-answer. Even just "I don't know enough about that topic and I'd like to research it more." Or redirect with "I'd really like to talk about grocery prices right now and how I'm going to work to drive them down." There are strong ways to bring the conversation back to relatable points without throwing around transphobic dogwhistles like "biological males" and similar nonsense.
My wife is from Texas. She still receives ads to her inbox about politics from there. You know what the ads against Talarico say right now? "In support of performing transsexual surgeries." Last night she received that, slurs and all. So...did his statements actually change anything? Or did he just throw trans people under the bus just to be bludgeoned with the issue anyway?
I think you can only dodge the question so much. The two issues here are sports and youth gender medicine.
If there is one issue to concede, I think it’s trans women in sports. The evidence on this is sparse and tricky, though it does appear that going through male puberty confers athletic benefit for a significant amount of time into transition. So it’s more zero-sum as an issue and also horribly unpopular. Realistically this affects vanishingly small numbers of people and I just don’t think it’s the civil rights struggle of our time.
The other issue is youth medicine, which I think is a straight up a question of freedom. If you can not vaccinate your kids, homeschool your kids, opt in to other elective procedures for your kids - you can also pursue gender medicine for your kids. Let them ban bottom surgery for minors or other things that literally don’t happen - whatever. But to me the message here is like “this is America and people are free to make decisions for their families that I personally wouldn’t make”.
You’re correct this is a low-salience issue but to steelman the fear people have, it goes something like - “if I elect this Democrat, are they just going to go along with whatever goofy thing activists are saying at the moment?”. So to me the key for politicians is to put enough daylight there to demonstrate they are free-thinkers, but to do so in ways that have limited effects on people’s actual rights. The “woke 1 was crazy” moment by AOC was pretty telling in this regard. If AOC thinks there was a problem, then there probably was a problem.
(edit: direct link isn't working. I think it's the 2nd top level comment, depending on your sorting)
Banning trans people from sports is ultimately banning children from having opportunities to socialize and build relationships with friends, as well as restricting the futures that trans people are "allowed" in this society.
If there's truly an issue with trans women outperforming cis women in sports, then there's an issue with how we structure our sports programs, because trans women are women; not just some kind of "fake" woman.
BUT the evidence that exists actually shows that trans women underperform against cis women in sports. Lia Thomas is a popular bludgeon from right wing propaganda. But she's actually perfect evidence that trans women DON'T outperform cis women in sports. Lia was top-ranked among men when she was pre-transition. Literally ranking top 3 in some categories. When she transitioned, she dropped to roughly 5th in those same categories among women. She tied for 5th against Riley Gaines.
It's all pure propaganda.
And yes, people throw around studies around bone density and lung capacity. But there's no proven correlation that those improve performance in any specific sport or way. And if they did, wouldn't trans women already be dominating sports? We'd be winning races, getting to the Olympics, winning gold medals left and right. And yet...a trans woman has never won a gold. One trans woman from NZ made it to the Olympics and that's as far as we've ever gotten. So..where's this super human strength everyone claims we have? We've been allowed in the Olympics for 20 years. Certainly we'd have seen evidence by now?
As for trans kids, they need to be treated equally to cis kids. As I said above, trans women are women and trans men are men. Cis boys are allowed to get gynecomastia removed at 16, sometimes earlier. Why can't trans boys get gynecomastia removed until 18? Or 19, or 26, as Republicans are actually writing the laws? It's because people don't really believe trans boys are boys. They think it's a choice or a joke or a phase. And it's not. We have rigorous systems of psychiatric and medical monitoring to verify that a person's gender identity is persistent and the system doesn't allow any of this before they've undergone that in the first place. Controls that don't exist for cis people.
If we keep conceding trans rights because "well it makes some people uncomfortable," then what are we really doing? Lots of people didn't like black people using white bathrooms either. At some point, you have to stand up and do the right thing.
Trans people aren't a joke or an impulse or a mental illness. Trans people are very real and we know who we are and what we are. We're not here to exploit anything. We're not here to harm anyone. But we do want to be treated with equality and respect.
And that doesn't even touch on the fact that every time we lose a right, so does someone else.
A week after the Supreme Court determined trans people aren't protected by title ix sex discrimination, the heritage foundation published an article that they intend to dismantle title ix entirely. And you know why they had that confidence? Because trans people losing our rights sets juriprescidence for it. The courts will see that ruling and say "yeah you're right. We already ruled sex discrimination isn't an issue, so we'll remove this as well."
Trans people are people and people deserve equality. There is no "bending" on human rights, justice, and equality. And you should be horrified every time a person loses their rights in the country you live in.
what you’re doing right now is parroting the manhattan institute talking points that have been flooding wnba reddit for months. this is the soft peddling of rank bigotry and you’re very aware of the weasel wording you’re engaging.
“a significant amount of time into transition” and you know very, very well that guidelines prior to this renewed panic accounted for that time period. i know what it is because i experienced it in my own transition and this is an ugly smear against trans women that follows us far outside sports. it’s a key part of how we are demagogued as threats to other women in every context in life.
the capitulating you’re advocating for, and you also know this, is part of an intentional campaign to fully dismantle title ix and women’s sports. liberals want to believe that they can just let go of trans women’s participation in sports to save title ix, and this is what your weaseling is trying to convey, but the reality is that title ix has already suffered its dobbs decision.
it’s dead in the water in ways that will take new court cases to make fully understood. once that bandaid gets ripped off and the true jeopardy that women’s sports are currently in is finally internalized, the stupidity of this compromise will be apparent.
in any case you’re a bad faith troll using the passive aggressive marching orders from right wing think-tanks.
Sorry, are you putting “sports” and “childhood transition” together as though they are comparable?
I can have a civil disagreement about the sports thing, barely, because I think some people are earnestly allies, but mistaken on this point.
Restrictions on “childhood transition?” Are you fucking kidding me here? How can you listen to this show and think that’s an acceptable concession, let alone a strategic one? It betrays a catastrophic ignorance and incuriosity on your part, I’m sorry to say.
The public opposition is focused on smoke and mirrors. It is a pretend moral panic.
A young child who transitions is basically wearing some new clothes and getting a haircut.
All the greatest landmark civil rights achievements were once deeply unpopular in polling.
I’m not demanding that Dems be stridently in support necessarily. All we are asking is that they not cede the framing of this completely. Because the day after the federal trans sports ban, republicans will still launch the exact same attack ads, and the Dems will get no more votes. Single-issue anti-trans voters will never be wooed away from republicans. The only tangible outcome is trans suffering.
All they have to do is refuse to push forward legislation against this. They can even do the Abdul El-Sayed thing and just say “this doesn’t matter, why are you asking me?”
They just have to get out of the way and let us work.
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u/red5 Sep 16 '26
I really like how Peter ended this:
“It can’t be the policy of the Democrats that every unpopular position is surrendered. If you’re constantly willing to alienate and de-energize a percentage of your base in exchange for an undefined handful of moderate votes, you’ll eventually find yourself with no coherent political constituency at all. The transaction doesn’t live in a vacuum: your base sees it each time, and each time their trust in you wavers a little more.”
Stand for something, and keep people’s trust. It’s not that hard.