Rep. Seth Moulton draws transgender primary foe as Democrats struggle with fairness in girls’ sports

A handful of Democrats have sounded the alarm on transgender athletes in the aftermath of the November elections, but their party is showing no sign of reversing its support for biological males who identify as female in girls’ and women’s sports.

Ask Rep. Seth Moulton. The Massachusetts Democrat raised the fairness issue a day after the party took a thrashing in the Nov. 5 elections. He said he didn’t want his daughters “getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.”

Instead of winning over his fellow liberals, he was hit with a backlash that now includes a transgender primary opponent: Bethany Andres-Beck, a software engineer who uses “they” pronouns and identifies as “agender, trans, queer, and proudly Unitarian-Universalist.”

The political newcomer described Mr. Moulton’s comments as the “tipping point” in deciding to run for office.

“When we beat Seth Moulton, we’ll prove what should’ve been obvious all along: trans people aren’t political props — we’re leaders,” the Andres-Beck campaign said in a statement to the Marblehead Current.

The congressman has yet to follow up on his talk with action. In January, the House passed a bill clarifying that Title IX applies to biological sex, not gender identity. Mr. Moulton voted “nay.”

He said in a statement that the bill was “too extreme.” Only two Democrats — Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, who represent toss-up districts in Texas — voted in favor of the legislation.

Q&A: Meet Bethany Andres-Beck, the political newcomer hoping to oust Seth Moulton https://t.co/i2oT2KTXCv

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The episode illustrates Democrats’ conundrum as they try to avoid another drubbing on the transgender athlete issue in the 2026 midterm elections without infuriating the potent LGBTQ movement.

Paul Dupont, policy director for the conservative American Principles Project, said the Moulton situation “shows the difficult position Democrats are in.”

“They know how unpopular their stance is on women’s sports, and they saw that play out in the last election,” Mr. Dupont told The Washington Times. “But they have become beholden to a far-left activist class that continues to demand ideological purity, and the challenge to Moulton is meant to send a signal to other Democrats about what will happen if they even talk about changing their views.”

With Republicans pushing their advantage on an 80/20 issue — polling shows 79% of voters oppose biological males in female sports — a few Democrats have braved the left’s wrath by expressing fairness concerns, starting with California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

In March, Mr. Newsom called biological males in female sports “deeply unfair,” but he disappeared from the debate as his state doubled down on its support for transgender athletes.

Democratic lawmakers voted in April to kill two bills that would have banned biological males from girls’ teams, locker rooms and bathrooms. The state has waged a legal battle against the Trump administration’s efforts to keep transgender athletes out of female sports.

In May, the California Interscholastic Federation allowed a transgender athlete to win two girls’ titles at the state track-and-field championships, with no public comment from Mr. Newsom.

Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, another Democrat with his eye on the White House, said last month under questioning from conservative podcast host Megyn Kelly that a man cannot become a woman.

“Can a man become a woman? No,” Mr. Emanuel said. He added with a laugh, “I’m now going to have to go into a witness protection plan.”

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has floated a compromise approach by acknowledging the fairness problem and suggesting eligibility rules based on individual sports and age groups.

“I think most reasonable people would recognize that there are serious fairness issues if you just treat this as not mattering when a trans athlete wants to compete in women’s sports,” Mr. Buttigieg said last month on NPR’s “Morning Edition.”

He also framed the issue as local, declaring that “these decisions should be in the hands of sports leagues and school boards and not politicians.”

The problem? School boards and interscholastic sports leagues must abide by state law. Their hands are tied in Democratic-led states by laws banning discrimination based on gender identity, and in Republican-led states by laws prohibiting biological males from competing in female sports.

School boards are also subject to federal law, namely Title IX, which bans sex discrimination in education. The Trump administration has taken the position that “sex” for purposes of Title IX means biological sex. The Biden administration held that “sex” included gender identity.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of Democrats continue to support allowing student-athletes to compete based on gender identity in scholastic sports.

“There seem to be a few strategies emerging. One, which Democrats like Newsom, Emanuel and others have been pursuing, has been to feign concern about the issue rhetorically,” Mr. Dupont said. “Another has been to simply avoid talking about the issue altogether. And a few stubborn, far-left Democrats are still trying to label Republicans as the extremists.”

Mr. Moulton was pilloried after he expressed frustration with the outcome of the Nov. 5 elections by declaring that the party needs to change its approach on the issue.

“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,” he told The New York Times in a Nov. 6 article.

Protesters besieged his district office in Salem. The Salem mayor and Salem School Committee members denounced him, and a Salem city councilor called for him to resign. His campaign manager, Matt Chilliak, reportedly quit in response.

Mr. Moulton said afterward that the “backlash proves my point [that] Democrats have a problem even discussing difficult issues.” He softened his tone in subsequent interviews.

“Look, I was just speaking authentically as a parent about one of many issues where Democrats are just out of touch with the majority of Americans,” he said in a Nov. 11 appearance on CNN. “And I stand by my position, even though I may not have used exactly the right words.”

Mr. Moulton hasn’t burned all his bridges on the left. His campaign website says the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ group, has endorsed his reelection bid instead of his transgender challenger.

The Washington Times has reached out to Mr. Moulton, the HRC and the Andres-Beck campaign for comment.

The good news for Republicans is that Democrats appear poised to enter another election cycle as the party of Lia Thomas and not Riley Gaines.

“Democrats have continued to oppose every effort to protect girls’ sports,” Mr. Dupont said, “and it may take them losing another election or two before that changes.”