Trans Rights Organizers Say Democrats Are Using Trump as a ‘Scapegoat’ for Their Own Inaction

In November, House Republicans led by Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina “welcomed” their incoming colleague Sarah McBride — the first openly trans person elected to Congress — with a ban on trans people using the bathroom of their gender identity on Capitol Hill. Mace has since introduced a bill that would apply this ban to museums, national parks, and other federal property across the country.

So far, the Democratic Party’s response has been fairly muted. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries condemned Mace’s frenzied posting and harassment against trans people, declaring last month that she “clearly needs an intervention.” But party leadership has yet to share any actions to protect McBride or other trans Congressional staffers who could be blocked from safely using the restroom. McBride, herself, responded by calling bigotry a “distraction,” adding, “I’m not here to fight about bathrooms.” Their antics, she said, expose that the GOP “[has] no real solutions to what Americans are facing.” Some trans voices called McBride’s framing of these attacks dismissive.

But the work of standing up for trans rights should fall on the entire Democratic Party, not just trans people like McBride. So, on Thursday, Raquel Willis, founder of the organization Gender Liberation Movement, and dozens of other trans activists and allies — including reproductive rights activists and U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning — occupied Capitol Hill bathrooms in protest. 15 protesters were arrested for “crowding, obstructing or incommoding,” according to Axios.

The activists chanted, “Speaker Johnson, Nancy Mace, our genders are no debate!” and “Democrats, grow a spine, trans lives are on the line!” They demanded that Congress block Mace’s bigoted bill, and for Democrats to take meaningful action to protect trans rights as they fall under increasing attack across the country. Despite the protest chants, Democratic Congressional leadership offered zero acknowledgment of the sit-in. Meanwhile, Mace responded shortly after the protest by posting a video of herself calling the protesters a transphobic slur, to zero consequence from Congressional leadership or condemnations from Democrats.

Silence from Democrats hasn’t gone unnoticed, Willis told Jezebel.

Willis says the Gender Liberation Movement modeled their protest after the famous Greensboro sit-ins for civil rights in the 1960s. The Capitol Hill bathroom protest was a direct response to Mace and Johnson’s bigotry, but Willis said the action was also necessary after “the years-long ramp up of anti-trans legislation.”

As of this week, the Anti-Trans Legislation Tracker counts almost 700 anti-trans bills in state legislatures across the country this year alone — more than any year on record. These bills have included invasive attacks on trans people’s access to bathrooms as well as attacks on gender-affirming care, particularly for minors. In Congress, Republicans introduced 80 anti-trans bills this year, per the 19th, though none have passed through the Democratic-controlled Senate. One case currently at the Supreme Court, U.S. v. Skrmetti, centers around whether Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care specifically for trans youth amounts to sex-based discrimination.

The protest was also a collaboration between trans people and cis allies, including Renee Bracey Sherman, a leader in the movement for reproductive justice and the executive director of We Testify, an organization that helps people who have had abortions share their stories. “Mace doesn’t get to speak for me and say she’s protecting women at the same time as gutting abortion access, trying to criminalize abortion pills, and not supporting any policies that cis women or people who can get pregnant would actually need to thrive — she’s only trying to use us as a symbol to throw trans women under the bus,” Bracey Sherman said.  

She also mentioned the deep inextricability between the anti-trans and anti-abortion movements, which often target minors first, as a bridge to eventually target trans people and abortion seekers of all ages.

During the election, Republicans spent over $200 million on virulently anti-trans ads attempting to portray Kamala Harris as extreme on the issue. But the Harris campaign, Willis said, never visibly defended or advocated for trans people’s rights and dignity. Since Harris’ decisive loss, some voices within the Democratic Party have tried to suggest that Harris’ campaign ran too far to the left on trans rights — an argument that makes no sense to Willis. “That’s pure revisionism,” Willis said, describing the Harris campaign’s position on trans rights as “middling at best.” Willis pointed to an interview Harris gave in October in which, asked how she would legislate around trans rights, Harris offered a fairly vague answer, maintaining that trans people “should not be vilified for who they are, and should not be bullied for who they are,” but that “we should follow the law” when it comes to their rights. Harris “was not particularly pro-trans,” Willis argued. “She essentially stated she would continue the existing policies rather than ramp up safeguards for the trans community from escalating attacks.”

That’s where chants like “Democrats grow a spine, trans rights are on the line” came from. “Too often, the Trump campaign was cited as a scapegoat to fire up Democrats’ base, instead of actual policies to protect trans people,” Willis said. Such policies would include proactive protections for gender-affirming care and access to bathrooms, Willis noted, but also progressive policies on “economic equality, reproductive freedom, health care access, education,” as trans people face disproportionate barriers in each of these areas.

Bracey Sherman says that when she criticizes Democrats, she often faces pushback from people stating how Republicans are the ones behind the anti-trans legislative attacks. But truly showing up for trans communities requires more than simply not introducing bad bills. “We need a hard line, we need actual standards, actual advocacy to show up for the most marginalized among us from our leaders,” Bracey Sherman said. She pointed to how, in the years leading up to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, Democratic leaders like Speaker Pelosi refused to enforce a litmus test requiring Democratic candidates to support abortion rights — then, in 2019, an anti-abortion Democratic governor in Louisiana signed the abortion ban still active in the state today. “Democrats can’t do Pride parades every June and walk around with rainbow flags, then do nothing when trans folks are under attack the other 364 days of the year.”

Willis said the Gender Liberation Movement is prepared to continue its resistance under the Trump administration and GOP’s majority in both chambers of Congress. Since the election, she’s seen “a lot of doomerism, expecting the worst before Trump actually takes office.”

“But that doesn’t serve us. We have to be looking at all the menus of options in terms of making social change, protecting the most marginalized,” Willis said. “This is not a time for folks to be inactive—if anything, it’s the most important time for folks to be active and make noise.”