Democrats in Washington state have found a way to fight a conservative ballot measure targeting transgender athletes — by borrowing the GOP’s favorite argument against big government — and even the measure’s supporters concede it’s working, reported MS NOW.
The proposal on November's ballot would require any student who wants to play on a girls’ sports team to have a health care provider verify her sex, whether she is transgender or not. Rather than center the debate on trans athletes, whom opponents say number fewer than a dozen statewide, Democrats are casting the measure as government intrusion into the lives of every girl and her family.
The approach has united the party’s opposite wings. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Blue Dog Coalition co-chair who has backed Republican bills restricting gender-affirming care for minors, both oppose it.
Gluesenkamp Perez told Oregon Public Broadcasting that while she believes “it isn’t fair for boys to compete in girls’ sports,” she cannot support “a rule that forces girls to prove their sex to the state every year just to play sports.”
“Pointing out the values of conservatives — to not have government in our business making these decisions — is a very important part of our message,” Jayapal told MS NOW.
The leading opposition group, No Hate in Washington State, doesn’t use the word “transgender” in any of its digital ads. Instead, the spots show anxious girls lining up for sex-verification exams.
The measure’s own backers acknowledge the pitch is landing.
“We’ve got people that are with us and are saying, ‘Are we sure that we want genital exams?’” said Hallie Herzberg, spokesperson for Let’s Go Washington, the political action committee behind the measure. The group was founded by Brian Heywood, a hedge fund manager and major Republican donor.
Herzberg insisted the measure wouldn’t mandate such exams.
The shift comes as Republicans again pour millions into anti-trans attacks after leaning on them heavily in 2024. But the conservative American Principles Project told GOP candidates in a memo last month that they also “need a compelling message on the economy.”
Research overseen by strategist Adrienne Kimmell found that Democrats lose ground when they ignore the attacks but gain the upper hand when they argue Republicans are fixated on transgender people instead of the cost of living.
Democrats in Arizona and Colorado, where similar measures are on the ballot, are taking the same tack.
“It helps us when we refuse to be divided,” Jayapal said, “and I think that’s a lesson for Democrats across the country.”
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