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Seth Moulton taking heat for transgender comments after Dems’ election loss
Rep. Seth Moulton said that Democrats should not be afraid to voice concerns about transgender student athletes.
Rep. Seth Moulton, who represents much of the North Shore, is facing backlash over comments he made this week about the participation of transgender athletes in school sports.
Moulton’s comments were buried in a lengthy piece in The New York Times about how Democrats are responding to Kamala Harris’s loss to Donald Trump.
“Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face,” Moulton told the Times. “I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”
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Moulton’s campaign manager, Matt Chilliak has resigned, he confirmed to The Boston Globe. Chilliak also served as director of Moulton’s “Serve America” political committee.
Trump’s campaign leaned heavily into anti-transgender sentiment. One of the most prominent Trump ads included the line “Kamala’s for they/them, President Trump is for you.”
As the Democratic party confronts a prolonged examination of what went wrong in the 2024 election, Moulton’s comments are not sitting well with some leaders in Massachusetts. Salem Mayor Dominick Pangallo and the Salem School Committee denounced his remarks “in the strongest terms possible” in an email to families Friday obtained by the Globe.
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“We want to reassure our LGBTQ+ students that we as district leaders will always celebrate your identities, support your dreams and aspirations, and applaud your accomplishments,” the Salem officials wrote.
Moulton responded to the backlash in a statement Friday evening.
“I stand firmly in my belief for the need for competitive women’s sports to put limits on the participation of those with the unfair physical advantages that come with being born male. I am also a strong supporter of the civil rights of all Americans, including transgender rights. I will fight, as I always have, for the rights and safety of all citizens,” he said.
“These two ideas are not mutually exclusive, and we can even disagree on them. Yet there are many who, shouting from the extreme left corners of social media, believe I have failed the unspoken Democratic Party purity test. We did not lose the 2024 election because of any trans person or issue. We lost, in part, because we shame and belittle too many opinions held by too many voters and that needs to stop. Let’s have these debates now, determine a new strategy for our party since our existing one failed, and then unite to oppose the Trump agenda wherever it imperils American values,” Moulton added.
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MassEquality, a statewide nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ rights, said that Moulton’s comments “further compound our community’s sense of vulnerability.” The group said his words would further the “ongoing stigmatization of transgender people.” MassEquality is reaching out to Moulton to discuss the matter further.
State Rep. John Moran, who is gay, said in a social media post that Moulton’s comments were “weak.”
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