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Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you [1]

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Date: 2025-09-02

We Democrats got hammered for this. And I don’t think it was due to the fundamental issue of treating LGBT people equally, but for the overblown efforts to go all in on political correctness.

To start with yes all LGBT individuals should be treated the same as everyone else. But I’ll add to that, I don’t really care if someone is LGBT. I understand why it is a big deal to those that are but for the rest of us it’s pretty much irrelevant.

Where we blew it is in virtue signaling and overwrought support. Let’s take a look at these issues:

(he/him), (she/her)

If someone is non-binary then absolutely add (they/them) to their signature line. But why on earth do the rest of us do that? I don’t add (Caucasian/Agnostic) or (West Coast/Hawaii) to my signature. Adding (he/him) was actually adding (I support LGBT) to the signature line. In a way that people could virtue signal their support. What made it so important that many liberals added it?

This was overblown political correctness. And others read this as a lot more focus/importance than it deserved. With all the problems we face, why does this get primacy? I think for most people their issue with this is they are fine with LGBT people so why is this such a focus?

LGBTQIA+

This is again overblown. A TLA can be 4 letters. But that’s the max. People were fine with LGBT. And LGB+ would have worked. What all the letters tell those that are not LGBT is that every subset wants their own letter in the acronym. And everyone else is expected to know what each letter stands for.

This is ridiculous. Within the subset of non-heterosexual people sure have all the different acronyms you want. But to the heterosexual world keep it simple and concise. Again, most people are fine with whatever your gender/sexual preference is.

Isn’t the goal that people don’t care what someone’s identity is? If so, don’t push them to have to memorize all the subsets.

Transgender Athletics

I have three very athletic daughters (now all out of college). They had lots of male friends who were athletic. The difference in strength between them was significant. The top female athletes in High School could not compete with the top male athletes. Not even in non contact sports like volleyball.

Every parent who has daughters playing middle school - college sports is understandably opposed to transgender athletes playing on women’s teams. It’s not just unfair, it’s dangerous. Basketball & soccer are very physical and if there’s a significant inequality in strength, people will get hurt.

And there’s a simple solution - transgender athletes can play on the men’s team. Most sports already allow women to play on men’s team. And this should be decided per sport. For target shooting, there’s no issue with strength differences that I’m aware of so they can have different rules than basketball.

Transgender Bathrooms

This is the most difficult one. First you have the issue of men who are not transgender using this as an excuse to go into women’s restrooms. I think we can all agree that laws around this need to give law enforcement the ability to make judgement calls on when it’s an excuse and arrest people doing this.

But even for legitimate use, there are women who will be uneasy about this. I don’t have an answer for this other than talk to each other. If transgender individuals talk to moms, that can help. I hope.

I think part of this will take time. But if we loudly talk about arresting anyone who is not trans using this as an excuse to harass women, that will alleviate a lot of the concern. I think.

Transgender Medical Treatment on Minors

This is an incredibly difficult issues. From reading there are clearly cases where providing transition to children helps them. And there are clearly cases where it was way inappropriate.

And in this situation often parents, children, & their medical providers make the wrong choice. It’s the nature of the beast that something so consequential is difficult to figure out.

I am not at all sure what the answer is here. My instinct is to start with the Hippocratic Oath - “First do no harm.” So have families and their provider take it slow. But again, no idea what is sensible here.

Transgender - Separate but Equal

When it comes to race we’ve said separate but equal is bullshit. As we should have. But when it comes to gender we do have separate but equal as appropriate. Separate bathrooms, Oscars for best actor and best actress, etc.

We need to use the same separate but equal, when appropriate, for transgender. Where exactly will we end up deciding to use separate vs. where will we end up grouping trans individuals in? Who knows. But it is key to think this through rather than just declaring a trans individual is now their new gender in all situations.

Democratic Candidates

And that leads us to Democratic Candidates and how they should navigate this minefield. Here’s my suggestions:

Have all campaign operatives who are binary drop the (he/him) or (she/her) from their signature lines. Do it quietly. On the main campaign website have a section that is labeled LGBT. In that section use LGBTQIA+ to your heart’s content. When asked on transgender issues, speak to it in the terms above.

The most important thing is to make the LGBT issues a minor item in your campaign. For a federal race, treat it like NASA or USAID - you mention somewhere that you support it but it’s listed deep in the campaign.

From a raw politics point of view someone who’s priority is LGTB (or NASA or USAID), while they want it listed front and center, will still support you and vote for you if you are favorable on the subject.

Meanwhile the majority of voters are positive toward you because your primary focus is on the economy, jobs, etc. Because for voters in the center while I think they were concerned with some specifics here (transgender sports, bathrooms), I think the bigger issue was that they think Democrats prioritize this over what matters to them.

Originally posted at my blog: Liberal and Loving It.

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