Democrats Prepare To Step On The Transgender Rake Yet Again

WASHINGTON— Activist groups are pressuring Democrats to go all-in on transgenderism ahead of the midterm elections — a topic that proved fatal for the left in 2024.

During a Democratic National Committee meeting in Texas this month, the Human Rights Campaign revealed its plan to spend $15 million on the midterm elections in order to push transgender ideology. Activists articulated a plan to highlight stories of trans-identifying teenagers in a pitch to gain sympathy from voters who believe they've been discriminated against, The Washington Times reported.

The strategy is particularly notable given how badly transgenderism has consistently polled for Democrats: the latest polls show that most Americans are against men in women's sports and oppose taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries. During the 2024 election, President Donald Trump aggressively and successfully highlighted Democrat support for gender ideology.

Republicans aren't too worried about this messaging, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee shared.

"If Democrats want to keep lighting money on fire to push transgender propaganda, Republicans won't stop them from torching it," National Press Secretary Natalie Baldassarre told The Daily Wire. "Their woke gender ideology has already backfired, and another 10 years of 'narrative work' won't change the fact that Americans don't want sick freaks forcing this into classrooms, invading women's sports, or exposing themselves in bathrooms."

Conservatives have long maintained that Democrats are beholden to far-left activist groups like the HRC — groups flush with cash that can sway the priorities of the Democrat party.  Conservative activists and strategists who spoke with The Daily Wire about the upcoming midterm elections suggested this is still very much the case.

"The national party is not following public opinion polls," The Heritage Foundation's Jay Richards told The Daily Wire on Monday. "It is continuing to follow the most radical, and well-funded, parts of their coalition, such as the Human Rights Campaign. HRC would have little reason to exist but for the gender ideology cause."

HRC strategist Sam Alleman, who spoke to the DNC on the topic, shared that his organization has a 10-year plan to change how Americans view transgenderism. That includes flooding the airwaves with personal stories of people who identify as transgender — a strategy activists successfully deployed during the 2024 election cycle on abortion.

"Anti-trans attacks are going to be used in this election at the largest scale we have ever seen them used before, and we have to be ready and prepared for that," Alleman told the DNC, the Washington Times reported. He did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Daily Wire. "It's now our turn to show up for the trans community and continue doing that work and driving narrative work."

He added: "And we really believe that in terms of shifting opinion on these issues when it comes to sports, healthcare — where it might be tough — the way we do it is by sharing our stories and not backing down and making ourselves more visible."

The Trump White House isn't impressed with the DNC's planning.

"Leave it to Democrats to find themselves on the wrong side of an 80-20 issue," White House spokesman Kush Desai told The Daily Wire on Monday. "While Democrats continue doubling down on a radical, left-wing agenda, the Trump administration will continue to protect young children from unscientific and irreversible child mutilation procedures."

That's a position that the White House has held for quite some time. Late last month, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt referenced criticism of Sophie Cunningham as she told The Daily Wire that the Trump administration's stance on transgenderism reflects widespread public opinion.

"They are clearly very out of touch with the American public on this issue, which again is an 80-20 issue," Leavitt said in late July. "It's common sense. It's rooted in basic biological fact that men should not be competing against women on playing fields across the country."

Groups like the HRC and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have fought long and hard to change sentiment on transgenderism in the United States, crafting the phrase "gender-affirming care" to act as a euphemism for transgender surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers. That clinical sounding euphemism is particularly effective when used in polling questions and framing.

When Americans are polled honestly on the topic, according to the American Principles Project's Terry Schilling, they are adamantly against gender ideology in almost every form.  Schilling shared that his organization just got back message testing in Michigan and Wisconsin on Democrats pushing transgenderism on young people and children.

"It's still shifting voters at incredible levels," he said.

"People have seen how the trans agenda has sterilized and maimed even children to build a $4.5 billion medical industry," Schilling argued. "They've seen men invading women's private spaces and endangering our daughters. They've seen the victims of this trans agenda commit mass shootings and human atrocities when they can't get the authentic care they deserve — acceptance and celebration of the sex and bodies that God gave them."

Schilling does see one silver lining in the Democrat messaging — "they aren't gaslighting us or telling us that it doesn't happen anymore," he added. "We are at least making progress there!"

Groups on the right like the Independent Women's Forum have fought for years to combat Democrat messaging on topics like men in women's sports. Neeraja Deshpande, a policy analyst at Independent Women, argues that Democrats think they have a messaging problem when in reality they have a policy problem. They are fundamentally misunderstanding the American desire to safeguard children.

"So long as Democrats continue gunning for men in women's sports and spaces, and for transitioning impressionable kids who are too young to consent, no amount of lipstick-on-pig messaging is going to change that these are insane policies that the majority of Americans believe are morally wrong," Deshpande said.

During the 2024 campaign,  team Trump zeroed in on the Left's embrace of transgenderism, pouring millions into television ads that warned: "Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you." Those ads didn't have to do much heavy lifting since they quoted Harris herself, saying: "Surgery, for prisoners, every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access."

Even before the 2024 election, the ad's success prompted a slew of legacy media stories on the Trump campaign's strategy to use "anti-transgender" messaging, and how effective that strategy was. According to Democratic testing results reviewed by the New York Times, the "Kamala is for they/them" ad was not only the campaign's most viewed ad, it was also their most effective ad.  It aired across the nation throughout those last days of the campaign, including during football games.

Several of these ads are making the rounds right now. In Texas, for example, Ken Paxton partnered with the American Principles Project to run an AI ad against Senate candidate James Talarico, who has made waves trying to justify transgenderism with Christianity. Modeled after the "Daisy" ad from former President Lyndon Johnson's campaign, the ad opens to a little blonde girl lying on an operating table as she awaits a transgender sex-change surgery.

James Talarico is too radical for Texas. pic.twitter.com/PxUCmm9GZP

— American Principles Project (@approject) August 7, 2026

"She dreams of growing up, falling in love, becoming a mother," says a narrator in the background, and as the little girl picks the petals off a daisy in a field, counting each petal, a doctor's voice can be heard saying: "Keep counting." As the girl's face is covered with a gas mask, the doctor's mask drops, revealing the face of Talarico himself.

"The transient brain plays on confused children, irreversible puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, sex-change surgeries," the narrator concludes. "This November, stop them before its too late."

There's certainly a lot of confidence when it comes to this issue on the right, but that comes with a few cautions. The Heritage Foundation's Jay Richards, for example, has been an aggressive participant in the war on gender ideology for years. He warned that though the battle for public sentiment has "made great strides in the last few years," Republicans should be careful about celebrating transgenderism's demise too early.

"Gender madness should hang like a millstone around the neck of Democratic candidates for office," he added. "The only question is whether the Republicans will succeed in reminding voters that the Dems have not surrendered on this most radical, and anti-child, part of the agenda, even though it likely cost them the 2024 election."