Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus whose child is nonbinary, has reintroduced a federal Transgender Bill of Rights three times. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a co-chair of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition who represents a swing district, has backed Republican bills restricting gender-affirming care for minors.

The two Washington Democrats come from opposite wings of their party. But this fall, with both up for re-election on the same ballot as a measure in their state targeting transgender athletes, they’ve landed in the same place — for much the same reason.

The proposal would require any student who wants to play on a girls’ sports team to have a health care provider verify her sex — transgender or not. Gluesenkamp Perez recently told Oregon Public Broadcasting that while she believes “it isn’t fair for boys to compete in girls’ sports,” she cannot support “a rule that forces girls to prove their sex to the state every year just to play sports.” Jayapal — along with Gov. Bob Ferguson and Sen. Patty Murray — has called the measure “invasive.”

While Democrats speaking out against attacks on trans kids is not novel, how they’re doing so is noteworthy: Confronting the issue head-on, and turning conservatives’ own arguments about government overreach and parents’ rights against them.

“Pointing out the values of conservatives — to not have government in our business making these decisions — is a very important part of our message,” Jayapal told MS NOW in an interview on Tuesday. “I do think we’re going to get people who may not agree with us in every way we see the issue.”

It’s a notable shift for a party that has long struggled to answer GOP attacks casting Democrats as more concerned with transgender people than with voters’ paychecks — attacks Republicans leaned on heavily in 2024 and are again spending millions on this fall. With measures targeting transgender athletes also on the ballot for the first time in Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska, and another targeting trans youth and abortion rights in Missouri, strategists say the approach is worth emulating.

“What this is about fundamentally is, ‘Who do you want to make decisions around healthcare for your family? Do you want politicians or the government to make those decisions, or do you think families and doctors should be the ones who are making those calls?’” said Adrienne Kimmell, a strategist who advises on messaging around transgender issues.

Even the Washington ballot measure’s top backers admit the opposition’s strategy seems to be working.

“We’ve got people that are with us and are saying, ‘Are we sure that we want genital exams?’” said Hallie Herzberg, spokesperson for Let’s Go Washington, the political action committee supporting the measure and a second initiative on parental rights in schools. The group was founded by Brian Heywood, a conservative hedge fund manager and major Republican donor.

Herzberg maintains that the sports measure would not mandate such exams. But she acknowledged that Democrats are casting a wider net by focusing on them rather than on transgender athletes — a group that opponents of the measure say numbers fewer than a dozen statewide. (Herzberg says this is likely an undercount.)

Jayapal has addressed the measure’s targeting of transgender kids directly in a video posted on social media. But No Hate in Washington State, the leading group opposing the measure, has gone further in recasting the fight: None of its digital ads even use the word “transgender.” Instead, they focus on how the sex-verification requirement could subject cisgender girls to invasive scrutiny.

“Although the opposition is really focused on trans kids, we’re focused on the impacts on all kids,” said Heather Weiner, the group’s spokesperson.

Democrats in other states are following suit.

In Arizona, where a ballot measure could require schools and athletic associations to bar trans people from sports teams and locker rooms, Democratic House candidate Joanna Mendoza said that parents, coaches, and sports associations should decide eligibility in kids’ sports. In Colorado, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Phil Weiser has said he will oppose two ballot measures — one that would limit trans students’ participation in sports and another that would prohibit gender-affirming surgeries on minors — because he believes athletic associations should determine fairness and that such surgeries for minors are “very rare” and those decisions are best made by doctors and parents.

This approach — framing the issue as a matter of parental rights and government overreach — is not entirely new. Both Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear in 2023 and Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly in 2024 made similar arguments.

But it is a far cry from how national Democrats handled the issue in 2024.

After the Trump campaign’s widely aired ad declaring “Kamala is for they/them; Trump is for you,” Kamala Harris dodged on whether she believed gender-affirming care should be broadly available to Americans, saying only that she would follow the law. Following Trump’s re-election, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California and Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts were among the Democrats who criticized their party for failing to address trans athletes’ participation in girls’ sports head-on.

Tyler Hack, executive director of the Christopher Street Project, a transgender rights advocacy group and political action committee, said “the sweet spot both morally and electorally” is for Democrats to respond to Republicans’ anti-trans attacks directly — and to highlight their ripple effects.

“When we talk about legislation or ballot measures targeting the trans community,” Hack said, “we need to zoom out and think about the implications in everyday life.”

Research that Kimmell oversaw earlier this year found that Democrats lose ground when they don’t respond to Republican attacks on the issue, but gain the upper hand when they argue that Republicans are fixated on transgender people instead of the cost of living, according to a memo reviewed by MS NOW. The research, which focused on swing voters in House battleground districts, also recommended that Democrats remind voters that “Republicans are the party exposing children to inappropriate things and putting children at risk.”

The opposition campaign in Washington has tried to do just that, with ads showing anxious girls lining up for sex-verification exams and featuring doctors who oppose the measure.

The conservative American Principles Project, meanwhile, said in its own memo to GOP candidates last month that while its message testing in swing states shows Republicans have an advantage over Democrats in ads focused on gender-affirming care, those on the right also “need a compelling message on the economy.” (Spokespeople for the group did not respond to questions.)

But some Democrats would still prefer not to talk about trans issues at all.

In Colorado, Democrats running in three key House races, according to the Cook Political Report — Jessica Killin, Manny Rutinel, and Eileen Laubacher, who’s taking on GOP incumbent Lauren Boebert — have not taken public positions on the measures there. Nor has Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, who is seeking a second term. (Spokespeople for those campaigns did not respond to requests for comment from MS NOW.)

Jayapal, for her part, hopes the Washington state delegation serves as a model for others in her party.

“It helps us when we refuse to be divided,” she told MS NOW, “and I think that’s a lesson for Democrats across the country.”

The post Democrats may have found an answer to GOP attacks on transgender athletes appeared first on MS NOW.

From MS Now.