This is a lightly edited transcript of the September 16 edition of Right Now With Perry Bacon. You can watch the video here or by following this show on YouTube or Substack.
Perry Bacon: Good morning. I’m Perry Bacon. I’m the host of Right Now on The New Republic. I’m joined by Evan Urquhart, who’s the founder of Assigned Media, which is a website that writes about transgender rights and transgender policy issues.
And what we’re going to talk about today is, there’s been a sort of a discourse last week or so about Democratic candidates, particularly in quote-unquote red or swing or purple districts, talking about transgender issues, in some ways distancing themselves from transgender rights. So Evan and I are going to talk about some of the things that are happening on the campaign trail and what he thinks about them. So Evan, thanks for joining me. Welcome.
Evan Urquhart: Thank you for having me. It’s good to be here.
Bacon: So I’m going to start at the big issue, because I think it’s worth it, and then unpack it from there. Which is that, I read a lot of polls, and they suggest that a majority of Americans are skeptical of transgender athletes playing in sports. I think we should start there, just so that’s lingering here. And therefore, I think the conventional wisdom is, if the majority of Americans are skeptical, that if you’re a Democrat running in a red state or a purple state, you need to take the stance that there should not be transgender athletes, particularly in high school sports. Particularly, really, we’re really talking about transgender girls in sports, is what we’re talking about here.
So talk about that position and talk about that issue specifically. Should Democratic candidates be leery of defending transgender athletes in sports?
Urquhart: Absolutely. I think you’re talking about polling that has shifted over the past five to maybe six or seven years. We’ve seen a clear shift to the right, as the right has made attacks on transgender people central to their policy, central to their platforms. And when we’re thinking about this polling, it’s absolutely true that the right has succeeded in convincing people that there’s some sort of problem going on with trans people in sports.
They have not succeeded in convincing people that this matters. It ranks consistently the absolute bottom of people’s issue priorities. And when you actually look into those numbers and see who actually ranks it high, the people who actually rank it high are people who care a lot about trans rights and support trans rights. Those are the only people in America who are voting based on that issue. So the polling also says that.
And so when you think about, how does a Democrat who is running in a red state approach trans issues? I think the most cautious approach would really be to not alienate that base of voters that cares a lot about getting a Democrat in and that might care about trans issues, but also, no one is saying, Be a fire-breathing, trans issues is my top priority.
I think no one’s really making the argument that they should campaign on trans rights as central to what they’re doing. But I think people are arguing that these attempts to distance themselves from trans rights isn’t really winning anyone over, and might actually be hurting them, in some small way.
Bacon: When I asked my question, you said absolutely. You said absolutely what?
Urquhart: So absolutely, the polling does show that Americans are uncomfortable with trans people playing sports, particularly with trans girls playing sports. And the context of that is that the right has owned this issue. They have presented trans girls as boys who are dominating sports. That has never happened. They have presented trans people as sort of interlopers and fakes who are trying to get one over on people or harm cis women.
That doesn’t exist. But do people feel that it exists now? Are people afraid of it? Yes, that’s absolutely—the polling does show people have been swayed on that issue.
Bacon: So in that sense, do you think Democrats should be doing the thing they’re doing now in red states, the sort of distancing, the saying, “Sports are bad. I oppose transgender athletes in sports.” Is that the position they are required to take, quote unquote?
Urquhart: I don’t think that Democrats need to go so far as to favor bans on sports, or adopt the language of the right and use things like boys and girls sports, or that kind of language.
I do think that a cautious Democrat probably isn’t going to make supporting trans people in sports central to their—so that’s where I’m saying, I don’t think that moving on it is necessary. That isn’t to say—I think saying something like, When was the last time a trans person in sports brought your grocery prices up? And pivoting to an issue that they do feel they can feel good about.
Bacon: So you think the sort of don’t defend trans rights, or just defend trans rights generically and change the subject, is that what you’re suggesting?
Urquhart: Yeah. And accuse the person asking the question of being distracting, of talking about something voters don’t care about, of talking about something perhaps that the politician doesn’t particularly worry about or care about, and kind of pivot to what people are really interested in.
And I think that’s pragmatic politics, is not to fight on this ground where Republicans have weakened Democrats so successfully. I think the thing to have done five years ago was to push back on the attacks and not have the swing in public opinion. But that didn’t happen.
Bacon: I guess the candidates would argue at this point the full distancing is necessary. You think that’s wrong?
Urquhart: Yeah, I don’t think it’s necessary. I think that no one is going to vote for a Democratic candidate because they came out for a trans sports ban. No one is on the fence being like, Ah, if they just came out for a trans sports ban, then I would vote for them. I don’t think that person exists. I don’t think the polling shows that person exists. Does the polling show that Americans’ opinions are more like that? Yes. But does it show that they’re making voting decisions based on that? No.
And I think what people miss is that what people do say about Democratic politicians, it’s that they seem weak, that they seem like they’re chasing polls. They seem like they’re not confident. They don’t have principles. They’re not standing up for themselves.
So I think what a Democrat signals when they shift on this very low salience issue that no one cares about is, I don’t really believe anything. I’m just trying to say whatever I think will win your vote. I’m wishy-washy. I’m not really a fighter. I think that’s kind of the risk that they take, in terms of playing into some of these other stereotypes of Democrats.
Bacon: All right. Let’s say that you’re confronted with the sort of, OK, the grocery prices are more important, but let’s talk about this issue. So is the best answer, I want to defer to the local sports authorities? What’s the best answer to the actual question? Should transgender athletes play high school sports? Answer.
Urquhart: Yeah. So I would never counsel a Democratic politician to actually answer questions, because as I understand, they’re not in that business. But for me, I am happy to say the right answer on trans sports is that fairness is important and inclusivity is important, and that it is extremely possible to include trans people in sports without fairness or safety being a problem.
And that the perception that it is a problem is false. It’s based on lies. It has never been a problem, isn’t a problem. And the reason is that trans people’s bodies are very different from cis people of their same birth-assigned gender, and that guardrails already existed to prevent someone from joining a sports team without—day one of coming out as trans and immediately switching into the opposite sex sports team and dominating it. That wasn’t happening. There are reasons why you might be upset if it was happening, but—
Bacon: What are those guardrails, just so people know? What are those guardrails?
Urquhart: Yeah. So usually in high school sports, it was usually decided on a case-by-case basis, where, for example, if an athlete came out, they would start by practicing with the team of their gender, but they wouldn’t be competing. And then generally over time, as if they started hormone therapy or if they started medical treatment, then competing might come into play.
But generally speaking, it was case by case and very slow, but in a way that was trying to be inclusive in allowing that person to participate without potentially compromising fairness.
And there are individual cases. There are trans girls who have never gone through testosterone-fueled puberty because they were on puberty blockers, who were athletically identical already to a cis girl.
So those kids were generally just included on teams from the beginning, because as soon as there were competitive teams, they were the same as their peers. But the reason that Democratic candidates don’t say this is because it takes time to explain how things were already working, already had these kind of guardrails and protections.
Bacon: When you say how things were working, isn’t this how things work, I assume, in like New York or California? What is—how do things work now in the states where they don’t have these bans?
I assume most states do not have these really restrictive bans. So how does it work in—I don’t know where you live. New York, or yeah.
Urquhart: It is a shifting target, because the Republicans and the Trump administration have worked very hard to really try to nationalize these bans. So there are states where there’s still a case-by-case basis, and someone’s sort of physiology and hormone profile and what would make the most sense is still balanced. What’s also balanced is how competitive a team is.
There are these very—at the high school level, at the middle school level, there are these very uncompetitive teams where people have wildly different ability levels, and just generally speaking, whoever shows up plays in those kinds of teams. So those are the kinds of individual decisions that are usually made now.
But even in blue states there have been a lot of efforts to punish schools that are inclusive, to chip away at that inclusivity. I know that at the college level, I think inclusivity is not allowed by the NCAA currently. So it isn’t just in red states. It’s being chipped away at. And there are local towns where these politics have been exploited as well.
Bacon: So we’ve been at 10 minutes here, and this has been a challenging question, so I’m glad I’ve asked it a few different ways now. So if you’re Amy Acton in Ohio, it’s easier to say biological male should not—it’s easier, I can see how they’ve arrived at this simple answer of saying no transgender athletes in sports.
Urquhart: Absolutely. I can see how they’ve arrived. Yeah. It takes time to explain why things weren’t working.
Bacon: Yeah, if you were sitting down with them, how would you start?
Urquhart: It doesn’t take that much time, I think, though, to say, We didn’t have a problem in trans sports. I’ve never seen—trans people haven’t dominated any sports. The most successful trans athlete won one race and lost two. What are we even—when there’s a problem, let’s worry about it, but I don’t see a problem. I think a politician could say something like that.
Bacon: And why do you think they aren’t doing that?
Urquhart: Because I think they are weak and scared, and they think this is a weakness, and they think that if they move, they don’t think they’ll win over more people than they’ll lose. And that is an understandable calculation that a politician would make. I think it is the wrong calculation, because changing your position just allows Republicans to say you’re a waffler, you did this and now you’re saying that. You know what I mean?
So it doesn’t really help you, especially two weeks before the election—or not two weeks, a couple months before the election. It doesn’t really help you to change where you are. It just gives more fuel to the attacks, because the attacks are going to continue, and now they’ll be, And you’re a waffler.
So while I understand why it would be appealing for a Democrat who feels like, I can’t go into this long explanation about hormones and puberty blockers and fairness and inclusivity, I do think it’s a mistake, because I don’t think that there are voters that are being won over by making this pivot.
Bacon: And I guess we should talk about the morals of the question itself. We think transgender athletes should be able to play sports because we think people should be able to play sports. To explain why transgender athletes should be able to play sports, I think it’s obvious, but just talk—
Urquhart: Yeah, I love this question. Because I really do think it’s a great way to think about, what are sports for, right? And I think that sometimes there’s almost two competing thoughts that we have. And one is, athletics are really important for health, for team building, for cooperation, for a sense of self-worth and stuff. We want every child to have it.
And then there’s this other thought which kind of coexists, which is, like, all sports is basically ranking people on a list of, a kindergartner in a soccer team with the World Cup winner, right? And so we need to make sure everyone is in exactly the right spot on that kind of master list of athletes, which is divided into women and men. And that idea I think is silly.
I do think it is important to protect fairness at the Olympics. It’s important to protect fairness when there are these high-stake scholarships and stuff, right? And it’s important to balance that and say, “What does the science show? Can we include people fairly?” But when someone’s just on a soccer team in fifth grade or whatever, it’s important to get that child involved. It’s important to be concerned about that child’s health and their ability to make friendships and their ability to be part of the team.
So trans kids need the benefits of sports that we want all kids to have, and they can’t get those benefits if they’re being othered, disrespected, misgendered, being placed with children who have a completely different hormonal balance and are therefore much bigger and stronger than them because they’ve been on hormone therapy for the last however many years. They’re just not able to play if they can’t play with the appropriate team.
Bacon: I’m glad you distinguished that, because I saw a congressman talk about the fact that a lot of people are concerned because they want their kids to play in college. They want the kids to get a scholarship and play college sports. I agree that might be the case.
I know lots of parents now who are planning their lives around their kids getting a scholarship, but the number of people who get a scholarship to play a sport in America is a very small number, so I find that to be frustrating.
That said, in this conversation I’m a little worried that the one and two collide in this point of—is part of the problem here that everyone’s OK with trans kids playing sports unless they win? Is that the subtext here, right?
I assume what is driving this is, a trans athlete might beat somebody who’s not trans, and that means—and we’re going to disqualify everybody else because that one person might. If trans kids were all playing football, but they were the kicker, I don’t think anybody would really be discussing this, right?
Urquhart: And I think this is the interesting thing, where a very conservative estimate of how many trans people there are would be around 1 percent, right? So if trans people are competing in total fairness and getting the exact amount of achievements that their percent in the population would suggest, then one out of 100 gold medals would go to a trans woman, and that would be, like, a couple gold medals every Olympic. You know what I mean?
And so when people melt down because one trans athlete wins one race, anywhere, that is immediately seen as a sign that something is unfair, that something has gone wrong, as opposed to, “Oh yeah, we’d expect a couple of trans athletes to win some of the time.”
And I think for trans people it is very hard to argue against that idea that if it’s fair, no trans woman would ever win anything. And honestly, I think trans people would take that deal, if we could somehow assure that trans athletes were included, but none of them were ever good enough to win. But you can’t—people have different individual strengths.
Bacon: If you’re setting these bans or anything, a lot of trans kids who would never win anything, right? That almost definitely is the case, right? These bans are going to be overly broad to solve a problem that maybe is really about, did my kid win this soccer game, so they can maybe get a scholarship, so they can not play professional soccer, because very few people do.
Urquhart: Yeah. And I don’t think, at the moment, I don’t think trans people are getting scholarships. Like, even if they’re winning—because the NCAA hasn’t allowed it even. At the high school level, they’re not getting scholarships.
They can still play, they can still win at the high school level, and not be competing for those scholarships, which may be unfair and may be something that’s needed to change, honestly. But is not really a problem that exists in the world.
Bacon: So I’m going to go through some of the statements that have been made recently, and I want to hear what you think about them. This is Josh Turek. He’s running for Senate in Iowa. “As someone that’s spent a lot of my life in high-level sports, I don’t believe that biological males should compete against females in sports.” What do you think about that?
Urquhart: It is heartbreaking to see this fundamental Republican anti-trans extreme idea, which is that trans people are really members of our birth sex, that I am really a woman who is faking, who is pretending to be a man for the purposes of this interview. You know what I mean? That is what he is saying.
He is saying trans people are illegitimate, they are fakers, they need to be weeded out. And I do understand that the fairness issue in sports does create complexity, but using that language where—
Bacon: You mean the biological males? That’s what you’re objecting to. OK.
Urquhart: Biological female. You know what I mean? It’s dehumanizing, it’s hateful, it’s awful. So that’s the worst thing I could see from a Democrat, is using that language.
Bacon: So this is James Talarico of Texas. So I guess first I want to talk about—he is saying, “I oppose trans athletes playing in girls’ sports if it endangers safety or fairness.”
Urquhart: Yeah. So I think that Talarico is a really interesting case, because I do think he’s really trying to be cute. He’s really trying to be smart, right? He’s trying to leave himself this out. And this is a much better statement than the one you just read. If a Democrat really feels they have to do this, I would still argue you’re just going to sound wishy-washy. You’re just going to sound like you’re lawyering. I would still argue that find a different way to deal with this question.
But I do think what he is trying to get into the conversation is the possibility that safety and fairness could be protected and we could include people. And I do think that’s the right message, is that if it is possible to protect safety and fairness, which it is—in parentheses, it is possible—then we should value inclusion.
Bacon: Let me press you, because I found, if the comment was if it ensures fairness, that’s what you’re saying. Endangers safety does, I think, get into the sort of—
Urquhart: It does. I’m giving him—I’m not a fan of the choices that Talarico has made, but I’m also not someone who’s so maximalist that I feel like you need to go as hard against someone. The biological males thing is terrible, is hate speech. This is someone trying to be cute. This is someone trying to be clever.
Bacon: He also said, Talarico, he will absolutely vote for a national ban on transgender surgery for minors. I think it’s worth emphasizing, I’m assuming he means he would oppose puberty blockers and bans on those, on the other policies. But on surgery itself, he is for a national ban. And he would absolutely go for that. What do you think about that?
Urquhart: So I once again think that he is trying to be cute, and I think it is at least possible that he believes that he’s talking about genital surgery, which actually doesn’t happen for minors. And so you can say, if you’re trying to be cute, if you’re trying to be clever, you could say, I’m against genital surgery on children. But the problem here is—
Bacon: So meaning that any Republican bill, he could vote against it, because it’s broader than that? You’re saying—
Urquhart: Part of the problem with that framing is that Republicans include puberty blockers as a type of surgery. Because it’s an implant that is like a minor surgery that is done on an outpatient basis in a doctor’s office. It’s like—what’s it called—stitches are a minor surgery. So in that same way, puberty blockers are a surgery. So that’s one problem with saying you oppose surgery, because the Republican bans tend to include puberty blockers as a surgery.
The other problem is that there is a small number of trans boys who, as recently as five or six years ago, were able to access chest masculinizing surgery, including in Texas, because it was desperately needed. And I have spoken to—there is one family in particular that I wrote about who got top surgery for their 14-year-old, and this was a child who had a suicide attempt at 10, and who had since 10 been affirmed in his gender, and was still really struggling with not being able to shower, not wanting to leave the house, not having friends.
And they really thought, This surgery could allow our child to have a more normal life. And it did. And so, I think people believe that these surgeries don’t happen, and the truth is that they’re very rare. But there, again, nothing was going wrong. These were things that were very slowly and carefully decided on by parents and doctors for a small number of children who really needed them.
Bacon: So you do not like Talarico’s position.
Urquhart: So I’m not happy with him. Yeah.
Bacon: OK, so that’s Talarico. I’m going to move to—there’s enough of these. I’m going to do two more, I think. This is Rob Sand, who is in Iowa. Let me see if I can find it quickly here. Sorry about that. Rob Sand says he agrees with Republicans who oppose transgender women and girls playing in sports. He avoided giving a—he just said, “I tend to agree with them on that.” So there’s a law in Iowa that bans transgender athletes from playing sports, and he’s saying he’s for that. What do you think about that?
Urquhart: Yeah, I think that I understand why a politician in a red state would feel like that is the position to take. I think it is, again, as I’ve been talking about, this kind of opening the door for Republican framing of this issue, which really casts trans people as being dangerous or inauthentic or cheaters.
I think is really harmful and really dangerous, and is really going to—once we get hopefully more Democrats in office, trans people’s fight is not going to be over, because we’re going to have to be fighting some of these Democrats to try and get back to where we were just a few years ago. Because we’ve lost rights.
I think something I really want to make sure we bring up in this conversation is that this is not about the trans movement demanding new rights and saying that progress isn’t fast enough, though that is also a very valid thing to do. What we’re saying is, we have been massively attacked and made public enemy number one by the Trump administration. It’s been the absolute tip of the spear. I, in a blue state, can’t renew my passport without having a passport that outs me as trans.
Bacon: What state are you in?
Urquhart: I’m in Massachusetts. But there is a national ban on passports that reflect—and so you can see me. Anyone on this live stream can see me. I would need to have a passport that says that I’m female, and anywhere I traveled internationally would out me as trans, no matter how dangerous.
And I’m a reporter. If I want to report on areas that are dangerous for trans people—and that’s happening in every state. And so we’re at a point where every single trans person has been affected by these attacks.
And so for Democrats to say, They have a point on some of this, it is engendering a lot of hopelessness and a lot of fear in the trans community, because we have been just trying to hold on, hoping that this time would end and we would be able to get back to where we were five years, six years ago. And what Democrats are signaling is, like, No, we’re going to keep things as they are, and maybe even make them worse.
Bacon: So the Sherrod Brown situation would be, these candidates would say, “If we win the election, we’ll be in charge and we would not legislate.” Like, if I’m Josh Turek, I win the election, Chuck Schumer’s the majority leader. I’m the governor if I’m Rob Sand. So I will not push. So even if I say anti-trans stuff on the trail, once I win, I’ll just not do that stuff.
And I’m not a Republican in office, so I won’t—so I think that’s the subtext here, is the best thing you, Evan, can do is shut up and let me win, and then I will just not do this stuff. How do you respond to that?
Urquhart: Yeah. And I do think that’s definitely the discourse that we’ve been having on Twitter, and I’m really glad to kind of get to it. Because the alternative to that is looking at what happened to trans people in the UK under a Labour government. So trans people’s rights in the UK today is roughly similar to a red state, to the worst red states.
They have bathroom bans, they have hospital ward bans. I would be forced to be in a hallway because I can’t be with the women in a hospital, and I can’t be with the men because my biological sex is wrong according to the UK. The most extreme policies, and all of that happened under a Labour government.
And how that started was the Labour government doing these things, saying, The Tories have a point on— And so if what Democrats are saying is, We’re just saying this, we swear we’re not going to do it, A, say that out loud and then lose whatever benefit you think you’re going to get. But if you’re not saying that out loud, I can’t trust that.
Because I’ve seen what’s happened in other places where Democrats have started to say, The Republicans have a point. Maybe trans people are dangerous to women. Maybe trans people healthcare is not right and needs to be regulated differently from all other healthcare.
And once you start saying maybe Republicans have a point, then you need to prove you’re serious about that. We’ve seen this with Democrats on immigration. You have to prove, right? You have to pass laws. It’s ideology. And so I don’t trust that Democrats are just saying it to get elected.
And honestly, I think that the belief that some Democrats just say things to get elected is one of the problems that the Democratic Party has right now. And so if that’s what they’re doing, maybe they should stop doing that.
Bacon: So Amy Acton, who’s going to be governor in Ohio: “I do not support boys playing in girls’ sports. This is already settled law in Ohio, and as governor, I will uphold and enforce the law.” Useful because of what you’re saying, which is that Amy Acton is promising to do this in the office, so that’s useful. But her comment about, “I do not support boys playing in girls’ sports,” what do you think about that?
Urquhart: It is heartbreaking, as someone who has fostered trans-feminine children, who has known families of trans girls, to have these fragile, delicate children that we love portrayed as dangerous, as deviant. She’s almost saying these people are degenerate and we need to get them out of our sport. She’s not—this is not a neutral, defusing the situation type of statement. This is a demonizing and hateful statement.
Bacon: Let me think about the UK point, because I think one thing people are saying is, I’ve named four politicians, they’re running in swing states. But that said, the median Democrat is more like, I was going to say Ed Markey is my guess. Ed Markey’s on the good end. But I think there aren’t a ton of Democrats saying these things.
I still think we’re pretty far from the Democratic Party becoming anti-trans the way the Labour Party is. I think these five people I’ve named are making bad statements. I don’t think the average Democrat sounds like them. Or do you disagree with me? I don’t think we’re close to Labour yet. Or do you think we’re closer than I think?
Urquhart: How would I answer that? It’s interesting, right? Because you don’t know what happens until it happens.
Bacon: What I would say is that, like, Ayanna Pressley, I can name Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey—I can name your whole delegation is not where they stand.
Urquhart: Absolutely. And I don’t want to catastrophize over a very smart four Democrats in all of these races. I don’t want to catastrophize that. That being said, The New York Times is the paper of record and has been waging a campaign to convince the Democrats that they need to go right on trans issues for the last five or six—you know what I mean?
Bacon: The New York Times has been waging a campaign on this, I think, is a great way—an important point here, and I’m glad you said it. The New York Times has a lot of power on the Democratic center left. And they are waging a campaign on trans issues to the right. I’m going to emphasize that. Go ahead.
Urquhart: And certainly the glass half full is that most Democrats have not caved to this pressure. Most Democrats, and I think a lot of Democrats who are trying to be careful, are saying, “I don’t think I gain anything by moving to the right on trans issues. I’ll just try to avoid this issue without pissing off people, when I’m not going to win anyone over.”
But I do think that there is a risk, because there is a very strong—I think it is very appealing to a certain type of person to think, if we just throw over this part of our coalition, everyone in the center is going to love us again, and we’re going to have the kind of decades and decades of Democratic majority that existed in the time of FDR, right?
I think that is something that Democrats really want to believe we’re on the verge of, and that there’s just some tiny little tweak that if they just do that, they’ll get that back again. And I don’t think it is realistic, but I do think it’s what The New York Times is telling them. I do think it’s what Third Way is telling them. I do think it’s a very seductive way of thinking about this. So that’s what I think the risk is.
Bacon: And to make your argument would be, if Talarico, Amy Acton, these people in these sort of pinkish, reddish states win, the argument will be, “This is the way to win a red state.” Or, this is the way to win purple America. So presidential candidates, Pete Buttigieg, Josh Shapiro, AOC, you need to sign. If you really care about winning and stopping fascism, you need to throw the trans people under the bus, particularly on athletes. Have you seen the poll? James Talarico won in Texas.
Urquhart: Exactly. That’s what I think is the real worry. And I think my ideal outcome in this election would be that all of these Democratic candidates win, and that they underperform relative to other Democrats. You know what I mean?
I’m not rooting against them. But I would love to see them not do as well as other people, and I would love to see polling that suggests that this hurts more than it helps. But, we’ll see.
Bacon: So speaking of someone who—I worry that since the party has decided they’re going to trash him all the time, he’s probably going to underperform. But El-Sayed was asked on this issue, and I think he was asked more about the medical procedures and surgeries. “The decision about healthcare ought to be between the person and their provider. That’s it. Let’s use that standard and keep to that standard, and make sure the government doesn’t have the ability to tell you what you can do with your own life.” What do you think about that?
Urquhart: I think that is exactly the right way to talk about this issue. I think it’s also very real. I think that Republicans have problems with ADHD medication now. They have really politicized healthcare in a way that supplements are good, right, and psychiatric medications are bad. And they have shown that they’re willing to use regulatory power and legislative power to impose this order of what healthcare they think is right for people, against science, against doctors, against what people actually want.
And I do think trans healthcare and abortion care—trans healthcare and birth control are, like, the thin end of the wedge of making people’s healthcare decisions something that is subject to a popular referendum. The polls get to decide whether you get to treat your ADHD or not.
Bacon: Let me finish on what might be a tricky question. When voter ID laws have been pushed over these last 10 years—Amy Acton is maybe breaking this rule, but in general, Democratic politicians have opposed voter ID laws. Voter ID laws are actually very popular as well. The reason they oppose them is that the Black community, NAACP, LDF, have very much said voter ID laws are racist attempts to stop us from voting. If you are a legitimate liberal, you will not support that. And Black people are a very strong part of the Democratic Party, and people feel like part of being a Democrat is defending Black civil rights, and that’s part of being a Democrat.
It feels right now that part of being a liberal Democrat in America does not—you’re not required to fully defend trans rights, and you can be a liberal in good standing without defending trans rights fully, and I think that’s problematic.
So I want you to talk about why defending trans rights should be—I’m not asking you to compare it to race, but I think trans rights are as important as civil rights and part of civil rights, and I think being a good liberal, to me, should include defending trans rights.
Urquhart: So what I’m going to say to this is that I’m not going to put all of the blame on LGBTQ orgs, but I do think that LGBTQ orgs and trans orgs have suffered from being too good of Democratic soldiers. They have been too willing to say, Oh, it’s OK. It’s OK to go a little right on this. It’s OK.
I think they have been bending over backwards to show how loyal they are and how much they’re with the team and pulling in the same direction, to the point where I think those votes have been taken for granted. We deserve those votes. We should get them no matter what.
And I think that these issue organizations really need to—sorry, I just had a person taking something. That these organizations need to understand that they are not part of the Democratic Party, that they have goals that are in alignment with electing Democrats, but they are not identical.
And so I do think Democrats have been given more of a pass from LGBTQ organizations than maybe they have from civil rights organizations, and that one of the things I would like to see is for the LGBTQ community to be saying, We are part of the coalition. We want to help elect good Democrats. Not every Democrat is a good Democrat who we want to help elect. Maybe we sit one out once in a while.
Bacon: For example, Seth Moulton in a blue state, you do not have to elect that person. In fact, you can punish them for saying the wrong thing.
Urquhart: Yeah. And politics is messy. People are trying different things. I think the stakes are very high for trans people. I do think, if you have viewers, listeners who are feeling angry or who are feeling upset about some of the trans people who have been angry and upset and saying they might not vote for these Democrats—usually people who aren’t even in the state, saying they might not vote for Democrats that they wouldn’t vote for anyway—just understand, people are terrified. They’ve lost a lot of rights.
We’ve seen our acceptance that we thought was there dematerialize in a very short amount of time. We’re devastated. We’re trying to take care of each other. We’re trying to help people relocate to states where they’re safer. Give people just a little bit of patience, particularly ordinary people who aren’t candidates, who aren’t organizers, who are just upset and scared online.
Bacon: Yeah. Let’s make sure to emphasize that again as we finish here. We have seen an assault on transgender people over the last year that has been aggressive, and maybe even worse than—they’ve done more to target them than Black people, for sure. Maybe more than immigrants.
We don’t need to do a ranking here, but we have seen a horrible assault the last year and a half on trans people. I think we need to emphasize how bad this has been. So of course you’re looking for allies, not people to triangulate against you, right?
Urquhart: And we’re looking for reassurance that when Democrats are elected, we’ll get some relief from all of this. And I have been trying to gently tell the community, it’s going to be a long fight. We’re not just going to get back to where we were in 2020, next year, or even in 2028. But we need to have reason to think that we’re going to start going in the better direction, that this isn’t just everything continuing to fall apart with Democrats helping.
Bacon: Last thing, and on a positive note. I’m on the progressive end, so Abigail Spanberger, usually not somebody I cheer that much, to be totally honest. But she actually did—in Virginia, I don’t know if you saw this in the news this week, there was Governor Youngkin, who was a Republican, who preceded her, had started a rulemaking process to further ban trans athletes from participating in sports in Virginia.
And it sounds like Spanberger, I’m reading a story, has quietly ended a rulemaking process that would’ve targeted transgender athletes’ ability to play sports and use facilities. So Abigail Spanberger, she didn’t really campaign on this issue. She did more of a, “I’m talking about other issues.” But in office, this is an example of a Democrat who actually is defending trans rights, and not even a progressive, for that matter.
Urquhart: Yeah, no, I think Spanberger is a great example of someone who is a more moderate Democrat in a more purple state, who did not make support for trans rights central in any way to her campaign, but also didn’t make any promises that she was going to continue Youngkin’s anti-trans policies.
And Youngkin was really someone who seemed to have kind of national ambitions and made a point of punishing trans people, particularly trans students, wherever he could in Virginia, and really causing harm to that community. Which, I have family in Virginia, so I kind of know more about that than some other states.
So I appreciate when Democrats signal that there will be an end to this wave of oppression and targeting. Which, again, I would not for a minute say that trans people have it worse than any other community. But we have been a very prominent target, and we have lost a lot in a very short amount of time.
Things that were completely not even really debated, not even questioned. The ability to get a driver’s license that doesn’t out you as trans. People, in Kansas, had their driver’s licenses invalidated overnight and had to get rides to the DMV to get a legal driver’s license, because all of a sudden something that had been uncontroversial was illegal. Just having a driver’s license in the gender that they were living as.
Bacon: Evan, this was a great conversation. I appreciate your candor. I appreciate you joining me. Tell people where they can find your work.
Urquhart: Assignedmedia.org is a daily trans news outlet. We do original reporting. We do analysis and commentary. If you care about trans issues, if you’re interested in what trans people have to say, assignedmedia.org, come and find us. I write for them, but we have a great stable of freelancers and columnists and contributors as well.
Bacon: Great. Evan, thanks for joining me. See you soon. Bye-bye.
