Democrats have another chance to test their messaging about transgender rights that the party has struggled to make plain.
Two Democrats vying for the party’s Massachusetts Senate seat will face off Thursday in their final debate before the state’s Sept. 1 primary. Laws banning transgender women from participating in female sports surfaced as a key difference between Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Seth Moulton in their debate earlier this month and led to a contentious exchange.
The events represent one of few opportunities for national Democrats to publicly debate an issue Republicans have spent tens of millions of dollars attacking their support in the past several election cycles.
Markey is looking to question Moulton’s commitment to trans rights given his post-2024 election stance that Democrats’ support of trans athletes was out of touch with voters. Moulton at the time cited not wanting his daughters “getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.”
Gallup polling after that election found that 69 percent of U.S. adults — including about four in 10 Democrats — believe that transgender athletes should only be allowed to play on sports teams that match their birth sex.
Still, Moulton in the Aug. 3 debate apologized for those comments and tried to defend his LGBTQ+ record.
Lanae Erickson, senior vice president at center-left think tank Third Way, said part of the reason Republicans’ attacks have landed so well is “because Democrats were afraid to talk about” it.
“At this point, every person in America has a viewpoint on transgender participation in sports. It's incumbent on Democrats to be able to speak about this issue authentically and not evade it,” Erickson said. “In a way that opposes blanket bans, but leaves room for people to have questions about the rules.”
Erickson added it’s also important for Democrats to settle these differences and deal with GOP attacks in this election cycle before the next presidential election.
“The 2028 race is going to have a lot of pressure to go further left on all the social issues,” she said. “A primary that has 30 Democrats running for president is going to really risk elevating blue sky voices perspective over the rest of the Democratic coalition, and if we haven't figured out how to talk about these issues by then, we're going to miscalibrate where most voters are.”
Markey has stuck by his pro-trans rights messaging and won the endorsement of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ rights group, in the primary.
“Trans rights are not up for debate. Seth Moulton threw trans kids under the proverbial bus to score cheap political points,” Markey said in a statement to POLITICO. “I will never do that.”
Markey’s campaign pointed to polling from the University of Massachusetts Amherst this week that showed 67 percent of Democratic primary voters in the state are less likely to support a candidate who has expressed positions opposing trans rights or policies.
HRC President Kelley Robinson in the statement pointed to the senator’s leadership in several legislative efforts, including the Equality Act, which would explicitly codify certain anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ individuals.
“At a time when equality and freedom are under assault, we need leaders with the courage and conviction to lead — and stand unshakeable in their values,” Robinson said.
Moulton co-sponsored that legislation in the House, and in the earlier debate, pointed out the 100 percent voting record the Human Rights Campaign has given him in previous congresses.
The Moulton campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
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