Mar 10, 2025 - Politics & Policy

Exclusive: LGBTQ+ advocacy groups call on DNC to "do more" to defend rights

Erin Doherty

Participants march down University Avenue during the Drag March for Trans Rights at Urban Mo's Bar & Grill on June 18, 2023 in San Diego, California. — Participants march down University Avenue during the Drag March for Trans Rights at Urban Mo's Bar & Grill on June 18, 2023 in San Diego, Calif. Photo: Daniel Knighton/Getty Images

The Human Rights Campaign and other LGBTQ+ advocacy groups called on the Democratic Party "to do more" to stand up for LGBTQ+ rights in a letter viewed first by Axios, as a widening rift within the party grows over its stances on rights it's long sought to protect.

Why it matters: The party's progressive wing is calling on leaders to stand firm with the LGBTQ+ community under repeated attacks from the Trump administration. Some top Democrats have drifted rightward in an apparent attempt to make sense of the 2024 election losses.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), considered a 2028 presidential contender, broke with the mainstream Democratic Party view last week when he said on a podcast that transgender women and girls playing in women's sports was "deeply unfair."
The groups sending the letter to the Democratic National Committee include leaders of advocacy groups such as PFLAG, GLAAD, Advocates for Trans Equality, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and Equality California.

Driving the news: The letter from more than half a dozen leaders of LGBTQ+ advocacy groups calls it "unacceptable ... for prominent Democrats to give cover to anti-LGBTQ+ arguments."

"Since the election, a small but vocal number of Democratic officials seem to have wavered on their conviction that LGBTQ+ people deserve the equal protection of the laws," the letter reads.
"Some have suggested a strategy of appeasement: that compromising with a little bit of discrimination against a particularly misunderstood and powerless segment of our community could satisfy anti-equality opponents."
"The future of the Democratic Party must be one that believes in the civil rights and freedoms of all, and shows up for communities who are the target of misinformation, hate and bullying from extremist actors," the letter continues.

State of play: Newsom's comments last week put into public view the growing debate within the Democratic Party over transgender athletes competing in girls' and women's sports.

His comments came after the 2024 presidential campaign, in which the Trump campaign spent millions on ads criticizing transgender women and girls in sports, and saying that "Kamala is for they/them, Donald Trump is for you."
Trump, who in his first weeks in office has signed a flurry of executive orders targeting the trans community, signed an order last month denying federal funds for schools that allow trans women or girls to compete in athletics based on their gender identity.

Go deeper: Dems' growing divide over trans rights, DEI

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Exclusive: LGBTQ+ advocacy groups call on DNC to "do more" to defend rights

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