Trump's culture war meets historic era in transgender rights

Sarah McBride is set to make American history as the first openly transgender lawmaker in Congress. She also steps onto the national stage in a country deeply divided over trans rights — a rupture set to widen if Donald Trump wins the presidency next month.

In the first half of October, Trump and his supporters released a barrage of television ads attacking rival presidential candidate Kamala Harris for her past support of transgender people, spending more than $21 million to air them during NFL games, college football broadcasts and in swing states, according to CNN. He’s also amped up the rhetoric around transgender issues during his rallies and made rolling back rights for the community a cornerstone of his campaign platform.

Yet McBride, the 34-year old Democratic candidate who is all but assured to win a seat in the House of Representatives for strongly-blue Delaware next month, said she plans to fight back against Trump’s fear-mongering by focusing on other issues — not herself.

“I didn’t run for office to talk about my identity,” McBride said in an interview at her Wilmington campaign headquarters.

To explain her thinking, McBride recounts her experience as state senator in Delaware, where she won bipartisan support for a bill banning ‘gay and trans panic,’ a legal defense that excuses crimes like murder and assault on the grounds that the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity is to blame for the defendant’s violent reaction. In the end, every single Republican present voted in favor. How did she do that? Through gaining respect on other policy issues first, and offering olive branches across political divides, she said.

“We have to be willing to talk with and engage with people who hold positions that we might find personally hurtful or offensive,” she said. “That’s the only way democracy will logistically function.”

The fissure over transgender issues stretches beyond the walls of the Capitol building. A survey earlier this year of 2,000 Americans found that while most supported protecting transgender people from hate crimes and discrimination in their jobs, a majority also disagreed with allowing transgender athletes in sports and access to puberty blockers for transgender youths.

‘Smart politician’

“There is obviously an ongoing conversation that needs to continue around trans rights in this country,” McBride said. “But I think most voters aren’t really that concerned with other people’s bodies and other people’s lives. They’re concerned about their own life and they’re concerned about their own family.”

When asked about McBride, California Democrat Mark Takano — who in 2012 became the first openly gay person of color elected to the House — said “there’s no running away from your experiences” but “if you’re smart, you use your life experience, your lived experience as a point of leverage.”

“And she’s a smart politician,” said Takano, who also serves as co-chair of the Equality PAC, which has endorsed McBride.

McBride’s brand of bipartisan politics echoes Vice President Harris, who’s said she would appoint a Republican to her cabinet if she’s elected, promising to “be a president for all Americans.” It also breaks from the more progressive members of her party like New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has publicly criticized not only Republicans but President Joe Biden over a proposal that could limit transgender students’ participation in sports.

McBride is close with Biden, and has been credited with helping to shape the president’s view on transgender issues. Tackling the rising costs of housing, child care and health care, and securing reproductive rights, are among her biggest priorities. She plans to join the center-left New Democrat Coalition and the Congressional Progressive Caucus next year.

McBride isn’t naive to the idea that a Trump presidency means the fight for acceptance will get harder. A record 661 bills targeting the community were introduced by state lawmakers this year. Though only 45 have actually passed, Trump has promised more policies threatening the LGBTQ community if he’s elected, including outlawing gender-affirming care for minors and asking Congress to pass a bill “establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female, as assigned at birth.”

“Depending on what happens in November, I could be entering a dumpster fire,” said McBride.

But people on the far right of politics — like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who’s called the Delaware legislator’s campaign a “complete evil” — won’t be her focus.

“There are going to be certain Republicans who are going to be weird about me in particular,” McBride said. “They’re going to be off continuing their charade, their circus. They’re going to continue to be professional provocateurs parading as public officials. But I’ll be in the House working with Democrats and Republicans of conscience who are willing to collaborate.”