Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the former Democratic nominee for vice president, said it would be “a mistake” for the party not to defend the rights of transgender Americans from Trump administration policies as it figures out how to win over voters in the next election cycle.
The identities of trans, nonbinary and intersex Americans have for months been subject to intense scrutiny in Washington, with a flurry of executive orders from President Trump and new guidance from federal agencies threatening their access to gender-affirming health care and ability to serve openly in the military.
An order Trump signed on his first day back in office proclaims the government recognizes only two sexes, male and female, and broadly prohibits federal spending on what he and his administration call “gender ideology.” Another, signed in February, aims to bar transgender girls from participating in girls’ school sports, an issue Trump and Republicans championed on the campaign trail last year and that has exposed fractures within the Democratic Party, typically aligned on matters of LGBTQ rights.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), seen as a likely contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, called transgender athletes in girls’ and women’s sports “deeply unfair” in a recent podcast episode that featured Charlie Kirk, a conservative political activist. In January, two Texas Democrats voted with House Republicans to ban trans students from competing on girls’ teams.
In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s decisive victory over former Vice President Harris, Democratic Reps. Tom Suozzi (N.Y.) and Seth Moulton (Mass.) told The New York Times they opposed transgender girls in girls’ sports. Both lawmakers previously supported legislation meant to prop up transgender rights, including a bill that would make gender identity a protected class.
“It’s a mistake,” Walz said of some Democrats’ backtracking in an interview published Tuesday with The Independent. “We need to tell people your cost of eggs, your health care being denied, your homeowner’s insurance, your lack of getting warning on tornadoes coming has nothing to do with someone’s gender.”
“I think we have to figure out how to not get sucked in and allow that to be the focal point ... We can multitask, and we can hold several things simultaneously,” he said. “We can protect LGBTQ rights and basic human rights. At the same time, we can make sure that we hold drug companies accountable for high prices.”
Harris and Walz’s campaign last year struggled to combat Trump’s closing message, which centered heavily on his opposition to transgender rights. A week before Election Day, Walz said Trump’s arguments were intended “to demonize a group of people for being who they are” on an episode of the “We Can Do Hard Things” podcast.
In March, Walz commemorated Trans Day of Visibility, an annual recognition of transgender people worldwide, with a social media post recommitting “to standing up for our neighbors in the face of hatred.”
An AP-NORC poll released this month found that roughly half of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s handling of transgender issues, including 19 percent of Democrats. A recent Pew Research Center survey similarly found that Americans have grown more supportive of policies restricting transgender rights, though most respondents also expressed support for policies designed to protect trans people from discrimination in jobs, housing and public spaces.
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