You Can't Win a Debate You Refuse to Have: Why Democrats Shouldn't Stay Silent on Trans Rights

Playing defense without offense is how you lose both the messaging war and elections

I was reading this NOTUS article (“Democrats Have Basically Given Up Trying to Message on Transgender Rights”) yesterday, and I swear to god, I wanted to throw my laptop across the room. Not at the reporter — Oriana González did solid work documenting the Democratic Party's complete messaging surrender on trans rights. No, what made me want to scream was this quote from Rep. Julie Johnson, a co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, about the Supreme Court's Skrmetti decision: "The Supreme Court has ruled. We're either a party that supports the rule of law or not."

Really? Really?

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This is the same party that spent the last two years holding rallies, press conferences, and campaign events about how the Supreme Court was dead wrong on Dobbs. The same party that's been (correctly!) arguing that Supreme Court decisions aren't some immutable law of physics — they're political documents written by political actors who can be politically challenged. But when it comes to trans people? Suddenly Democrats have discovered a deep, abiding respect for whatever Samuel Alito thinks.

Let's be absolutely clear about what's happening here: Democrats have decided that defending trans people is bad politics, so they're dressing up their cowardice in high-minded rhetoric about "the rule of law." And while they're busy congratulating themselves for being so very reasonable and moderate, Republicans are spending hundreds of millions of dollars making sure that the only message voters hear about trans people is that we're dangerous predators coming for your children.

Guess how that's working out?

Look, I get that not everyone is comfortable talking about trans issues. I really do. As Rep. Becca Balint told NOTUS, "This job is not supposed to be calm. It's not supposed to be comfortable. Do the work." But apparently, most Democrats have decided that the work is... not doing the work? Just letting Republicans define the entire conversation while they sit on their hands?

Here's what that looks like in practice: Republicans spent nearly $215 million on network TV ads vilifying transgender people this election cycle. That's not a typo. Two hundred and fifteen million dollars. As civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo pointed out, "That's $134 per trans person in anti-trans ad spending."

Meanwhile, what was the Democratic response to this onslaught? Cricket sounds.

Remember that ubiquitous Trump ad? "Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you." It ran more than 30,000 times in swing states. The Harris campaign's response? They just... didn't have one. They let it hang out there, unopposed, like somehow if they ignored it hard enough it would go away.

Spoiler alert: It didn't go away.