The Democratic Party has nothing to gain and everything to lose by compromising on trans liberation.
A lot of the Democratic Party establishment see an opportunity to do Clintonian “triangulation” by giving ground on a few policy points protecting trans people, to win over some swing voters. Usually this starts with preventing trans women athletes from competing with cis women, a point which may seem legitimate if one has not thought about it. (It isn’t.)
Dems should be much less reliant on triangulation in general, but I grant that there are contexts where it is tactically effective. If I believed it would work on this point, despite my own preferences I might accept the Dems gritting their teeth, trimming their sails, and waiting for another day to fight for better. I understand why a lot of supporters of the Dem establishment make the mistake of reflexively resisting “over-reach” by their left flank .
But triangulation on trans liberation is a very bad move. A hard line in defense of trans people is the only place to stand, morally, tactically, and strategically in the forthcoming legal, legislative, and electoral fights.
Morally, the case is crystal clear. Opponents of trans liberation are flat wrong at best, and are actively evil at worst.
Tactically, no viable soft position beneficial to Dems exists. Whatever concessions Dems make, opponents of trans liberation will lie about where Dems stand and move the goalposts to something new, confusing inattentive voters with “questions”. The Democratic Party has more to gain by standing on principle and showing some fight than it can possibly get by trying to scoop up swing voters with concessions on trans liberation. Taking a hard line on protecting trans people is not a sacrifice. It is an opportunity.
Strategically, one misreads the stakes if one takes these wedge issues as addressing the peripheral needs of a small group. The right cast themselves as responding to the trans liberation movement Finally Going Too Far, when in fact athletic competition had long been a non-issue; the right chose to re-visit and emphasize it as an invented wedge issue, a BS move the left should recognize by now. The broad left should not take the bait.
The terms of dispute are integral to the fascist character of MAGA. Transphobia performs the same function for MAGA fascism that antisemitism performed for the Nazis. We already know that we must grant fascism nothing.
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Understanding cowardly liberals
I think some advocates for trans liberation could do better at meeting cis supporters of pols pulling this triangulation move where they are. I have seen a lot of people saying to them don’t think you can save yourselves by throwing a marginalized group under the bus, which makes a subtle mistake I am trying to avoid with this post.
Inattentive, not-very-transphobic cis people consider it at least plausible that there is a legitimate question of fairness in athletic competition, because that is a reasonable thing to think … if you have not researched it or given it significant thought. They see a question of fair athletic competition as different from a question of fundamental rights. The organization of sports leagues & divisions in general do not threaten fundamental rights, do they?
Those folks think they are being tactically savvy, keeping their powder dry to protect trans people on the important stuff. They think saying “the right are nutty about trans people in bathrooms but have a point about athletic competitions” is a move like saying “abortion should be safe, legal, and rare” instead of “… and available on demand”, a concession to anxieties which may get in the way of winning the important point.
So when we say “you are throwing trans people under the bus to protect yourselves”, they feel misread. If we don’t understand them, why should they listen to what we say about anything? Why should they believe us about athletic competitions? Why should they believe us about the stakes?
This dynamic is why transphobes and the right chose this battleground.
Yes, there is low-grade transphobia in not doing the homework, in not accepting what trans people say, in the enthusiasm for trans athletes making sacrifices. Yes, there are a lot of liberals with a lot more than low-grade transphobia animating their thinking. Yes, it is unfair having to take the time to talk cis people out of this mistake.
But this is the challenge before us. We have to walk inattentive cis liberals through the reasons why the bargain they think they can strike won’t work. It’s why this post exists.
Answering the question
The world being what it is, Dem pols are going to face these questions. Here’s the kind of thing I’d like to see them say:
I just don’t see the big deal.
I guess when same-sex couples vowed to love and cherish one another and the world didn’t end, some sourpusses felt so disappointed that they decided to try to make trans people scary. What? Trans people? They’re not scary.
Nobody is trying to sneak into your bathroom. Nobody is trying to trick children into getting surgery. That’s absurd.
Let’s not examine kids’ genitals before letting them play basketball. That’s gross.
It is American to respect everyone. It is American to respect trans people. So I don’t see the big deal. Can we talk about something real?
I’m not married to this phrasing; maybe it hits the wrong note. But here are the virtues I’m trying to cultivate:
Will the “this is as dumb as being afraid of gay people getting married” move work? I dunno. Olds remember everyone who said the sky would fall, and youngs find that dread absurd. (There are people in a different place, but Dems are never going to get them, anyway.)
Is “it is American to respect everyone; it is American to respect trans people” the right phrasing? I dunno. I am a radical egalitarian idealist and I know that most Americans are not — but they like to think they are — and threading the needle of appealing to them is hard. But some version of We Are All Americans is not just the right place to stand morally, it’s the savvy offer to make, because if our answer to fascists is that we want to purge people too — but less of them, and a bit less brutally — we surrender the premise to fascists.
GOP influencers and politicians didn’t suddenly respond to a grassroots uprising of “trans concern.” They made it a signature issue in the same way that they made other culture war issues central pillars of their campaigns.
Reactionary conservatism is not policy-driven, it is identity-driven, and there is no reason to pretend that people who align with fellow-travelers on a fresh target for hatred will flock to Dem candidates if they “triangulate” on that hate. Dems are already The Enemy; the policy is irrelevant.
That doesn’t mean “give up on swing voters” or some shit like that. It means recognizing that you are trying to convince someone to re-align their sense of which group they should consider “theirs;” when they do that policy support follows.
This is why leftists and activists are so angry when Dem candidates throw vulnerable constituencies under the bus in hopes of shaving off a few swing votes; they are not insisting on “purity tests,” they just recognize the craven stupidity of doing the reactionary right’s work for them.
Once the trans kids or the black women or the homeless people or the asylum seekers or the gay couples or the women voters or whatever group you decide can be cut loose for Bipartisanship Points is fucked, there is no payoff. The right knows you didn’t hate them hate them, you just caved.
So they’ll move on to the next group, the next euphemism, and they’ll keep carving until there’s nobody left for you to carve off, and then there will be no reason for them to even bother with you, the responsible centrist who sees What A Complex Issue This Is, The Hating Of The Next Group To Hate.
If you give a shit—hell, if you don’t but you’re just savvy enough to see how this will play out—you have to stand and say, “No, that’s not how this works. Those people you’ve been whipped into terror of and hatred towards are Us, too, and we don’t toss people to the wolves for a percentage.”
Also, imagining that many, most, or all Dems agree with [transphobes] is just stupid. Trans people can have all the story times, parades, bars, businesses, or sports leagues that they want. I can limit an adult from doing one thing without advocating for their total erasure from society.
I think it’s useful to unpack this. If Democrats agree with Republicans on excluding women’s sports, what’s the harm? Is it primarily harm to trans women who play sports, or is there something more to it?
A reasonable person who doesn’t know much about trans issues could ask these questions.
Many people who follow me will already know that the biggest harm is allowing Republicans to ignore fairness and science and solidify a bonkers definition of trans people as “really” members of our birth sex.
Not going to rehash that — let’s talk instead about something no one is discussing.
I mean that literally — no one is discussing the massive loss of rights trans people have experienced throughout the country.
When Dems talk about trans women in sports, they’re not just giving ground on sports. They’re giving ground on everything, because sports bans were the big issue 3 years ago.
Trans people have been expelled from the military and punished and humiliated throughout. We’re fighting in court to retain a right to accurate US Passports. Books mentioning us are banned in classrooms in much of the country. In Florida, trans teachers are required by law to misgender themselves. In some states, as a trans man who passes for male, I’m legally banned from using a men’s restroom but practically banned from using a women’s. My choice is between breaking the law and being arrested for breaking it.
Few Democrats are talking about how much trans people have lost, and how quickly.
Trans people are rapidly losing access to healthcare. It is unobtainable for trans youth in most of the country, and adult care is also under assault by congress and the Trump administration.
The only Dems for whom this is a priority are in state office. No national Dem is talking about it.
So, when a Democrat makes their only statement on trans issues about trans women in sports, they are saying that this is their priority on trans issues — not restoring our equality under the law but joining Republicans in eroding it.
It’s unconscionable that in a time of such grave peril for a vulnerable minority, one who has borne the brunt of all Trump’s hatred and extremism in executive order after executive order (and I didn’t even scratch the surface BTW) that a single Democrat is making trans women in sports their focus.
I’m aware that responsibility for this falls upon different people differently. These are ideas most applicable to people like me, upon whom the fascist threat only touches generally and glancingly. For those in groups directly targeted for fascist hatred, these may be useful ideas at times, but sometimes the goal will simply be getting to safety or staying alive another day, or putting one foot in front of the other.
Let me suggest three simple and broadly applicable precepts of differentiation.
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As much as possible, we should do things fascists cannot do.
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As much as possible, we should not do things fascists want us to do and we should do things fascists don’t want us to do.
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Never accept the fascist offer.
You know how this column is supposed to end. I rehearse all the similarities between Jews in Germany in 1933 and trans people in the United States in 2025: the tiny fraction of the population, the barrage of bureaucratic measures that strip away rights, the vilifying rhetoric. The silence on the part of ostensible allies. (Trump spent about five minutes of his recent address to Congress specifically attacking trans people and 10 minutes attacking immigrants; the Democratic rebuttal mentioned immigrants once and trans people not at all.) Then I finish with the standard exhortation: The attacks won’t stop here. If you don’t stand up for trans people or immigrants, there won’t be anyone left when they come for you.
But I find that line of argument both distasteful and disingenuous. It is undoubtedly true that the Trump administration won’t stop at denationalizing trans people, but it is also true that a majority of Americans are safe from these kinds of attacks, just as a majority of Germans were. The reason you should care about this is not that it could happen to you but that it is already happening to others. It is happening to people who, we claim, have rights just because we are human. It is happening to me, personally.
And we know that attacks on the fundamental humanity of a group never stop with the people in that group.
The Pink News | Cis woman ‘fired after customer accused her of being trans’ says it felt like a ‘stab in the back’
So it goes without saying, but let’s say it anyway: the concentration of attacks on trans people isn’t because trans people are the only people fascists hate (although they absolutely do hate them). It’s because they’re the people they think non-fascists are least likely to defend.
If they can get you to accept their narrative on trans kids in sports, it’s easier for them to push their narrative on legal recognition of trans people. If you accept that “gender ideology” needs to be taken out of schools, you’re more likely to accept that “DEI” needs to go too. Not defending the most vulnerable groups makes everyone else more vulnerable, not less.
And just to drive a point home for the Gavin Newsoms of this world: You think that fascists give a single fuck about women’s sports? You’re finding common cause with people who are unconvinced women should be allowed to vote, and you’re taking them at their word?
When people argue for giving in to fascism it’s generally because they find fascism appealing. Like, when Seth Moulton says we should throw trans people under various buses, it’s framed as him saying we need to compromise to win, but in fact he doesn’t see trans people as fully human. Same with lots of Ds and immigration. they are willing to compromise with the right on immigration because they are prejudiced against immigrants.
Bigotry and prejudice are fairly pervasive. Fascist victories lead people to embrace their own inner bigot.
So, when people argue for compromise, they say it like, “this is how we can beat the fascists,” but what they really mean is, “the fascists are right and we should join them in making our country at least a little more fascist.”
This is maybe most clear in D statements about Palestinians, where they walk right up to the line of acknowledging they don’t value Palestinian lives at all. (Rs are happy to jump over that line.)
This is what the Martin Niemรถller quote is about, though people don’t really understand it entirely. Like, the quote is presented as being about indifference. “First they came for … and I did not care because I was not …”. But Martin Niemรถller wasn’t just indifferent. He was a conservative nationalist who voted for the Nazis over and over. He was violently opposed to socialists and communists, and was an antisemite (though he objected to Nazis persecuting converted Jews.) So Niemรถller wasn’t indifferent. When he said “first they came for the communists” or “first they came for the Jews” he’s downplaying the extent to which the “they” who came for Communists and Jews was him! He hated Communists and Jews! He supported the Nazis not because he was indifferent, but because they targeted people he hated. He wanted to see Jews and Communists harmed.
He slowly came to realize that the Nazis would not stop with the groups he wanted to see them harm. And that led him to realize that wanting to harm those groups was also wrong. His change of heart was real and admirable. But also that poem is self serving in ways that have misled people about the causes of Nazi support.
The lesson people take from the poem is that you can’t look away, you have to speak up immeidately, not just when you are affected. Which isn’t wrong, but downplays the extent that Nazis gain power because they target groups that are widely despised. So the danger is not just indifference; the danger is that you may see the fascists as a chance to crush groups you don't like.
One thing I have tried to emphasize in various places is the extent to which fascism is not a binary on / off switch. We see Niemoller today as a brave opponent of the regime, and he was … except when he wasn’t. Part of the reason people are reluctant to see parallels between Trump and the Nazis is because there’s this idea that the Nazis were like Sauron or something, and that anyone supporting them was a kind of soulless orc. But … the Nazis were just people. those who supported them had a range of investments, from genocidal hatred of Jews through financial incentives and kind of everything in between.
A lesson can be found in all of this. The most devastating damage from these executive orders hasn’t come from their direct mandates but from their vagueness. The orders are deliberately opaque and create just enough uncertainty to push institutions into overcompliance. Risk-averse legal teams, fearful of losing federal funding or becoming political targets, preemptively erase transgender people from policies, programs, and public language. The cruelty lies in the ambiguity. These orders don’t explicitly bar specific conduct but deputize decision-makers to interpret them in ways that inflict the greatest harm on disfavored communities.
This moment demands tangible, actionable solidarity from cisgender folks both within and outside the United States. Those within the U.S. must provide immediate practical support—housing, legal assistance, financial resources, and community defense. It is crucial to help establish secure networks that protect vulnerable trans individuals. Those abroad can actively advocate for policies supporting LGBTQ+ asylum and resettlement in their countries, provide direct support to trans people attempting to relocate, and help create international networks of solidarity and refuge. Now is the moment to leverage privilege, resources, and influence to protect trans lives tangibly and urgently.
Analysing TERF politics as a variety of fascist ideology might seem shocking or over-the-top; particularly because to do so would require us to categorize many veteran socialists in Aotearoa / New Zealand to have slipped over into the “Red-Brown” camp. But defining fascism as a movement in defence of the threatened privilege of the downwardly mobile middle class seems to make the parallel unavoidable. As does the habit of TERF ideologues of suggesting that trans people are part of some kind of conspiracy of “elites”, as in the tweet reproduced below: TERF conspiracy theories on Twitter about “elites backing the trans movement” are not dissimilar to fascist ones.
When I travel overseas, I’m constantly asked why British culture has become so openly transphobic. How our moderate, liberal society could have allowed this ugliness. Even bloody Americans bloody ask me this, and when I try to explain they look at me with the same pity and confusion I feel when they start talking about, say, gun control. Around the world, transgender people are being made scapegoats for every sort of social ill — but almost everywhere else, transphobia is the territory of religious crackpots and right-wing cranks. In fact, since Donald Trump stomped back into the White House, moderates who might once have been on the fence are now actively rallying to protect the trans community.
Only in Britain has the anti-trans moral panic taken over the liberal mainstream. In recent years, we’ve joined Hungary and the United States in pumping out petty regulations targeting trans and non-binary people. British schools are now explicitly required to discriminate against transgender students. Anyone who doesn’t make their birth sex clear to a partner, even by accident, can now be charged with rape. And just yesterday, in response to the Supreme Court, the Equality and Human Rights Council rushed out guidance that goes much further. Schools, workplaces, public institutions and even community clubs must now take steps to ensure that trans people are clearly segregated.
To be clear, there’s no precedent for this crackdown. Before this, trans women had been using the women’s facilities for decades without much issue — but now? Now every single trans person in the UK will face a humiliating choice between outing themselves multiple times a day on the way to the bathroom or breaking the law. Because all trans people are henceforth to be treated, first and foremost, as potential predators — identified and excluded for the comfort of normal people everywhere.
This obsession linking biology, morality, and public safely, reached its apex with the U.S. government’s Mixed Blood Policy in the camps for Japanese Americans. This policy mandated which families of mixed ethnicity could be freed and under what conditions. The smaller the percentage of “Japanese blood,” the less menace a citizen was assumed to pose. Beyond “blood percentage,” camp administrators promoted incarcerees’ request for release based on attempts to read biological markers. One official supported release of two mixed-race brothers by noting they were “definitely Caucasian in appearance.” In backing the release of a native Japanese woman married to a white American man, another official—defying logic—wrote, “Her appearance is that of Chinese,” adding for good measure, “her mannerism is more Americanized.”
