What disputes about trans athletes say about Democratic politics

In the minds of many progressive Democrats, Representative Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Dem, just committed an unpardonable sin. He told the New York Times that his two girls should not have to compete in sports against men who have become women:

Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face. I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.

Moulton’s statement is really about two issues, not one. It is important to distinguish them. The first, obviously, is about women and athletics. The second, far larger issue is about progressive litmus tests and the future of the Democratic Party.

Note that Moulton’s statement is not about the rights of transgender people in general or respect for their personal choices. He is speaking specifically about who should be eligible to play in women’s and girls’ sports. By labeling comments like Mouton’s “transphobic,” his opponents want to make those views too dangerous for Democrats to say out loud. They want to brand him with a Scarlet Letter to deter anyone else from departing from their “cultural catechism.”

Demanding this kind of rigid, ideological conformity might work in strongly progressive districts, but it won’t work nationally. It is the pathway to defeat in purple districts and states. A Rasmussen survey in October 2024 “finds that just 25 percent of likely US voters support men who identify as women being able to compete in women’s sports, including 11 percent who strongly support it.” The numbers on the other side are overwhelming: 65 percent oppose trans athletes in women’s sports, 50 percent of them strongly opposing it. Gallup surveys over the past several years have shown this opposition has remained steady or increased slightly.

The minority views may be winners in some Democratic primaries, but they are losers in most general elections. The problem for candidates is that they can’t get to November unless they win in April. It used to be possible to switch positions between those two elections, to say one thing to the party faithful and another thing, months later, to all voters. That’s doesn’t work anymore. Technology has exposed the duplicity. Cellphone cameras can record every appeal to primary-election voters. Opponents in the general election make sure those voters know about those extreme positions.

This transparency was a painful blow to Kamala Harris this year. Her progressive statements to Democratic primary voters in 2019 were resurrected and broadcast to all voters in 2024. She replied with a vacuous word salad, essentially, “I’ve changed my positions and I have no explanation for those changes. But my principles haven’t changed.” A reasonable inference is that her principles didn’t need to change because she doesn’t have any.

Appealing to primary voters, even if it alienates the broader electorate, brings us to the second point, which goes well beyond Kamala Harris and controversial social issues. Framing that appeal is the key to the Democratic Party’s future. There will be a fight, with no clear leaders among progressives or centrists in the party. The fight will focus on what positions will the candidates take on social issues and how much will they stress these issues instead of bread-and-butter economics? The economic issues are crucial to recapturing working-class voters, who were the party’s base electorate since Franklin D. Roosevelt. Trump captured them.

The Democrats’ answers will emerge from these internal fights and will depend on what lessons the party’s leaders, elected officials and potential candidates learned from their whopping defeat in 2024. Ultimately, that’s a fight over electability in November versus leftist ideological purity within the party base. Geographically, that fight will pit Democrats from Cambridge, the Upper West Side, Berkeley and Beverly Hills, all of whom hold secure, progressive seats, against Democrats from purple states such as Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin and North Carolina, who can only win by appealing to a much bigger, center-left electorate.

Moulton’s point is that his party will forfeit this broader support — and victory in national elections — by emphasizing divisive social issues and standing pat on those like transgender women in sports, which are rejected by the vast majority of voters.

His point boils down to the old adage: “Politics is about addition, not subtraction.” Opponents say it is also about core principles. Those shouldn’t be compromised, even if they cost votes.

Actually, both could be right in principle. Some values are worth sticking to, worth fighting for, even if the costs are high. Everyday people know that and live their lives that way. Politicians don’t. Most of them would rather hang onto their jobs than go down fighting for an unpopular principle. They are Marxists — Groucho Marxists. It was the great comedian who said, “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.” Politicians who don’t agree with Groucho soon become “former politicians.”

For Democrats (and, indeed, for Republicans), the question is not whether to abandon one set of principles for another but whether it is wise to make contentious social issues central to their campaigns, turn them into matters of fundamental principle, and banish anyone who differs. That works only if those principles are popular in both party primaries and the general election.

That problem confronts politicians in both parties. As American politics has become more tendentious, ideological and rigid, the party bases have moved further apart. They demand conformity on a wide range of issues. Virtually all Democrats support the restoration of Roe. Virtually none say they favor restrictions on late-term abortions. They simply avoid the topic. None dare use the words “illegal immigrant” instead of “undocumented,” as if those migrants simply forgot their documents. In the other party, no Republicans favor the restoration of Roe.

None favor restrictions on gun owners’ “Second Amendment Rights.” They freely use terms like “illegal immigrants” and often conflate that term with international drug cartels and violent criminals.

Since Seth Moulton sparked the latest controversy with his transgender comment, let’s return to that topic, which exemplifies these contentious social issues. It is important to recognize what is so often forgotten: transgender issues have several dimensions. Critics try to gloss over that vital point. A person can favor the rights of adults to make their own decisions about whether to live their lives as male or female without favoring the right of children to make irreversible medical decisions about the same issue. A parent can think it is unfair for transgender girls to compete against her daughters and still think it is fine for transgender athletes to play sports, as long as they compete against males.

Why these distinctions? In sports, the basic issue is fairness and sometimes safety. Trans women have marked physical advantages over other women. You don’t need to deny their choice of gender to say that. You simply need to recognize the obvious physical differences and the advantage they convey. That huge advantage is why no one is asking if transgender men can compete against other men. They never try. The physical disadvantage is too great.

Those systematic differences are why we have separate sports for the two sexes. If you think trans women should compete against fellow women, what is the rationale for any separate sports for women? There is none. Yet no women could beat their male peers in golf, tennis, soccer or swimming. Superb as Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark are, they couldn’t begin to compete with LeBron James. In fact, women’s basketball uses a smaller ball because the players have smaller hands.

The issues for children are just as clear. Just as we don’t let them drive, drink alcohol, join the military, work in factories or sign legal contracts because they are too young, we shouldn’t let them make irreversible decisions about their bodies. They should be protected from potentially tragic, life-altering mistakes, even if they want to make them. They can postpone those decisions until they are legally adults.

It is not transphobic to impose those restrictions. It’s a grave political mistake to treat them as litmus-test issues, to turn divisive social issues into tests of moral purity and ideological conformity. It’s a worse mistake for party activists to demand adherence to their favored positions when most voters strongly disagree. Unfortunately, in our bitter political climate, that’s a mistake too many ideologues are eager to make. Parties that keep making them don’t retake the majority.