Transgender issues were largely absent from the DNC agenda

At the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Rep. Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., was met with thunderous applause as he proudly introduced transgender advocate Sarah McBride.

“She is right now the first trans person ever to address a national convention,” Maloney boasted. “It’s about time.” McBride would go on to become a Delaware state senator, and she’s now poised to be the first transgender member of Congress.

Four years later, Virginia delegate Danica Roem — the first openly transgender person to be seated in a state Legislature — made a groundbreaking appearance during the virtual DNC in 2020.

But at this year’s Democratic convention in Chicago, trans people were notably absent from the stage. While LGBTQ rights broadly and same-sex marriage specifically were referenced several times, transgender people appeared to be mentioned by just two speakers across 20 hours of the convention’s “main programming” slate, and neither speaker, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., nor Human Rights Campaign president Kelley Robinson had a prime-time speaking slot.

To some trans Americans, the omission did not go unnoticed.

Charlotte Clymer, a longtime trans advocate who was at this week’s convention, called this year’s DNC “the best political convention in my lifetime.” At the same time, she said, the lack of attention paid to trans issues showed “an extreme lack of consideration for the pain trans people are feeling right now.”

The DNC and the Harris campaign declined to comment.

At the Republican National Convention, held in Milwaukee in July, at least a dozen speakers referenced trans people or issues negatively in their speeches, according to an NBC News analysis.

Since the 2020 election, more than 1,500 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the U.S. A bulk of the bills have been aimed at limiting the rights of trans Americans, mostly trans youth, including their ability to participate in school sports teams not aligned with their sex assigned at birth or access transition-related medications and treatments.

“Although I know that Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz are going to be fierce advocates for us in the White House, this was a rare opportunity to really stand with the trans community on national television to tens of millions of Americans who are vulnerable to a lot of the awful propaganda we see on a daily basis from the Republican Party,” Clymer said. “This could have really been a great opportunity to be the antidote to a lot of that venom that trans people experience.”

Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric has also surged in recent years. Decades-old tropes that LGBTQ people — and mainly gay men and trans women — are trying to “groom” or “indoctrinate” the nation’s children have been re-embraced by right-wing media and some conservative politicians, and have received little to no pushback from the wider Republican Party.

Melissa Michelson, a professor of political science at California’s Menlo College who studies LGBTQ politics, said the DNC’s avoidance of mentioning trans rights was part of a wider strategy to seek out independent voters.

“If you look at who was featured in the prime-time slots, it’s middle-of-the-road people. It’s Oprah Winfrey; it’s not the Tennessee Three,” she said, referring to the trio of Tennessee lawmakers, two of whom were expelled, who gained national attention for their pro-gun-control protests last year.. “It’s people who are going to appeal to that chunk of swing voters in the Sunbelt, in the Rustbelt, those swing states, and transgender rights are not a high priority issue for those voters and not the way they’re going to decide their vote.”

Public sentiment over trans rights is mixed. While 61% of Americans are opposed to laws that ban transition-related health for trans minors, 69% believe that trans people should play on sports teams aligned with their sex assigned at birth, according to a 2024 Gallup survey. More than half of Americans also believe changing one’s gender is morally wrong.

Americans’ views on gay men and lesbians are much more favorable. Nearly 70% of Americans are in favor of same-sex marriage and 64% believe that same-sex relations are morally acceptable, according to the Gallup survey.

The Democratic convention featured several gay and lesbian speakers and did not shy away from issues such as same-sex marriage and others more broadly affecting the LGBTQ community, like book bans.

Speakers lambasted book bans imposed by Republicans over the last several years, many of which took aim at books with LGBTQ themes or characters. Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz was frequently celebrated for helping create and lead a Gay-Straight Alliance club while he was a high school teacher and football coach in rural Minnesota in 1999.

In her speech at the convention Thursday, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris nodded to queer people, arguing that the “freedom to love who you love openly and with pride” is at stake in the upcoming election.

Nine openly gay men and lesbians also spoke throughout the DNC’s main programming, including two who had prime-time speaking slots, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Laphonza Butler, D-Calif. And the convention had a historic number of trans and nonbinary delegates: 45 out of the more than 4,700, according to the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute, which works to increase queer and transgender representation in public service.

Democratic policies are largely seen as supporting of pro-transgender rights, and many trans advocates told NBC News they are happy with the party’s stance on LGBTQ issues.

The official Democratic Party platform, released earlier this week, states that Democrats will “vigorously oppose state and federal bans on gender-affirming health care,” “prioritize the investigation of hate crimes against trans and non-binary people” and push for federal legislation to enact anti-discrimination protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Harris, who has actively supported gay rights throughout her career, is also seen by advocates as having one of the most, if not the most, LGBTQ-friendly policy record of any presidential candidate.

“In the states and in the trenches and in the legislatures, Democrats have been on transgender people’s side,” trans activist and writer Erin Reed said. “But rhetorically there’s always this hesitancy between what they’re willing to support with their political capital and what they’re willing to support with their voice and with their chest.”

Some trans activists dismissed concerns about trans issues being largely absent from the DNC agenda and pointed to the strikingly different alternative if former president Donald Trump is elected in November.

The GOP platform released last month calls for banning trans people from competing in sports that align with their gender identities, prohibiting using taxpayer dollars to fund transition-related surgery and undoing new Title IX protections for LGBTQ students.

Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen is the executive director of the nonprofit Advocates for Trans Equality and was at the convention this week. He said in this election cycle trans people need to keep their “eyes on the prize.”

“At the end of the day, trans people are infinitely better off if we have Kamala Harris in the White House than if we have Donald Trump in the White House,” Heng-Lehtinen said. “That might sound obvious to say, but it is the truth, and we have to actively work to make that a reality or we’re going to face this dystopian alternative.”

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