"Absolutely Not": How Kat Abughazaleh Rejected Media's Trans Scapegoating

Congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh shows how Democrats can push back on media narratives that serve the right's authoritarian agenda

As you may know, Kat Abughazaleh, my friend and fellow Media Matters for America alum, is running for Congress in Illinois' 9th district. (So take what I have to say in this post with that in mind.)

In a recent CNN interview with Jim Sciutto, Kat showed how to respond when mainstream media tries to feed you a false narrative about trans people. The moment particularly stood out to me because, well, for one, I’m trans. But also, just last year, I wrote about how CNN's irresponsible framing of trans healthcare helped birth this exact talking point.

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When Sciutto tried to get Kat to endorse the absurd notion that support for transgender people cost Democrats the election, suggesting that "even Democrats acknowledged" this supposed truth, Kat didn't hesitate:

"Absolutely not," she fired back. "Democrats deciding that trans people are the reason they lost the election in 2024 — it's ridiculous. It's offensive. And frankly, they are contributing to Trump's authoritarianism."

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: How about on the culture war issues — for lack of a better term — which did drive some voters, perhaps not all of them. Even Democrats acknowledged that, particularly, there was that clip of Kamala Harris talking about transgender surgery for prisoners, which they acknowledged in some states really hurt them. That’s one sign of a social issue that drove some voters.

Do you believe that Democrats went too far left on some social issues? And to win in the next cycle, do you and others have to bring it back to the middle — in effect, soften a progressive or “woke,” as it’s called by Donald Trump, stance and move toward the center?

KAT ABUGHAZALEH, CANDIDATE: Yeah, absolutely not. Democrats deciding that trans people are the reason they lost the election in 2024 — it's ridiculous. It's offensive. And frankly, they are contributing to Trump's authoritarianism.

The transgender community, the queer community as a whole — but particularly the trans community — have often been the first targets in authoritarian and fascist regimes. And that's happening right now. People like myself — people in my line of work, studying, researching, and attacking fascism — have been warning about this for years. And Democrats didn’t listen.

A lot of people stayed home in 2024. And far fewer people voted against Democrats because of “woke” than I think a lot of people assume. A far bigger issue is that we aren’t giving people something to vote for.

So many more people stayed home in 2020 — across almost all demographics — because they didn’t feel represented by either candidate. They didn’t feel listened to by either party. And it isn’t because of vulnerable communities. It’s because these are parties being led by people who are out of touch and don’t listen to their constituents.

What makes Kat's response so refreshing is that she didn't do what so many Democrats have done post-election — nervously look at their shoes, mumble something about "messaging," and effectively throw vulnerable people under the bus. Instead, she called out the premise for what it is: a manufactured narrative that serves the right's authoritarian agenda.

Trans people did not cost Democrats the 2024 election.

According to post-election polling from the Human Rights Campaign, just 4% of voters (coming in dead last among issues) identified trans issues as the top motivating issue for their vote. That's right — despite Republicans spending over $150 million on anti-trans attack ads, these issues barely registered with voters when deciding who to support.

The data show that voters were far more concerned with the economy, immigration, and democracy than they were with trans rights. Half of Trump voters listed the economy as their most important issue, while 20% cited immigration.

Meanwhile, what demographic stayed firmly in Democrats' corner? LGBTQ voters, who made up 8% of the electorate and backed Harris over Trump by a whopping 86% to 12% margin. This support actually increased by 15 points since 2020, showing stronger solidarity with Democrats than in any of the previous five presidential elections.

The CNN segment with Kat reminded me of my piece from last September about the CNN segment that helped create this narrative. Back then, Erin Burnett and reporter Andrew Kaczynski sensationalized Harris's 2019 statements supporting medically necessary care for transgender people in federal custody — care that was actually provided under the Trump administration and required by the Eighth Amendment.

CNN's Mishandling of Trans Healthcare Coverage Highlights Need for Change

This kind of coverage doesn't happen in a vacuum. CNN, like many major news outlets, has a significant blind spot when it comes to trans issues. Without many (if any) transgender voices in its newsroom and on-air lineup, the network (like all mainstream media outlets) consistently fails to provide necessary context or push back against harmful framing. Instead, they present basic human rights as controversial "left-wing causes" and give credibility to manufactured culture war narratives.

What's so powerful about Kat's response to Sciutto is that she refused to play along. When presented with the false choice between supporting trans people and winning elections, she rejected the premise entirely. By pointing out that the trans community is often "the first targets in authoritarian and fascist regimes," she connected the dots between abandoning vulnerable groups and enabling broader threats to democracy.

The reality is that Democrats didn't lose because they supported trans rights; they lost because they failed to articulate a compelling economic vision that resonated with voters across demographics. As Kat so clearly put it: "A far bigger issue is that we aren't giving people something to vote for."

At a moment when too many politicians are racing to throw marginalized communities under the bus to appease right-wing narratives, Kat is showing there's another way forward: standing firm on human rights while addressing the kitchen-table issues that affect everyone's daily lives.

I've watched too many politicians cave to pressure and accept harmful framing about trans people. It's refreshing to see someone who understands that defending human dignity isn't just the morally right choice — it's essential to preserving democracy itself. The first step in fighting fascism is refusing to accept its premises, and that's exactly what Kat did in that CNN interview.

We need more of that courage right now. Not just because it's the right thing to do, but because abandoning your values never leads to political victory. It just makes the opposition stronger.