Democratic Operatives Want Candidates to Talk About Trans Athletes — Very Quickly, One Time — and Then Move On

Backed into a rhetorical corner by President Donald Trump and the GOP’s escalating attacks ahead of the November midterm elections, Democrats are being advised to take a middle-of-the-road position on transgender athletes rather than ignore the issue entirely, per a new report in Politico.Rather than avoid talking about trans athletes, Democratic advisors are telling their candidates to state their position and move onto other issues, including affordability and the rising cost of living, according to the political news outlet. “Silence is deadly on these issues and that’s the playbook we tried in 2024,” Lanae Erickson, senior vice president at center-left think tank Third Way, told Politico. “Democrats have to be super clear that we want fair rules in sports made by sports associations and parents to be in charge of their kids’ health care.” Erickson said that, after answering those questions, Democrats should “turn things back to the main issues of costs and things that impact voters’ lives more.” The November midterm cycle will mark the first major nationwide vote since the 2024 election, which Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris lost in part due to a Republican culture war stoked by anti-trans rhetoric. Despite trans issues not ranking highly on voters’ self-reported list of priorities, ads such as “Kamala Is for They/Them,” a TV spot painting Harris as radical when it comes to trans rights, had an undeniable impact on the election. The ad ended up being of Trump’s most successful, shifting the race 2.7 percentage points in Trump’s favor after people viewed it, per the New York Times. The anti-trans playbook has not abated in this midterm cycle. When Republicans convened in Dallas this week for a national midterm convention in Dallas, Texas, Hasan Piker’s “meat pic” may have been the most eye-catching headline, but speakers were largely focused on anti-trans rhetoric. The majority of speeches featured anti-trans me