If you’re happy with the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election, you might want to thank the transgender movement.
The post-election autopsies are coming in, and there is plenty to discuss and debate. But one conclusion is already approaching consensus: The Democrats’ embrace of gender ideology hurt them, and badly. The Democrats are now engaged in a minor civil war over how to deal with the T in LGBT, with accusations flying thick and fast. In fact, progressive congresswoman and ‘squad’ member Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has already quietly removed her pronouns from her X bio, while late night TV hosts such as John Oliver desperately insist that trans issues are an easy sell.
The polls, however, tell a different story. According to the Associated Press’ VoteCast, a survey of over 120,000 people who voted this fall found that more than half of voters said that “support for transgender rights in government and society” has “gone too far.” Only 2 in 10 said that support hadn’t gone far enough, and only 2 in 10 said “it’s about right.” 85% of those who voted for Trump said support for the transgender agenda has “gone too far.” A quarter of Harris voters agreed.
Trump’s ads hammering Harris’s longstanding support for the transgender agenda were pinpointed as being particularly effective. One highlighted Harris advocating for taxpayer-funded sex change surgeries for prisoners, and featured photos of trans-identifying and cross-dressing members of the Biden Administration. The ad ends with the slogan: “Kamala Harris is for They/Them. President Trump is for you.” Bill Clinton was so alarmed by the impact of the ads that, according to the New York Times, he reached out to the Harris camp and urged them to repudiate their support for the policy.
Clinton was told the ads would have no impact—but one ad, which featured liberal podcast host “Charlamagne Tha God” expressing his shock at Harris’s transgender positions—reportedly moved voters 2.7%, according to Harris super PAC Future Forward. One report put it bluntly: “The transgender issue capsized the Harris campaign, a new Democratic poll has found.” From the report:
Among swing voters, this issue moved swing votes away from Harris more than any other. Swing voters said they did not vote for the Democratic ticket in 2024, because “Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class.” That statement ranked one point ahead of voter dissatisfaction with inflation and two points higher than illegal immigration, according to Blueprint, a new public opinion research initiative funded by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and designed to “provide insights and recommendations on how to reach the voters who will be essential to delivering the Democrats the White House and control of Congress.”
“[L]iberal women were much less comfortable than they were with any other issue,” the New York Times stated. “[M]oms get really visibly angry” at this issue, noted Republican pollster Jim McLaughlin, “It’s a fairness issue. They don’t want their daughters to lose a scholarship, and they don’t want them to get hurt.”
The Harris campaign did draft a few response ads, but they never ran. The Democrats haven’t left themselves much wiggle room on the issue—for years, they’ve accused their political opponents of literally threatening the lives of “trans kids” and declaring that every jot and tittle of the transgender agenda is a matter of fundamental human rights. The 2024 Democratic Party platform is a wholesale endorsement of the trans movement, and explicitly opposes any restrictions on sex changes for kids.
