Vice President Kamala Harris was asked directly about trans people on Wednesday for the first time this campaign season when Fox News’ Bret Baier questioned her about a 2019 statement in which she said she supported using taxpayer dollars for gender-affirming care for people who are incarcerated.
“I will follow the law, and it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed,” she said. “These surgeries are available to, on a medical necessity basis, people in the federal prison system.” In mentioning Trump, she was referring to a New York Times article on Wednesday that said former President Donald Trump’s administration had provided gender-affirming care to incarcerated people. Trump has been running fearmongering ads attacking Harris for supporting such a policy.
She was referring to a New York Times article that said Trump’s administration’s provided gender-affirming care to incarcerated people.
When Baier again pressed her on the issue, Harris went back to Trump, whom she said “spent $20 million on those ads, trying to create a sense of fear in the voters because he actually has no plan in this election that is about focusing on the needs of the American people.” She continued: “Twenty million dollars on that ad, on an issue that, as it relates to the biggest issues that affect the American people, is really quite remote.”
It may end up being the last one of Harris’ rare mentions of trans people this campaign. At this year’s Democratic National Convention, only two speakers even used the word “trans,” and Democrats in general have been reluctant to defend trans people and their rights as Republicans have been spending millions of dollars on ads whipping up anti-trans resentment.
In two close U.S. Senate races, Democrats Sherrod Brown, who’s running for re-election in Ohio, and Rep. Colin Allred, who’s looking to unseat incumbent Ted Cruz in Texas, have not inspired trans folks that they’ll have our back.
Allred, who’s been attacked by Cruz for voting against a 2023 Republican bill requiring that sports participation be based on birth sex, responded with a short ad that begins: “Ted Cruz is lying again. But now he’s lying about our children. I’m a dad. I’m also a Christian. My faith has taught me that all kids are God’s kids. So let me be clear: I don’t want boys playing girls sports, or any of this ridiculous stuff that Ted Cruz is saying. Ted Cruz is lying about my record because he can’t defend his own.”
With the words “I don’t want boys playing girls’ sports,” is Allred agreeing with Cruz that transgender girls are boys? Or is the former NFL linebacker trying to play it both ways with phrasing that lets him plausibly deny that he opposed the participation of trans girls? However he meant it, it’s being interpreted by trans people (and probably by anti-trans people, too) as him opposing the participation of trans girls in sports.
In Ohio, an ad from the Senate Leadership Fund, Senate Republicans’ political action committee, says, “Brown backed Biden, voting to let biological transgender men participate in women’s sports and supported allowing puberty blocker and sex-change surgeries for minors.” Brown’s response has been to run an ad that, in reference to trans girls in sports, says, “In Ohio, this has already been banned.” The ad says Brown agrees with Republican Gov. Mike Dewine that “these decisions should be made by local sports leagues, not politicians.” Brown’s ad includes a news segment from a fact-checking journalist who says that a claim by GOP Senate nominee Bernie Moreno that Brown “voted to let transgender biological men participate in women’s sports is false.”
Though Brown’s ad doesn’t take a position against trans girls participating in sports — as Allred suggests when he says he’s against “boys playing girls sports” — his ad does suggest that he won’t fight for trans participation in sports, as he apparently believes politicians should have no say in the matter. He says transgender girls have “already been banned” from playing in girls’ sports in Ohio, but, notably, he doesn’t say that it’s wrong that they were banned.
On top of that, the Brown ad’s uncritical use of the language “transgender biological men” in “women’s sports” suggests an acceptance of the premise that trans girls are not girls. It may seem like a sensible political strategy, given how radioactive the polling is about trans athletes; but characterizing trans girls as boys in a sports context would lead one to characterize them as such in other contexts, too.
After all, if trans girls are really boys when they’re playing sports, then they would also be considered boys in the bathroom, boys in medical offices and, thus, denied access to female hormones. If trans girls are boys when they’re playing sports, then trans women should be considered men in all contexts.
Contrary to the assertion from conservatives that their aim is to protect the integrity of sports competition, their focus on the trans athlete issue has never really been about fairness. The goal has been to establish a precedent that leads to the complete marginalization of trans women and girls.
It’s worrying to see Democrats running for Senate seemingly turn on trans people.
Left unsaid by both Senate candidates is what these ads mean for their previous support of the Equality Act. Allred co-sponsored the Equality Act in 2023 and voted for it when it passed the House in 2021. Brown co-sponsored the Senate version of the act in 2023. Neither bill came up for a full vote in their respective chambers last year. The Equality Act, as written, would guarantee equal rights for trans people under federal civil rights law. That includes educational opportunities like scholastic and collegiate sports.
It’s worrying to see Democrats running for Senate seemingly turn on trans people. This election is causing us enough stress already. As a community, we understand that Trump returning to the White House and Republicans having control of Congress would be a complete disaster for trans progress, but even more threatening to our rights would be Democrats abandoning the fight.
We intimately understand that the only thing standing between us and the GOP desire to “purge gender ideology from society” are Democrats, so the prospect of liberals abandoning us has loomed large throughout this campaign season.
Harris’ answer to Baier was milquetoast but it provided a marginal bit of relief, as did comments from her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who, in an appearance on the “We Can Do Hard Things” podcast, pointed out that Republicans are leaning into attacking trans people: “We see it now; the hate has shifted to the trans community. They see that as an opportunity. If you’re watching any sporting events right now, you see that Donald Trump’s closing arguments are to demonize a group of people for being who they are,” Walz said. “We’re out there trying to make the case that access to health care, a clean environment, manufacturing jobs and keeping your local hospital open are what people are really concerned about. They’re running millions of dollars of ads demonizing folks who are just trying to live their lives.” For Harris’ part, she pledged to follow the law, which currently requires the government to provide gender-affirming care in a variety of contexts, including to people confined to federal prisons. But laws can change, and she didn’t commit to defending that policy if there’s an attempt to change it. Will she fight back if a Trump judge decides that incarcerated people shouldn’t receive such care? Will our rights be a legislative priority under a Harris White House? We simply don’t know. Transphobia has historically been an election loser for Republicans dating to 2016, when then-North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, who had signed the now-infamous trans bathroom bill, lost in a red wave election. In the 2022 midterms, conservative groups spent millions on anti-trans ads, only to get wiped out at the ballot box. But Democrats have inexplicably avoided a fight over trans issues this year. A few weeks ago, an unnamed Harris adviser speaking to NBC News expressed admiration for the effectiveness of Trump’s anti-trans ad, if not the content, by describing it as “a killer ad.” The Washington Examiner reported last month that the Harris campaign had consulted the U.K. Labour Party for strategy help. That’s the party responsible for banning puberty blockers for all trans youth in Britain. Neither the comment from Harris’ adviser nor the reported consultation with the Labour Party inspires confidence in me as a trans person and voter who depends on Democrats for my rights in this country. What makes the Democrats’ seeming capitulation worse is that there’s little evidence that any of the anti-trans ads are breaking through with voters. Polling shows that trans issues are of little importance except to a tiny handful of voters. Harris said as much in her Fox News interview, but Brown and Allred (who’ve previously supported the Equality Act) responded to the GOP ad blitz by softening their public support for trans rights in states where trans youths have been borderline tortured by GOP policies. I worry that Democrats or Harris losing next month will not only result in a disastrous Trump policy for trans people but that Democratic consultants will pin those hypothetical losses on Democrats’ support for trans issues. Democratic silence in the face of all-out Republican attacks on trans people already sends signals of softening support for our community. The presidential polls have been tightening lately, as happens in most elections in October, but that’s not the fault of trans people or the result of Trump’s transphobic ads. Trans people like me await the outcome of this election with dread as we dream of the day we have a party that’s willing to fight on our behalf and that will neither stay silent nor concede ground as the conservatives carry out their reckless hate campaign.
Katelyn Burns is a freelance journalist based in New England. 
