OnPolitics: Advocates urge Democrats to fight harder for trans rights
Sudiksha KochiHey OnPolitics readers! For years, rights for transgender people have taken center stage in culture war debates, with GOP lawmakers leading the charge to pass legislation restricting gender affirming care and more.
LGBTQ+ advocates argue that public support for athletic bans and other anti-trans laws is partially a result of these efforts from conservative lawmakers that creates a misunderstanding, USA TODAY's Karissa Waddick reported.
But advocates also say they're worried that Democrats, including President Joe Biden, may shy away from addressing anti-trans rhetoric in campaigns altogether because of fear over criticism.
❌Biden's Title IX conundrum: Anna Baeth, director of research at the nonprofit LGBTQ+ athletic advocacy group Athlete Ally, expressed concern that the Biden administration made a political calculation when it left proposed protections for transgender student athletes out of its recent Title IX update.
🌎 2024 political climate: Ben Lazurus, a Democratic strategist and pollster, questioned how salient issues around transgender care and athletic participation would be for swing voters across the country in 2024. “There are very few single-issue voters anymore,” Lazurus said, adding that he hasn’t seen “any evidence that this issue is high on people's priority list.”
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🥊Anti-trans legislation: Half of U.S. states have enacted laws banning transgender students from joining sports teams that align with their gender identity. That’s despite estimates from the nonprofit think tank, Movement Advancement Project, that only 1% of transgender youth ages 13-17 live in these states.
Read more:LGBTQ+ advocates urge Biden, Democrats to push back more strongly on anti-trans rhetoric
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