transgender

California Gov. Gavin Newsom does not like being on Donald Trump’s side on any issue.

But when it comes to transgender girls and women in sports, particularly at the school level, the Democrat said he largely agrees with the Republican president. Newsom, one of his party’s leading White House prospects, believes it’s “deeply unfair” for people who are assigned male at birth to compete against girls.

“I don’t want to be on that side of it, but I’m being honest — I’d be lying to you if I said differently,” Newsom told the Associated Press as he was campaigning recently in South Carolina. “I haven’t been able to figure out how to make it fair from my perspective.”

Newsom is not alone.

While most Democratic officials remain steadfast supporters of the transgender community, an increasing number in red and blue states are distancing themselves from their party’s unflinching support for the transgender community’s policy priorities, such as allowing athletes to compete on teams that match their gender identity. The shift follows years of conservative attacks against Democrats on the divisive issue, which affects a relatively small number of transgender people and their families, but has emerged as one of Republicans’ most potent political weapons in the Trump era.

Soul searching over transgender issues is one facet of a sprawling identity crisis that Democrats are confronting during the midterms and before the next presidential election. Although they risk a backlash from their progressive base, there is also a sense in some corners that the party must evolve on an issue where the overwhelming majority of voters — even many Democrats — agree with Trump.

The issue was a central theme for Trump and his Republican allies on the main stage at their midterm convention in Dallas last week, where the president said he hoped Democrats would continue to stand up for transgender girls and women who want to compete in girls’ and women’s sports.

“I’m petrified that they’ll change,” he said. “That will really hurt us.”

Republicans are already replaying some of the same political attacks that they used against Kamala Harris in the presidential campaign two years ago, when they said she’s “for they/them, not you.” On Friday, they released a new advertisement targeting James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas, with the same phrase.

Democrats confront difficult political terrain

A political group backed by billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk has begun running digital ads targeting Democrats in key Senate races in Texas, Ohio and Alaska, accusing them of allowing men to compete in women’s sports.

In Texas’ pivotal Senate contest, the new ad from Musk’s America PAC opens with a video clip of Talarico saying that “God is nonbinary.”

Talarico began to distance himself from those positions months ago. He went further in a Fox News interview last week, saying he would vote in favor of a national ban for gender-affirming surgeries for transgender minors, which are rare.

“I’ve missed the mark on some of my past statements. I will be the first to admit it,” Talarico said in an interview near the Republican convention site. “I think the reason that politicians in that convention center across the street want to talk about six sexes is because they don’t want to talk about $6 diesel.”

In Iowa, State Auditor Rob Sand, the Democratic Party’s nominee for governor, has spoken out against transgender athletes competing in women’s sports as a matter of fairness. Ohio Democratic gubernatorial nominee Amy Acton has taken a similar position, although she has drawn criticism from the left for adopting Trump’s language after saying she opposed “boys playing in girls’ sports.”

And in deep-blue Massachusetts, transgender rights became a defining campaign issue during the state’s recent Democratic U.S. Senate primary, illustrating the potential backlash that party members can face.

Sen. Ed Markey, 80, secured the nomination and later credited his win to not shying away from advocating for transgender rights. He used the issue to attack his Democratic opponent, Rep. Seth Moulton, who had said he wouldn’t want his daughters to play against transgender athletes.

Moulton apologized for his comments, which drew outrage from some progressives, but the damage was done.

While Moulton lost his primary, his position — not Markey’s — is in line with the majority of voters nationally.

A June poll from Quinnipiac University found that about 7 in 10 registered voters think that transgender women and girls should not be allowed to play on women’s and girls’ sports teams. About one-quarter think they should. Democrats are divided, with about half saying transgender women and girls should be allowed and about half saying they should not.

A Pew Research Center poll conducted last year found that just over half, 55%, of Democrats would be “not too” or “not at all” comfortable with athletes playing on teams that don’t match their sex at birth, while 21% said they were “somewhat” comfortable and only 23% said they were “extremely” or “very” comfortable with this.

There’s division among activists

Markey’s public commitment to transgender rights stood out because Democratic politicians are increasingly running away from the issue, said Tyler Hack, executive director of the Christopher Street Project, which is dedicated to electing supporters of transgender rights to federal office.

“The reality of being a transgender person in America in 2026 is that on election nights, while other folks are talking about who had a good night and who had a bad night, sometimes you are quietly wondering, ‘Am I going to be OK?’” Hack said.

At the same time, even transgender activists are divided over supporting Democrats who have positions that are unfriendly to transgender people.

Erin Reed, an advocate and independent journalist covering transgender issues, this month put out a guide flagging Democratic candidates who she accused of taking anti-transgender positions. She highlighted 15 states that have such Democrats, saying that she would not vote for the “worst offenders” even if it means a Republican wins.

She doesn’t want Democrats to see that “throwing transgender people under the bus is a winning strategy.”

“One seat can be won back,” Reed wrote. “A party cannot.”

Meanwhile, Hack would probably vote for a Democrat even if that candidate supports some policies the Christopher Street Project opposes, in hopes that the party can take control of Congress. However, those candidates shouldn’t expect the organization’s endorsement.

“While I hope many of them win, I think they can do it without our resources and without our support,” Hack said.

Laws are changing around the country

The political debate is evolving as transgender people increasingly become the target of conservative backlash through state laws and the Trump administration.

Sports participation has become one of the main fronts in a political battle over transgender rights, although most Republican-controlled states have also implemented policies that affect a bigger slice of the population. There are bans on some gender-affirming health care for transgender young people and rules against transgender people from using the bathrooms that match their gender identity in schools and occasionally other public places.

At least 25 states are now enforcing laws or policies banning transgender women and girls from competing in at least some women’s and girls’ sports and three others have adopted laws but have enforcement blocked by the courts.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld state laws barring transgender girls from school teams.

Transgender athletes make up a small portion of team rosters. NCAA president Charlie Baker testified in 2024 that he knew of fewer than 10 transgender college student-athletes out of more than 500,000 total.

The debate is a preview for 2028

The debate within the Democratic Party heading into the 2026 midterms offers a preview for those Democrats contemplating presidential bids in 2028.

Newsom, who is considered a frontrunner in the shadow primary, highlighted his long record of supporting LGBTQ+ priorities, including sanctioning same-sex marriage as the San Francisco mayor decades ago and later appointing the first trans judge in California history.

But in sports, he thinks it’s unfair to allow people assigned as males at birth to compete against girls.

“It’s a hard issue. I struggle with it,” Newsom said. “I think people know where my heart is, my soul is. I have a trans godson.”

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, another likely Democratic presidential contender, has taken the opposite position.

He has consistently criticized state-level bans and restrictions on transgender athletes, calling them “bullying” and a “setback for equality.” Following the recent Supreme Court ruling that upheld state bans on transgender athletes, Pritzker, whose cousin is transgender, reaffirmed his position on social media.

“There’s a place for you in Illinois,” he wrote.

In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro opposes bans on transgender athletes in school sports, which he’s called cruel and designed to discriminate. He argues that athletic participation and eligibility should not be dictated by politicians, but rather handled by local athletic organizations — a stance in line with several LGBTQ+ groups.

He’s also raised questions of fairness, however.

“Look, I think it’s a tough deal being born into the wrong body. And I don’t think these kids deserve to be persecuted and bullied by the president of the United States,” Shapiro told The Atlantic last year. “I also don’t think they deserve an unfair advantage on the playing field.” Research has been mixed on whether transgender women have advantages in sports, and it depends partly on whether they went through puberty as boys.

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who is gay and a potential presidential contender, said on Fox earlier in the year that he takes people seriously on both sides of the debate “whether you’re talking about parents who are wondering what this means for fairness for their kids competing, or parents who want to make sure that their kids aren’t being discriminated against and get a chance to participate.”

“But I also have to tell you,” he added, “I would be surprised if this is a top three or even a top 10 voter issue in the midterms this year.” ___

Peoples and Mulvihill write for the Associated Press. AP writers Kimberlee Kruesi in Providence, R.I., and Amelia Thomson DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.

Inside the Universalist Unitarian Church of Riverside, a line of masked people filed into the red-lighted chapel, one by one, to take part in the rite of confession.

The private booth was framed in flowers, and rather than a priest listening inside, it was a microphone recording their confessions, to be played at an upcoming art exhibition. The brick triangle-roofed church that held the booth has stood since opening in 1892; that night, it was the site of a masquerade, or as Riverside artist Perry Picasshoe called it, the “Masqueerade.”

Picasshoe, whose real name is Neveah Marquez, hosted the event, which had an entirely LGBTQ+ guest list and one requirement: Bring a mask, whatever that looks like to you.

Marquez, a 26-year-old transgender woman robed entirely in red, stood at the pews and danced to the experimental electronic DJ sets and drag performances as guests entered in masks that ranged from papier-mâché deer antlers to collaged photos of eyes and lips.

The event came as a celebration ahead of the Riverside native’s first solo exhibition, “SagradX,” which will open Saturday at Riverside Art Museum and remain through Jan. 31.

The recorded confessions, layered over one another until they become an unintelligible cacophony, represent just one piece of the 25 paintings, photographs and interactive displays in the exhibition. The show explores the meaning of “sacred” as Marquez documents her most private places and experiences, and asks viewers to consider what they hold sacred.

The exhibition, she says, began with heartbreak.

Neveah Marquez (Perry Picasshoe), 26, sits inside the Riverside Art Museum.

(Carlin Stiehl / For De Los)

“The first time I started thinking about sacredness … was when my ex-partner brought somebody into our bed,” said Marquez.

“I was crying, distraught, and drove over to these hills over Lake Mathews [in Riverside] and I realized: The bedroom was sacred to me. That’s why it hurt so much. And I started thinking, if it wasn’t sacred to them, how do we decide what is sacred to each of us?”

The very headboard of that bed sits in the exhibition; on it, Marquez painted fairy-tale creatures representing the lovers gallivanting across the woods.

While Marquez’s experience with betrayal sparked the idea, the exhibition explores sanctity in many different scenarios: In one, the artist plays with the concept of the digital safe space by inviting guests to look through her phone as she is tied on a handmade iron-wrought cross. Inside the exhibition space, she uses a small painter’s brush to slowly paint the white walls red over the course of the show.

In curating the exhibition, Marquez began to look inward, painting and photographing herself in ways she never had before: through the lens of femininity. She lived the previous 26 years of her life as a man, growing up religious to the point that she once considered becoming a priest. The paintings serve as portals into a part of her that she long held inside.

“I describe it like having blurry vision your whole life and not realizing how clearly you can see, until you put glasses on,” Marquez said. “That’s how painting myself as a woman felt.”

Neveah Marquez (Perry Picasshoe) considers what is sacred.

(Carlin Stiehl / For De Los)

Though she initially identified with her male birth name, the more she painted herself in Venus-like, feminine poses and with longer hair, her understanding of her identity shifted. Illuminated by her signature scarlet red clothing and tastefully shrouded in sheets, the soft expression on her face was inspired by Raphael’s “La Fornarina.”

“I wasn’t thinking much of it in the moment, but as I kept painting these portraits, I was thinking a lot about myself and thinking about gender and my identity,” Marquez said. “Through my art process, I realized: ‘Maybe I would be a pretty woman.’ That’s what scared me the most from transitioning, was not feeling like I would be beautiful enough.”

In “SagradX,” Marquez’s body is documented vulnerably; easing into her own identity becoming a painfully honest artistic process, which the audience is now invited to watch.

“I feel like I don’t paint very often because when I do, it’s just so emotionally intense. Like when Olivia Rodrigo wrote that she’s scared of her guitar because she couldn’t lie to it, that’s how I feel about painting,” Marquez said. “I can’t lie to my painting.”

Neveah Marquez (Perry Picasshoe) wears long, flowing red clothes.

(Carlin Stiehl / For De Los)

Aside from her self-portraits, Marquez includes photographs of her ice blocks project, in which she placed 25-pound blocks where immigration enforcement raids took place in the Inland Empire last year. These were once safe places that she says have been “desecrated with fear.”

Marquez’s personal journal, which documented her inner joys and struggles over the last year, is also open on a table in the exhibition for guests to read through, draw over, or tear. For Marquez, “SagradX” was the catalyst to “let everything out.”

“If the show is about vulnerability, I need to practice that for myself as well. Otherwise, you would see in the work that there’s a blockage, you can sense when artists aren’t fully honest,” Marquez said. “I want people to question, ‘What is sacred to you?’ If I give you access to something sacred to me, what will you do with that?”

Sept. 2 (UPI) — The Trump administration sued a Kansas City school district on Tuesday, accusing it of violating federal law with guidelines concerning disclosure of a student’s gender identity to their parents.

The Justice Department described the lawsuit as the first it has filed against a school district alleging that gender-identity guidelines violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment.

“Parental rights are paramount in operation of America’s public schools, and Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools does not know children better than their own parents,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement.

“The department will not tolerate school districts playing fast and loose with federal law in the service of radical gender ideology.”

Having campaigned on an anti-“woke” platform that included opposition to transgender rights, President Donald Trump has repeatedly targeted policies benefiting transgender Americans, particularly minors and students, seeking to ban transgender girls and women from competing in female sports and restrict minors’ access to gender-affirming healthcare.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday challenges as unlawful KCKPS guidelines that allow students to request that their transgender or gender-nonconforming identity be withheld from their parents, with such requests considered on a case-by-case basis, as well as guidelines allowing school officials to consider using a student’s preferred name, gender, and pronouns. The Justice Department described such policies as “facilitating secret ‘gender transitions’ for children at school without their parents’ knowledge or consent.”

Federal prosecutors allege that the guidelines are unlawful because they require a meeting to be held to discuss the student’s request, creating records that the Justice Department argues FERPA requires school districts to provide to parents. FERPA also arms parents with the authority to challenge records, and the KCKPS guidelines deny them the opportunity to even see the gender plan for their child, let alone challenge, correct or delete it, the Justice Department argues.

Its PPRA claim is that the guidelines violate the law’s guarantee that minor students will not undergo a survey, analysis or evaluation that reveals certain information, including mental or psychological problems, sexual behavior or attitudes and religious beliefs, without parental consent.

U.S. Attorney Ryan Kriegshauser for the District of Kansas said the lawsuit should “not come as a surprise” given that public education only works when schools and parents work together.

“When schools withhold information from parents, they undermine trust and disrupt the essential balance between families and public educators,” he said in a statement.

KCKPS denies the allegations, stating it is in compliance with both FERPA and the PPRA and that it was “disappointed by the DOJ’s decision to file the lawsuit.”

The lawsuit comes more than a year after the Education Department initiated an investigation into the school district following receipt of a complaint against its guidelines from the conservative Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies, which was founded by former Trump administration officials.

In July, KCKPS Superintendent Anna Stubblefield told local KSHB41 that what the Trump administration is targeting are guidelines, not policies.

“There’s nowhere in the guidance where we say ‘withhold information from parents.’ We have no reason or incentive to withhold information from parents about anything that they’re entitled to for their students,” she said.

“When they say we have a policy, we’ve never had a policy.”

Sparks center Cameron Brink condemned former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom for his behavior that got him removed from a WNBA game this week while also declaring her support for transgender women.

Kanter, who recently claimed he is eligible for the WNBA draft because he declared himself a transgender woman, was removed from the Chicago Sky’s game against the visiting Indiana Fever at Wintrust Arena on Sunday after he confronted Sky guard Natasha Cloud.

He has been banned by the Sky from attending Wintrust Arena.

Brink was asked about the situation before the Sparks’ game against Atlanta on Monday by Jarrod Castillo of The Mirror US, according to a video originally posted Wednesday on Threads.

“Personally, I think when it comes to the trans issues, I think it’s a non-issue, and I think it’s people trying to just come for the trans community, and I just don’t stand for that,” Brink said before blasting Freedom, whom she said is “just trying to stay relevant.”

Brink then added: “I think people are tuned in for the right reasons, and it’s great that we can all talk about things that are important and hard and even have your own opinions on that. But I think taking something that’s a non-issue right now and just trying to use it for clickbait or for views for likes, and then targeting a vulnerable community, is just really low.”

Brink, 24, has previously expressed support for transgender athletes, saying in an interview with Dime Magazine in 2024: “Some of my teammates go by they/them pronouns. I want to bring more acceptance to that and not just have people support us because of the way that we look.”

In an ESPN profile in July, Fever guard Sophie Cunningham said she did not support transgender women playing women’s sports, referring to them as “biological men.” Since then, Kanter and fellow former NBA player Royce White have claimed they should be eligible for the WNBA draft.

The WNBA ruled both players ineligible, according to Front Office Sports.

The WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement includes only a single line addressing gender eligibility, stating in Article XIII, Section 1(a): “Only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA.”

Several other players have spoken out against the ire directed at transgender women, including Cloud, the Valkyries’ Gabby Williams and Storm’s Stefanie Dolson.

There is currently no transgender athlete playing in the league.

In a brief online elegy for Dolly Parton, with whom she’d worked on the women-empowering film “9 to 5,” actor and famed liberal activist Jane Fonda made it a point to note that Parton cared about her queer fans.

“To her gay and trans fans, I want you to know that she loved you,” Fonda wrote. “You know that without me telling you.”

Indeed, we do.

Dolly meant something special to the LGBTQ+ community, in part because she represented an America where we are accepted — not just in big blue cities, but in one-room cabins in East Tennessee and in every rural, American-flag-flying corner of this big country.

Dolly was colorful and vivacious and unapologetic, and had more than a bit of drag queen in her. But she was also an unabashed ally with a country twang — a friend from the part of America where many queer people still instinctively put their guard up.

Of course, a country twang and queer acceptance can go hand in hand, and often do.

The Human Rights Campaign just last week cited a new U.S. Census Bureau analysis showing a record-high 12% of U.S. adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or gender diverse.

That’s more than 25 million people, and they live all across the country. Many sound like Dolly. Many are surrounded by loving, supportive family too.

Yet it remained important, particularly as LGBTQ+ rights have come under increasing attack, that Dolly — big, beloved, down-home Dolly — had our back too.

She wrote and sang the Oscar-nominated song “Travelin’ Thru” from the 2005 movie “Transamerica,” about a transgender woman and her son. She collaborated with her goddaughter Miley Cyrus on “Rainbowland,” a tribute to gay pride. And she made no secret of where she stood.

“I have some of everybody in my own immediate family and in my circle of employees. I’ve got transgender people. I’ve got gays. I’ve got lesbians,” she said in 2023. “I know and love them all, and I do not judge.… That’s who they are. They cannot help that any more than I can help being Dolly Parton.”

The LGBTQ+ community has watched in recent years as corporations and other supposed allies have backed away and gone quiet amid shifting politics and the Trump administration’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion and the transgender community.

But not Dolly. We saw her stand her ground, next to us. And that meant something. Dolly showed that you can appeal to the whole of America without throwing LGBTQ+ people under the bus.

She showed that you can stand behind LGBTQ+ people without twisting into socially awkward or politically damaging positions, no matter your audience. Sometimes it just takes plain language about accepting everyone as they are.

She showed that holding onto faith, patriotism and the American way of life doesn’t mean you can’t also hold space for LGBTQ+ people to live their own happy lives.

She showed that we are all more alike than we are different, and that it’s easier to see eye to eye when you aren’t looking past one another.

Dolly showed that a country star and all-American icon, beloved as much in rural dive bars as big city queer clubs, could transcend the bogus narrative that LGBTQ+ lives are a political issue rather than a part of our collective humanity — and that all of us can too.

Dolly represented the America that LGBTQ+ people love and remain loyal to, the open-armed, diverse, compassionate, take-people-as-they-come version of America that is still all of ours to enjoy if we just work for it a little — just like Dolly did.

Dolly loved LGBTQ+ people, and we loved her — in part because she showed us that our country still loves us too.