With just a handful of weeks to go before the November 3 midterm election, Republicans and GOP-allied groups are spending millions on ads attacking transgender Americans. And some Democrats in competitive House and Senate races are ceding the conversation to the right.
Today, Human Rights Campaign (HRC) President Kelley Robinson joined Raw America managing editor Carl Gibson to talk about how Democrats should respond to anti-trans talking points, and about how Americans can work together to protect marginalized people facing attacks on multiple fronts. Gibson and Robinson covered various topics, including:
Why Democrats shouldn’t “take the bait” on anti-trans attack ads
How the religious right pivoted to trans issues after the Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage
How Democrats like Andy Beshear in Kentucky and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia won reelection while standing up for trans rights
How to talk with parents about fairness in women’s sports
How the case of transgender male wrestler Mack Beggs shatters conservatives’ anti-trans laws
The importance of youth sports in supporting kids’ mental health
HRC’s new Safe Schools Champion program for school board candidates
Record-breaking book bans and the fight against Moms for Liberty for competitive school board seats
The administration threatening Medicaid coverage for gender dysphoria care
Voter ID laws that could prevent transgender voters from casting a ballot
What voters can do if they’re turned away at the polls this November
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Gibson began the interview by acknowledging the growing split among Democrats on whether to embrace transgender Americans or give in to anti-trans talking points in an effort to win over conservative voters.
He argued Governors like Andy Beshear in Kentucky and JB Pritzker in Illinois tend take a compassionate approach when it comes to trans rights, while Democrats like Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur in Ohio and South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Annie Andrews took what Gibson called a more “discriminatory” approach. He then asked Robinson about a recent HRC Substack essay in which Robinson urged Democrats not to “take the bait.”
The HRC president insisted the attacks on transgender Americans are a deliberate distraction from issues like high gas prices, tariffs and the Iran war, while pointing out that Republicans have already spent $170 million on anti-trans ads this cycle alone.
“They don’t have an answer as to why gas is $4.50 a gallon,” she said. “They can’t speak to the American people about why we’re in another endless war. They can’t talk about the inflation issues that are most meaningful in people’s lives right now. So they’re resorting to this old tactic of sowing chaos and fear against a community that people don’t know much about.”
She instead called on Democrats to keep their eyes on the prize: “Don’t take the bait, answer the attacks head-on, and then go back to talking about the issues that matter most to voters.”
To get to the root of why conservatives keep attacking the transgender community, Gibson pointed to a 2023 New York Times report in which Terry Schilling, president of the conservative group American Principles Project, explained how the right scrambled to find a new way to galvanize social conservatives after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling. Gibson noted that transgender rights became the issue that stuck, despite transgender Americans making up less than 1 percent of the population. Robinson called the organized assault on trans rights “heartbreaking.”
“What you’re seeing across the country is adults spending lots of time and hundreds of millions of dollars to attack kids,” she said. “… There are some things in American politics [that] used to be sacred, right? Like we don’t go after people’s families, we don’t go after their kids.”
Robinson insisted the far right’s anti-trans rhetoric has nothing to do with safety, sports, or education, and argued their assault on fundamental rights won’t stop with trans people. She pointed to a new law in Kansas that took away driver’s licenses from trans people if their gender markers don’t match their sex assigned at birth.
“If extremists are successful in taking away rights from one small group of people, who will they try that on next?” Robinson asked. “We have always been, in historical generations, about expanding rights, expanding this vision of the American dream and who can participate… We’re being asked right now to whom does this country belong, and I hope that the answer is it belongs to all of us.”
Gibson noted that Gov. Beshear was reelected to a second term in deep-red Kentucky three years ago by fully embracing trans people, calling them “children of God” in a way that resonated with the state’s significant population of evangelical voters. He then said Democrats giving in to conservatives’ anti-trans arguments was akin to handing a bully your lunch money.
“I could not have said it better myself,” Robinson said. “This is bullying happening in the public square, and we need adults that are going to stand up to it.”
Robinson observed that Democrat Abigail Spanberger won Virginia’s 2025 gubernatorial race by double digits while standing “ten toes down” on defending trans kids. She also pointed to the example of Mikie Sherrill, who handily won New Jersey’s gubernatorial election last year despite Republican-aligned groups spending millions of dollars on anti-trans attack ads.
“The question isn’t, can you win by standing on the right side of this issue — you absolutely can,” she said. “In fact, you can build your coalition even bigger.”
Robinson also had a direct message for candidates who think conceding ground to anti-LGBTQ conservatives will put a stop to the attack ads.
“I’m sorry to tell you, they’re not going to stop running the ads. Our opposition is not engaged in a well-intentioned debate about policy,” Robinson said, “What they’re trying to do is use children, trans kids, as a political wedge. You got to stand up to the bullies.”
Gibson then brought up to the issue of fairness in girls’ and women’s sports, which he noted many well-meaning Democrats continue to struggle with. He referenced a March 2025 survey in which roughly 80 percent of respondents said they favored keeping trans women out of women’s sports, and asked Robinson how allies should talk with parents of cisgender female athletes concerned about fairness.
Robinson welcomed honest conversation on the issue, and insisted the solution should never be excluding kids from extracurricular activities. However, she lamented that the issue has become needlessly politicized and pointed out that trans kids have played sports for decades under policies set by local leagues and the NCAA with virtually no issies.
“This is not an area for politicians,” Robinson said. “This is an area for experts with community members to figure out the best solutions.”
Gibson then brought up the case of Mack Beggs, who is a trans male wrestler in Texas who was forced to compete in the girls’ division due to anti-trans laws on the books. He made clear he wanted to compete in the boys’ division, but was prohibited from doing so. Robinson noted that Beggs’ case illustrates how the realities of youth sports are full of nuance, including some girls who are forced to compete in boys’ wrestling leagues because no girls’ division exists.
In recent years, Republican lawmakers in multiple states across the country have passed hundreds of bills restricting trans athletes, with each only affecting only a small handful of kids. She pointed to the example of Becky Pepper-Jackson in West Virginia, who was the only transgender student affected by an anti-trans law the GOP-dominated West Virginia legislature passed and litigated all the way to the Supreme Court.
“They escalated this all the way to the Supreme Court for what? For one kid that was trying to play, not even at the super-competitive level,” Robinson said.
The HRC president also sounded the alarm about an anti-transgender sports ballot initiative in Washington state that she noted would require girls who want to play competitive sports to confirm their gender.
“What does that mean? Who’s going to do the confirmation? What adults are going to be in charge of that process?” Robinson asked. “These things are the dangers that we’re opening up our kids to when we’re not thinking this all the way through.”
She went on to argue that those conversations belong “in your school district and with your neighbors,” not in Congress.
Gibson recalled how, during California’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, progressive candidate Tom Steyer called on youth sports to be 𝕏more trans-inclusive, saying team sports help kids not only build social skills and find community, but that it’s a great solution for the youth mental health crisis. Gibson also noted out that out of more than 500,000 college athletes in the NCAA, the number of trans women competing in women’s sports can be counted on fewer than 10 fingers.
Robinson expanded on that point and lamented some anti-trans bills not only apply to college and high school athletes, but stretch all the way to the kindergarten level.
“That’s terrible to think that you could be excluded from playing with your friends when you’re as young as five, six, and seven years old,” Robinson said. “This is about kids just having a shot.”
“I grew up as a young Black queer kid on the South Side of Chicago. Life was hard enough, and nobody was trying to tell me I couldn’t play on the sports team,” she continued. “… As adults, we should be trying to find as many ways as possible for kids to feel confident in their body, for them to feel like they’ve got friends and a safe community around them.”
The conversation then pivoted to the upcoming midterm election. Gibson referenced a September post on the HRC Substack post entitled “Our most consequential elections have the lowest turnout.” In that essay, author Cheryl Greene alluded to issues pertaining to public education that haven’t gotten as much attention in the current election cycle.
Robinson, a parent of two young children, said many parents of public school children have real fear whenever they send their kids off to school each morning. She drew on her own experience as the parent of a five-year-old in Washington, D.C.
“Sometimes there’s National Guard that are patrolling the streets. Sometimes we’ve got ICE agents who are literally trying to take parents away from their kids at the drop-off. There’s mass shootings that still occur, and every day I still ask him to face that world with courage,” she said. “I think we can’t underestimate what we are asking our children to confront every day that we send them out the door.”
Robinson then urged voters to look to the approximately 82,000 school board seats up for grabs across the country, saying school board members are often “the folks that are deciding the policies that impact our kids every day.”
The two then discussed the HRC’s Safe Schools Champion program, which helps identify local school board candidates who are committed to policies that affirm and welcome LGBTQ+ students. She highlighted this effort by her group as a contrast to efforts by far-right organizations like Moms for Liberty, who often run virulently anti-LGBTQ candidates who run on discriminatory platforms.
“All politics is local, and particularly these school board roles have such an immediate impact,” Robinson said. “The policies that they’re navigating decide whether or not your kid feels safe. They often decide what books your kids can or cannot read.”
“Many of these seats go without someone even running to sit in them, she added. “Think about running for school board.”
As part of the discussion in the importance of school board races, Gibson pointed to a recent report from literacy group PEN America’s finding that public schools saw a record-shattering 11,982 book bans in various school districts in just the past year. He noted that most of the bans focused on books dealing with issues of race, sexuality, and gender identity.
Robinson responded by quoting the leader of the American Library Association: “Free people read freely.” She also noted out that many banned books are about important topics like civil rights, and include books about Rosa Parks and works by celebrated Black authors like Toni Morrison and Nobel laureate Amanda Gorman.
“[Those books are] simply about who we are and our rich history as a nation and as people,” she said. “… Don’t let somebody from out of your school district come in and decide what your kids can read.”
Gibson then asked Robinson about the danger LGBTQ youth in Virginia are facing following an announcement from the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services that it would stop covering gender dysphoria services for Medicaid recipients under 18 (and for CHIP recipients under age 19) starting Tuesday, October 13.
Gov. Spanberger pointed the finger at the Trump administration, saying the White House defunding that care means parents may potentially have to pay out of pocket for the care their children have been getting for years. Gibson then asked Robinson to clear up misinformation about what kind of care is involved.
“This is best practice healthcare is what we’re talking about,” Robinson said, noting that the American Medical Association and every major medical association have repeatedly said gender dysphoria care — which includes hormone therapy and puberty blockers — is perfectly safe.
“The bottom line here is that what we’re trying to do is get politicians out of your doctors’ offices. I’m sorry, but I don’t want RFK Jr. in my kid’s doctor’s appointment with me,” Robinson said. “The medical decisions for my kids should be between me and our medical provider, and that’s it.
With the midterm election less than a month away, Gibson then asked about laws on the books in 33 states that could lead to transgender voters being turned away if their ID doesn’t match their chosen name or gender.
Robinson, who joined the interview from Ohio where early voting has already begun, urged listeners to vote early if they can.
“Get it done and get it done early, because look, we know that there’s going to be all kinds of shenanigans,” Robinson said, pointing to ID issues at polling places and talk of deploying the National Guard.
She also pointed out that trans voters aren’t the only ones who may need help: “If you’re a woman that just got married and changed your name, you might need some extra support. So know that there are re…