Anti-Trans Bills Cause Divide Among GOP Politicians

Initially, the influx of anti-trans bills in states across the U.S. this year were meant to rally GOP politicians and help unite the party for 2024 elections, but the abundant legislation has proved to be controversial, ultimately splitting up the party more than it is providing unity.

The Biden administration specifically moved to expand protections for trans people, including in school sports, to which conservatives widely indicated would ruin women’s athletics and followed with the slew of anti-trans bills currently making their way through state legislatures, in an effort to keep trans women and girls from playing on female teams.

Now, a handful republican governors have opposed the bans while others explicitly promote them.

“For those who dream about a 2024 future, starting with [South Dakota Governor] Kristi Noem, you don’t want to be in a position to be against your own party, which all of those governors have done so far,” GOP strategist Bill McCoshen says to Politico. “It will help certain voters decide who the conservatives are in the race.”

Noem was among republican politicians like Utah Governor Spencer Cox, who said in February he would not sign a bill banning trans women and girls from playing female sports, and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, who vetoed a similar bill.

“These kids are—they’re just trying to stay alive,” Governor Cox said in Feburary. “There’s a reason none of them are playing sports … I just think there’s a better way. And I hope that there will be enough grace in our state to find a better solution.”

Even Caitlyn Jenner, a republican who announced her bid for California governor, recently told TMZ she supports the bans, despite being a trans woman herself.

Over the past two years, trans girls participating in school sports went from hardly any political attention to one of the republican party’s top priorities, though in many cases, republican politicians are unable to explain how their laws apply to their states or cite specific cases around trans girls having an unfair advantage in youth sports.

Republican strategist Sean Walsh called the embrace of anti-trans athletic bills, and the subsequent divide among the party, ‘silly,’ saying, “Of the great political issues and great outrages of our time, this one just doesn’t hit the meter, you know? … I just don’t see the entire world clamoring over transgender athletes in sports. I just think it’s a lot of time and effort for not really much of an issue.”

The Biden administration is reportedly talking to leaders in the Human Rights Campaign about combatting these bills on a federal level, following Biden’s shoutout to trans youth at a joint session in Congress in April.