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Are Transgender Activists Holding Democrats Hostage?

Rachel Levine, former assistant secretary of health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (Caroline Brehman-Pool/Getty Images)

Tyler O'Neil / @Tyler2ONeil

Tyler O'Neil is senior editor at The Daily Signal and the author of two books: "Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center," and "The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government."

Have all Democrats gone insane?

I can’t help but wonder as James Talarico says God’s “gender identity” is “nonbinary,” as 106 Democrats oppose the Trump administration’s commonsense limits on Medicaid funding for sex-rejecting procedures, and as 104 Democrats co-sponsor a “Transgender Bill of Rights.” All this happens while Americans increasingly want to prevent men who identify as women from entering women’s bathrooms, women’s prisons, and women’s sports.

I’m far from the only one wondering whether the entire party has gone off its rocker. Luckily, the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute decided to find out.

The Manhattan Institute conducted three national surveys, between Feb. 6 and 15, of registered Democrats and those who voted for Kamala Harris in 2024. The group interviewed 2,998 Democrats or Harris voters. The margins of error range from ±2.3% for general Democrats, to ±3.4% for a black Democrat sample, to ±5.0% for a Hispanic Democrat sample.

Breaking Down the Democrats

The Manhattan Institute divided the Democrats into three sections. Moderates (47%) described themselves as “moderate Democrat,” “independent,” or “anti-Trump Republican,” with an average age of 53. Progressive liberals (37%) described themselves as “liberal Democrat” or “progressive Democrat,” with an average age of 52. The woke fringe (11%) described themselves as “Democratic Socialist” or “communist,” had the lowest average age (43), and had the fewest number of Hispanics (6%) but the largest proportion of blacks (22%).

Not surprisingly, moderates proved more likely (53%) to agree that the party “needs to move toward the center to win over more voters,” while a plurality of progressive liberals (38%) said the party “is in the right spot ideologically.” The woke fringe overwhelmingly agreed (58%) with a third option: “The Democratic Party needs to move further to the left to energize its base.”

The Trend Against Transgender Orthodoxy

It may seem hard to imagine now, but just a few years ago, transgender orthodoxy held a stranglehold over the federal government. I don’t just mean transgender ideology—the belief that a man can become a woman or vice versa just by saying so—but transgender orthodoxy, the effort to enshrine transgender ideology as dogma and silence dissent from it.

The Biden administration implemented at least 75% of the Human Rights Campaign’s 2020 wish list. President Joe Biden named a man identifying as a woman to be his assistant secretary of health, and this man urged Big Tech companies to censor dissent from transgender orthodoxy.

On Easter Sunday, Christians’ holiest day of the year, the White House celebrated “Transgender Day of Visibility.”

Thankfully, we’ve come a long way since then.

President Donald Trump won his second term in part due to campaigning against gender insanity.

Last year, the Department of Health and Human Services concluded that there is essentially no evidence for any benefits from the grotesque medical interventions to make men resemble women and vice versa.

Earlier this year, a jury rightly concluded that medical professionals had engaged in malpractice when cutting off the breasts of a teen girl who later rejected her transgender identity. The jury ordered them to pay her $2 million. Even major medical associations are finally advising against “gender-affirming care” for minors.

The Supreme Court has upheld states’ ability to ban these “treatments” for minors, and it more recently blocked California’s effort to have schools “transition” kids behind their parents’ backs.

So, What Do Democrats Think?

Democrats may be slow on the uptake when it comes to common sense, but the Manhattan Institute survey suggests they’re moving in the right direction—and the radicals who run their party may want to pay attention.

The Manhattan Institute asked Democrats whether they think athletes under 18 who identify as transgender “should play on sports teams of the gender that matches their sex at birth or the gender they currently choose to identify with.”

Almost half (46%) of Democrats and Harris voters said these athletes should compete on teams that match their birth sex, while only 34% said they should compete on teams matching their identity. The remaining 20% said they were not sure.

Moderates proved more likely to support sex-segregated sports (56%), while the woke fringe proved more likely to support the gender identity sports policy (64%). Even so, progressive liberals proved slightly more likely to back sex (41%) over gender identity (38%), and even a quarter of the woke fringe said they’d prefer to keep male athletes with the men (23%).

The Manhattan Institute also asked at what age someone “should be allowed to receive transgender medical interventions,” giving multiple age options, alongside “never,” and “not sure.” Only 4% of Democrats and Harris voters said kids under 13 should be eligible for transgender “treatments,” while most (52%) said only adults should be eligible: those 18-20 (29%) or 21 or older (23%). Slightly less than a tenth (8%) said no one should be eligible.

Even among the woke fringe, support for transgender interventions for minors below 13 proved sparse (9%), with 32% saying minors under 18 should be eligible and 36% preferring to reserve these “treatments” only for adults.

Most moderates (55%) would also restrict the interventions to adults, and only 2% said minors under 13 should be eligible.

The Manhattan Institute also asked about parental notification requirements. Most Democrats and Harris voters (59%) supported policies requiring schools to notify parents if a child asks to identify as transgender at school, while only 26% opposed such a policy.

About a third of the Democrats (35%) agreed with the claim that “the Democratic Party has gotten too radical on transgender issues.” About half (46%) disagreed, while 19% said they were unsure.

Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Leor Sapir noted that other recent polls also suggest Democrats are increasingly skeptical of transgender surgeries for minors and men playing on women’s sports.

And here is a @nytimes/@Ipsos poll from January 2025. Two-thirds of Dem/Dem-leaning voters preferred sex-based sports, while 54% said no to Rx for minors. 78% of Dem/Dem-leaning respondents said no to Rx for kids under 15, which effectively rules out puberty blockers. pic.twitter.com/eZoKLIv87r— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) March 10, 2026

And here is a @nytimes/@Ipsos poll from January 2025. Two-thirds of Dem/Dem-leaning voters preferred sex-based sports, while 54% said no to Rx for minors. 78% of Dem/Dem-leaning respondents said no to Rx for kids under 15, which effectively rules out puberty blockers. pic.twitter.com/eZoKLIv87r

This poll suggests a growing part of the Democrat coalition is moving away from transgender orthodoxy, even as Democrat leaders generally stick with it.

The interest groups on the issue, most notably the Human Rights Campaign, seem to have a stranglehold on the party leaders, but these polls suggest rank-and-file Democrats are seriously reconsidering the issue.

Democrats who have retained their sanity need to speak up, because they may face an uphill battle.

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Read the first chapter of The Woketopus right now for FREE

Today, even with President Trump’s victory, leftist elites have their tentacles in every aspect of our government.

The Daily Signal’s own Tyler O’Neil exposes this leftist cabal in his new book, The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.

In this book, O’Neil reveals how the Left’s NGO apparatus pursues its woke agenda, maneuvering like an octopus by circumventing Congress and entrenching its interests in the federal government.

You can read the first chapter of this new book for FREE in this eBook, The Woketopus: Chapter One using the secure link below.

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