Gavin Newsom’s provocative new position in Transathlete on Thursday has reopened the Democrat rift, which serves as one of the party’s earliest flashpoints in the 2028 primary.
Within hours of California’s governor denounced a trans athlete playing in women’s sports, he shocked his party in his hometown – some Democrats dropped him off to potential presidential candidates.
“I hate that,” said former Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot. “Today, in California, there are kids awakened to this news, thinking the governor hates them.” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) urged Democrats to “take bait and not succumb to the rhetoric of anti-trans people,” but she never saw Newsom’s comments.
It quickly revealed that major LGBTQ+ organizations are considering transathletes as a litmus test for ambitious Democrats. “The message to Governor Newsom and all leaders across the country is simple. The road to 2028 is unpaved with the betrayal of vulnerable communities.
But for moderates, Newsom provided a lifeline for the party plagued by culture wars and the polarised politics of trans women in sports. His comments were the latest from the field of potential candidates seeking to distance themselves from identity politics in 2024. In recent weeks, former Transport Secretary Pete Buttigigue has criticized “several approaches to promoting diversity as the head of “‘” .Trump Republicans are being madeIllinois Governor JB Pretzker cited the upcoming fiscal deficit due to a proposal to cut medical benefits for some non-citizen immigrants.
“The real story is that we saw it in the poll after the polls. The majority of the country (and Democrats!) agree to this idea.”
“We were so far from the boundaries that the far left drove the story,” said a Democratic strategist in swing state who was given anonymity to speak freely. “Our own voters disagree with young people and university sports trans athletes.”
The strategist said, “One governor of the Bluest state came out and said this and said our party went too far to the left, and the other Democrats would do this.
Still, Newsom was stabbing the controversial ground. Before 2028 it could alienate the entire activist.
Trans rights have been a challenging subject for Democrats since Trump turned the issue into a powerful weapon in his 2024 campaign, dropping millions of dollars in Kamala Harris attack ads. President Trump is for you. “In the aftermath, many moderates argued that Democrats had moved too far to the test of identity politics and litmus of ideology.
In the same interview with Kirk, Newsom said he considers these ads to receive medical care for detained immigrants and federal prisoners, following Harris’ support for taxpayer-funded transition-related healthcare.
Some Republicans threw Newsom as Craven to back most other Democrats. In X, Trump’s allies Richard Grennell said the California governor. It should be considered a “flip-flop to a sports trans athlete after seeing the vote.”
Recent polling supports mitigation on this issue. While the majority of American adults support policies that protect trans people from discrimination, 66% of those surveyed require trans athletes to compete in teams that match their assigned gender at birth, and 56% support banning care related to minors’ gender transitions. According to Pew Research.
On Capitol Hill, most Democrats said they had never seen Newsom’s comments in person, but greeted the revelation they interviewed Kirk with an eye roll on the podcast. They refrained from directly criticizing the governor, even if they opposed the sentiment.
“I just saw the headline. I haven’t read it, but I know where I stand,” said Rep. Latefah Simon (D-Calif.). “We don’t ruin the youth, the young people. We have to bring them in. We don’t want to rule them out.”
Democrats voted almost unanimously earlier this year for a law that would ban trans athletes from competing in women and women’s sports. Some lawmakers, like Moulton, who came to the vote, said they were against trans athletes opposing women’s sports, ultimately chose to vote against the law, saying it was overloaded.
“The unfair thing is targeting trans children and politicians to abandon them for political convenience,” said Rep. Sarah Jacobs (D-Calif), vice-chairman of the Congressional Equality Caucus.
Asked Thursday about Newsom’s comments, House minority leader Hakem Jeffries said he hadn’t seen them, but Democrats opposed “unlocking sexual predators on girls across America.” Democratic leaders called the Transgender Sports Bill the “Child Predator Empowerment Act,” claiming it would lead to adults testing their children’s genitals to assess sport eligibility.
In California, Sacramento Democrats were tracked by mistrust and anger towards the governor who explained the bouncing between Newsom’s mobile phones and built his national political profile of right-wing opposition to trans rights and recognition of same-sex marriage. As mayor of San Francisco, Newsom ignored federal and state laws by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples
“We were very disappointed and tired of awakened when someone who was a caring, very unwavering ally made such a statement,” said Chris Ward, a San Diego Democrat who is conservative and modest gay about trans issues. “Look, this is a lot of conversations Donald Trump is crazy about to deflect us.”
Mia McCarthy, Amanda Friedman and Jeremy White contributed to this report.
Fix: In previous versions of this report, Rep. Sarah Jacobs was named incorrectly.
