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Rep. Sarah McBride, D-Del., criticized the Democratic Party’s silence on Republican-led attacks on trans issues, arguing on Tuesday that the party needs to learn how to engage on the issue.
“I do think it was a problem that our party didn’t explicitly respond to the anti-trans attacks. We can’t ignore these issues. We can’t just not respond and leave the narrative entirely to the Republicans,” McBride said when pressed by ex-DNC chair Jaime Harrison on his podcast.
Discussing how Democrats should respond to Republicans on trans issues, the lawmaker specifically noted President Donald Trump’s ad during the 2024 campaign that depicted former Vice President Kamala Harris as being for “they/them” and the president as being “for you.”
McBride, a transgender lawmaker, said the party broadly should be focused on a “diverse working class,” and should reject the idea of “absolute purity politics.”
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Rep Sarah McBride speaks during a rally opposing House Republicans Tax Proposal prior to the final House Vote on Capitol Hill on May 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Families Over Billionaires)
“I will say one of the reasons why, the sense that I have gotten from some Democrats as I talked to them, that you often see silence from Democrats in response to these attacks is because, to your point, they don’t know how to respond, not because they don’t know what they believe or how they feel, but because they feel like there is no way to respond in a way that doesn’t result in everyone yelling at them,” McBride said during Harrison’s podcast, “At Our Table.”
McBride said Democrats didn’t need perfect terminology or to embrace the “maximalist position” on trans issues, but suggested acknowledging concerns about transgender people participating in sports.
“You can grapple with concerns around, for instance, trans people participating in sports, acknowledge that there are very real questions out there. But who is best able to answer those questions about how to balance respect and fairness in women’s sports? It’s not 435 members of Congress who know nothing about women’s sports and even less about trans people. It’s the individual athletic associations that understand their sports the best,” McBride said.
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President Donald Trump’s now famous ad during the 2024 campaign depicted former Vice President Kamala Harris as being for “they/them” and himself as being “for you.” (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The Democratic lawmaker said Republicans were trying to misdirect when they talk about trans people, accusing Trump of wanting to “line the pockets” of corporations and wealthy people.
“And I think we have to be crystal clear about that while also pushing back against these attacks in ways that doesn’t dismiss everyone with a question or a concern as a closed-minded bigot,” McBride said.
McBride said in June that the party might have overplayed its hand regarding trans issues.
“I think that’s an accurate reflection of the overplaying of the hand in some ways — that we as a coalition went to Trans 201, Trans 301, when people were still at a very much Trans 101 stage,” McBride told The New York Times’ Ezra Klein in an interview.
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Sarah McBride at the Human Rights Campaign Greater New York Dinner held at New York Marriott Marquis on February 1, 2025 in New York, New York. (Nina Westervelt/Variety via Getty Images)
The Delaware lawmaker said many of the cultural norms surrounding transgender people were likely premature for a lot of Americans.
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“We became absolutist — not just on trans rights but across the progressive movement — and we forgot that in a democracy we have to grapple with where the public authentically is and actually engage with it. Part of this is fostered by social media,” McBride said.
