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Bill Maher is a comedian, not a politician. And yet, his words ring surprisingly true on the jam Democrats find themselves in over transgender extremism. “You … want to lose every election? Just keep coming down on the side of parents coming in second [in] a ‘Who gets to decide what goes on with my kid contest.’ … I’m not even a parent, and I get it,” he told Jon Lovett. So do most Americans, new polling shows.

In the latest batch of bad news for Joe Biden’s party, the Democrats’ trans fixation is becoming even more radioactive than it was before the November elections. According to AP-NORC (which is no friend to conservatives), 68% of Americans believe that someone is a man or woman based on “their biological characteristics at birth,” including 44% of Democrats. That’s a staggering reversal from 2022, when an Economist/YouGov found that 66% of the party believed sex at birth didn’t define a person. Now, three years — and several alarming studies later — the Democrats’ grassroots support for radical gender identity is evaporating before our eyes, clocking in 12 points lower at 54%.

Just as importantly, 66% of Americans either somewhat or strongly oppose taxpayer-funded gender transition treatments for children — something that’s currently being debated in the House’s “one, big, beautiful bill.” Interestingly, the survey notes that it isn’t just majorities of Independents and Republicans who object to forcing hard-working Americans to bankroll mutilating treatments for kids, but most Democrats (44% to 30%) too. Another 53% reject the Left’s idea that taxpayers should be on the hook for adults’ drugs, hormones, or surgeries.

These statistics are all wildly out of step with the Dems’ messaging, which doomed them back in 2024 — and seems to be driving an even bigger wedge with voters now. Despite the overwhelming tide against this agenda, the party of Minority Leaders Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) march stubbornly on to the beat of their radical drum. If they’re hoping to be competitive in the midterm elections, that’ll have to change.

And as much as their base may despise Donald Trump, Democrats need to come to the realisation that the movement against trans ideology is largely a bipartisan one. Those key demographics that both parties are fighting for — suburban moms, young people, Independents, females, and blacks — are openly breaking for Trump’s commonsense policy.

In fact, one fascinating nugget of the AP poll spells out just how ludicrous the Left’s go-it-alone attitude is on LGBT activism. “Interestingly,” the authors write, “19 percent of Democrats approve of Trump’s handling of the transgender issue, even though only nine percent approve of his overall job as president.” In other words, the president’s agenda on this subject outpolls even his own popularity among the Left’s voters.

And what are Democrats doing? Leaning into this issue that virtually everyone is walking away from. Worse, in some instances, they’re carrying the water for these wildly controversial policies that the president is rolling back. Just in the last two weeks, two vulnerable Democrats — Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff and Michigan Congresswoman Haley Stevens — signed on as original co-sponsors of the Equality Act, which wouldn’t just force girls to compete against biological boys (which is an 80% issue in America) or encourage schools to hide gender identity from parents, it would actually make transgenderism a protected class in law. Who in their right mind would make this a cornerstone of their campaign right now — when the backlash against the woke, LGBT fanaticism is at its highest, most punishing levels?

FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter can only shake his head. Democrats, he argues, are “isolated and outdated” on the trans issue. “For years, almost every poll shows their positions underwater — and by a lot.” And let’s not forget, he told The Washington Stand, “There are 13 Democrats in the House who won in 2024 and are up for reelection in 2026, and two Democratic Senate seats up in 2026 in states Trump won in 2024: Georgia and Michigan. Swing voters in these 15 races will be inundated with campaign messaging in 2026 about where the Democratic Party is on men in women’s sports, gender transitions for children, and more.” Frankly, he added, “The fact that almost one in five Democrats agree with how President Trump has handled the transgender issue should keep Democrat campaign strategists up at night.”

A quick look at the landscape in the states ought to show party leaders that the country has already shifted. In deep blue California, 65% of voters — including nearly half of Democrats — want men out of their daughters’ sports. Three thousand miles away in New York, there’s so much momentum for the issue that three sane Democrats joined Republicans to move a bill out of committee that would end this insanity at the pools, tracks, and courts.

Mark Mitchell, the chief pollster for Rasmussen, pointed out on Wednesday’s “Washington Watch” that the American people aren’t nearly as left-of-center as the Democratic Party. “Donald Trump won on a whole lot of no-brainers,” he said. “Border invasions. Super unpopular, right? Transing the kids. Super unpopular. Overspending in the government. [Same thing.]” So the problem for Jeffries, Schumer, and the fundraisers at the DNC is that the president has “really great favorability numbers right now.”

When asked if the country is headed in the right direction, “[It’s] off the charts better than it’s been in 20 years.” And there’s one simple reason: these are commonsense issues. And if Democrats want to experience a midterm revival, they’ll have to realise it.

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Republished with thanks to The Washington Stand. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.