Democrats are scrambling to downplay their radical positions on men playing as “transgender” women in women’s sports and so-called transgender medical procedures for children ahead of an election where polls show most voters hold commonsense views on these issues.
Left-wing candidates must walk a fine line between maintaining the flow of hundreds of thousands of dollars they get from pro-transgender groups like the Human Rights Campaign and winning the support of the majority of voters who believe men are men and women are women.
Nearly three-quarters (72%) of registered voters think biological males should not be allowed to participate in women’s and girls sports, according to national polling from RMG Research shared with The Daily Signal.
Biological males competing in women’s sports is expected to be a “sleeper” issue in the 2024 elections. Female athletes worldwide have lost nearly 900 medals to so-called transgender rivals competing against them in women’s sporting categories, according to a new United Nations report.
Furthermore, almost 60% of Americans oppose gender transition procedures—such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone regimens, and surgeries—for children under 18, including 47% who “strongly oppose” such procedures, according to Rasmussen Reports.
Republicans have been slamming Democrats’ support for transgenderism, and several Democrats have flip-flopped or scaled back their stances.
For instance, when a debate moderator asked Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Collin Allred about an ad from his opponent, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, accusing him of refusing “to protect the integrity of women’s and girls sports,” Allred denied his voting record. He said the Cruz attack ad was “a desperate, last-second attempt by Sen. Cruz to distract you because he can’t defend his own record.”
“Listen, I’m a dad, I’m a Christian, of course I don’t support these ridiculous things that he’s talking about,” Allred said. “What he wants you thinking about is kids in bathrooms so you’re not thinking about women in hospitals.” He then pivoted to the issue of abortion.
Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, voted against the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023, which would have prohibited biological males from competing against females, but after Republicans attacked her on her record, she flip-flopped.
“I don’t think that we should have men competing in women’s sports,” Peltola said in a Monday debate.
Still, Peltola called the “culture war” issue of male participation in women’s sports a “waste of our time.”
Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas, released an ad saying he “never supported sex changes” after a National Republican Congressional Committee ad campaign slammed Gonzales for effectively supporting “sex changes” for kids.
Gonzalez voted for the Equality Act in 2021, which would have allowed children to be taken away from their parents if the parents didn’t support them identifying as another gender.
An ad against Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said Brown is “too liberal for Ohio” because he voted “to let transgender biological men participate in women’s sports.”
Brown’s campaign cut an ad in response saying that it’s a “total lie” to suggest that Brown had voted to allow transgender athletes to participate in girls sports and reminding voters that Ohio already banned biological males playing girls sports, garnering him criticism from LGBTQ groups.
The Human Rights Campaign endorsed Brown in March. It supports irreversible transgender medical interventions for children and peddles the lie that children are less likely to commit suicide if they “transition.”
In Wisconsin, ads accused Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of supporting “providing puberty blockers and sex change surgeries to minor children” and “ensur[ing] hundreds of thousands of our tax dollars went to a Madison nonprofit that pushes an aggressive LGBTQ agenda on kids.”
Baldwin shot back with an ad claiming she “didn’t give funding to a transgender clinic” but rather secured funding for “a youth homeless shelter.”
The “youth homeless shelter” is Briarpatch Youth Services, for which Baldwin secured $400,000 at a time when Briarpatch ran the “Teens Like Us LGBTQIA2s+” program, which gave away “gender-affirming clothing” like chest binders, The Daily Wire reported.
Baldwin’s ad also falsely alleges that children do not undergo “sex-change” surgeries in Wisconsin. According to medical watchdog Do No Harm, there have been at least 195 sex-change patients in the state.
None of the Democratic congressmembers mentioned in this article responded to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment.
The legacy media has been quick to brand Republican efforts to highlight many Democrats’ widely unpopular views on transgenderism as bigotry, with headlines like “Anti-Trans Attack Ads Haven’t Won the GOP Anything. Dems Should Stop Acting Scared” from MSNBC; “Republicans Lean Into Anti-Transgender Message in Closing Weeks” from the Washington Post; and “GOP Candidates Use Anti-Trans Rhetoric to Rally Christian Base” from The Associated Press.
Even Vice President Kamala Harris has been careful to avoid taking a public stance on gender transitions for kids during her presidential campaign.
In an interview with NBC News’ Hallie Jackson on Tuesday, Harris dodged the question of whether she supports so-called gender-affirming care for kids.
“I believe that people, as the law states, even on this issue about federal law, that that is a decision that doctors will make in terms of what is medically necessary,” Harris said.
On the other hand, Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump pledged to “ban” transgender-identifying biological males from competing in women’s sports in a Fox News town hall with only female voters last week.
“I’ve never met a person that came up to me and they say we want men to play in women’s sports,” Trump said at a Tuesday rally. “Somehow, they’re pushing it. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve been talking about this for a while, because I’m ending it. On Day One, I’m ending it.”
This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
