AOC // More Perfect University Town Hall

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This election cycle has been difficult for transgender Americans. Democratic candidate after Democratic candidate has come out in support of some level of anti-transgender policy. Some, like Iowa Senate nominee Josh Turek, have said they would back a ban on federal funding for transgender care. Others, like Ohio gubernatorial nominee Amy Acton, have called transgender girls “boys,” with the Ohio Democratic Party going so far as to censor its own Pride and Progressive Caucuses. And on Wednesday, what appears to be the first anti-trans ad ever released by the DCCC, the campaign arm of House Democrats, began airing in South Carolina. It was in this environment that a transgender student stood up Thursday night to ask Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a question at a More Perfect University town hall in Portland, Maine. The trans student asked how AOC felt about Democrats who have abandoned trans people and called them a “losing issue.” Her answer was a direct rebuke. They are “wrong,” she said, and she was “shameful and sorry” that there are politicians who “scare so easily after an election” and “jump on this side or that side of the line at a moment’s notice,” before mounting a full defense of transgender people.

“Hi, I am a transgender student at the University of Southern Maine, and a lot, I and a lot of, you know, trans people in America feel that we have been abandoned by the Democratic Party, by, that we are a losing issue, that it’s not worth defending us. What do you say to that?” asked a student at the event.

“They’re wrong. They’re wrong. And first and foremost, I want to just let you know how shameful and sorry I am that there are people out there that are, that scare so easily after an election. And I think it’s what people hate most about politics, which is politicians who will jump on this side or that side of the line at a moment’s notice,” Ocasio-Cortez responded, before continuing to call out the effect of compromising on transgender rights: “What is so important for everyone to understand is that the moment you compromise the rights of a trans person in America, you compromise the rights of every citizen in America.”

She then went on to fully defend transgender people, calling the attacks on trans people an attempt to demolish Title IX: “So this administration, in focusing and trying to gin up hatred against trans Americans, the Trump administration, while everyone was focused on that, quietly defunded the civil rights division of enforcement in the administration on Title IX. And so understand that when they attack trans girls in sports, they’re also attacking all women’s ability to stand up against their abusers, their rapists, and their assaulters on campuses across America. And that’s why I think it’s very important for all of us to understand and to feel and to know that our fight is united. It really is united.”

See the full exchange here:

The event was held Thursday night and featured Ocasio-Cortez alongside Troy Jackson, Maine’s Democratic Senate nominee running against Susan Collins. For just over an hour, the two took questions from students on everything from AI to student debt to ICE and Israel. Jackson himself has not released anti-transgender advertising as some Democrats have done, though Maine has been at the center of fierce anti-transgender campaigning, such as an attempt this year to get a sports ban onto the November ballot that was quashed in court.

The student’s question comes as candidates and political arms of the Democratic Party have slowly but steadily begun to embrace anti-transgender policy positions and advertising. Josh Turek, running for U.S. Senate in Iowa, for instance, has said he would back a federal ban on funding for gender-affirming care. Marcy Kaptur in Ohio boasted in her own ad that she “voted with Republicans to keep transgender ideology out of our schools.” And this week, the DCCC, the official campaign arm of House Democrats, began airing what appears to be its first-ever anti-transgender ad, in which a Republican lists reasons why he is supporting South Carolina Democrat Nancy Lacore, among them that she will “protect girls’ sports,” something Lacore’s campaign manager confirmed refers to barring transgender girls from girls’ sports. Increasingly, transgender people are feeling abandoned by the party and wondering if their votes are valued.

Not every Democrat has taken this bait, however—most have simply stayed quiet, and some have pushed back forcefully. For instance, when Sam Forstag, the Democrat running in Montana’s relatively conservative 1st Congressional District, was asked about transgender sports, he refused to throw trans people under the bus. Instead, he said that Republicans were using the issue to distract voters while they “pick our pockets,” and that the government should stay out of sports leagues. Meanwhile, in Michigan, Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed said that “the government shouldn’t tell you what kind of health care you should have” when asked on Fox News about care for trans youth. And the Progress Action Fund is running an ad in Ohio and Texas in which a would-be Republican lawmaker lurks in a bathroom stall to verify the sex of a little girl. Now, Ocasio-Cortez, one of the party’s most popular figures, has put the rest of the Democratic Party on notice that it is wrong to abandon trans people. With Election Day nearing, it remains to be seen if the party listens.

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