In his opinion essay, “Why Are So Many Democratic Politicians So Far Out of Touch?” at The New York Times, Thomas B. Edsall explains how Democrats sealed their own defeat in 2024 by bungling transgender issues:

Why don’t more Democrats explicitly moderate their stands on transgender rights, immigration and other issues? Those who maintain far-out positions are well to the left of the electorate and its emblematic median voter. The trans issue clearly weakened Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, leaving her open to devastating pro-Trump ads.

In the case of one of the most disputed rights claimed by some parts of the transgender activist community — transgender women’s participation on women’s sports teams — Democrats have clear liberal grounds to challenge that claim, by asserting that they are protecting a woman’s right from unfair competition.

But this phenomenon — drifting far from the median voter — is hardly limited to the left. There are many factors behind the reluctance of both Democrats and Republicans to shift to the center.

For one thing, donors, especially the growing legions of small donors, prefer more extreme candidates. Adding additional pressure, what have come to be known as “the groups” — advocacy organizations on the left and the right — demand fealty to policies that are sometimes politically costly; they threaten to support primary challengers to run against those who defy their authority. On a psychological level, Democrats and liberals are morally committed to protecting marginalized groups from harm and defending racial and sexual minorities.

Before exploring these pressures, let’s go to the dominant political fact of life working against moderation, which is that there are decisive majorities in both the House and the Senate that have no interest in abandoning more extreme stands. Many Democrats and Republicans won their seats with the promise to fight the partisan opposition until hell freezes over.

Edsall has much more to say about Democrats bumbling into extremist stereotypes, and he quotes TDS frequent contributor Ruy Teixeira extensively, and adds:

The one issue that has rapidly gained salience in the Democratic debate over moderation is transgender rights.

There is overwhelming evidence from polling that strong majorities of the electorate oppose discrimination against trans men and women in employment and education, reinforced by a firm conviction that trans people should be treated as equal members of society.

At the same time, majorities of voters oppose allowing trans women to join women’s sports teams, to allow trans men and women to use bathrooms based on their gender identity and to allow the assignment of criminally convicted trans women to women’s prisons.

Victor Kumar, a professor of philosophy at Boston University, argued in a July 2025 essay published on his Substack Open Questions that the backlash against the trans movement was

exacerbated by tactical errors. It was a mistake to insist that any concern about youth medical transition is transphobic. To habitually take the bait on marginal issues like trans-inclusive sport, particularly at elite levels. To deny that cis women can reasonably desire sex-segregated spaces in locker rooms, shelters and prisons. To adopt a maximalist politics of pronouns that shames people for honest mistakes.

Going into the midterm elections and the presidential contest two years from now, there is what can best be called a widespread churning in Democratic and liberal circles over transgender issues.

The Searchlight Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank founded last year, published “The Path Forward for Transgender Rights” on Thursday, a call for retrenchment on trans issues by Mara Keisling, the now retired founding executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality and a senior fellow at Searchlight. Keisling wrote:

There is broad support for protecting trans people from discrimination in housing, access to credit, employment and for ensuring that adults have access to the health care they need.

That said, Americans hold conservative attitudes where certain policies related to gender identity and transgender rights are concerned. Voters are especially focused on kids — from the bathrooms they use to the sports teams they may join, and access to hormone treatments and other forms of health care.

What, then, should the transgender movement do? Keisling:

We need to reset our approach to advocacy, public education and policy development regarding the rights and acceptance of transgender Americans. This means shifting our primary focus to education while continuing to try to enshrine core civil rights protections into statute.

On issues such as sports participation and kids’ access to health care, we should accept that we have more work to do to win hearts and minds, and focus on pursuing the smartest possible approach to bring more Americans over to our side.

The intense desire among Democratic voters to win puts some wind behind Keisling’s views, especially in the 61 competitive (or at least somewhat competitive) House districts, 28 of which are currently held by Democrats. Those races will determine which party controls the House in 2027. But given the power of the forces against moderation in the 374 safe districts, her agenda will be easier to admire than enact.

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