Democrats must not abandon trans girls in sports

Taylor Kohn is an Iowan advocate and publicist currently residing in Minnesota.

On the first day of Rob Sand’s campaign for governor, he gave an interview to WHO Radio. When the host Simon Conway asked whether trans girls should be allowed to play sports, Sand replied with a flat “no.”

The comment was poorly received by many, prompting the Des Moines Register to reach out to Sand for an interview on the subject. Sand declined, instead providing a statement doubling down on his exclusionary stance: “I’ve been clear that I support common sense policies like the law protecting fairness in women’s sports, and that this year’s law legalizing discrimination in all places of life is wrong.”

It is, of course, dishonest to say in the same breath that one opposes discrimination and that a certain type of discrimination is “common sense.”

Sand’s support of the ban is not a trivial matter. The 2022 ban on trans girls and women in sports was the first anti-trans law the Iowa GOP successfully passed through the legislature. Republicans used sports to begin their project of systematically exiling trans people from public life, and just three years later they have made Iowa the first state to strip established civil rights from a protected group of people.

The sports ban cleared the way for trans children to lose health care, trans adults to lose Medicaid coverage, and trans people to lose legal protections from discrimination, including in basic areas like housing and employment. State Representative Steven Holt explicitly used the sports ban as his public-facing justification for revoking those legal protections, claiming in a newsletter that as long as trans people’s civil rights were intact, the ban was at risk of being found illegal and overturned.

Unfortunately, Rob Sand is not the only statewide Democratic candidate whose opposition to anti-trans legislation is noticeably weakening. State Senator Zach Wahls, now a candidate for U.S. Senate, recently appeared on the same WHO Radio program as Sand and received the same question about trans girls in sports. In response, Wahls (who voted against the 2022 legislation and spoke against it during the Senate debate) fell into a lengthy explanation of puberty and fairness as he saw them.

“I mean, Simon, I’m six foot five and I weigh 250 pounds, right. I’m a big guy, so I certainly understand that myself. What I will say is that I think at the state level we should be able to, at least here in Iowa—and this is what we voted on when we had this debate a few years ago—understand that there are different sports, different kids,” he said.

He went on like this, apparently trying to appease the anti-trans host without giving the same “no” as Sand. Ultimately, Wahls came off as wishy-washy and rambling. Conway still ended the exchange by lambasting him for being on “the wrong side.”

What Wahls evidently hasn’t learned is that conservative politicians and pundits do not really care about fairness in sports. Republicans have no intention of finding a way for everyone to play and they don’t engage with proposed “solutions.” Their actual policy goals have nothing to do with sports and everything to do with driving trans people into hiding.

Anti-trans actors commonly use sports as their introductory trans issue precisely because people like Sand and Wahls are susceptible to their euphemistic debate about “fairness.” Sports bans are an effective wedge issue—a divisive issue used to peel support from a broader group in order to weaken it. Just as they have in the legislature, conservatives will quickly move onto bathroom bans, healthcare bans, and more once they have browbeaten the opposition party into supporting the sports ban.

This is plain from the way the last few years of anti-trans legislation have unfolded, and its proponents are not secretive about it. “The women’s sports issue was really the beginning point in helping expose all this because what it did was, it got opponents of the LGBT movement comfortable with talking about transgender issues,” said Terry Schilling, president of the right-wing American Principles Project, in a 2022 interview with CNN.

It is crucial, both for trans people’s safety and for the unity of the coalition behind the Democrats, to recognize this tactic for what it is and refuse to fall for it.

Too many centrist pundits have spent months declaring that abandoning trans rights is the only way Democrats can win, but they are incorrect. We have recent history showing that supporting trans rights is not political poison and that opposing them is not the key to victory. There are several Trump-voting states with Democratic governors right now, notably Kentucky and Kansas. Both Andy Beshear and Laura Kelly vetoed anti-trans bills that reached their desks, condemning them as policies that would harm children. Both faced re-election just months after their vetoes and both won.

Iowa’s neighboring state of Nebraska provided an additional example just a couple of months ago. In May, voters in the city of Omaha ousted their three-term Republican incumbent mayor in favor of a Democrat. The Republican incumbent, Jean Stothert, ran anti-trans ads leading up to the election. The Democrat, John Ewing, messaged on economic issues while rejecting Stothert’s anti-trans attacks. The Nebraska Democrats came out swinging, calling Stothert “creepy” and “focused on potties.” “Ewing will make lives better by focusing on issues that impact all of us. Jean Stothert and her allies are sending hateful mail and pushing creepy bathroom bills,” one social media post from the party read. On election day, Ewing swept Stothert away by an 11-point margin.

We can learn from these elections. Democrats must stop allowing Republicans to make trans people into a subject for debate and must not throw their rights under the bus to do so. They must reject the premise that trans people’s existence is a problem in the state of Iowa. They should support restoring and expanding trans rights so that trans people can live as safely and comfortably as anyone else. And at every opportunity they should focus on the actual problems threatening Iowa, all of which the Republican party has a heavy hand in causing and would rather not address: farm pollution, cancer rates, the OB/GYN shortage, private school vouchers, and the carbon capture pipeline, just to name a few.

When they are asked directly about trans rights, Democrats must not capitulate like Sand, and they must not compromise and plead like Wahls. Instead, they must go on offense. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz demonstrated this to great effect in the early weeks of the Kamala Harris presidential campaign. Walz made headlines and drew positive attention by making fun of his opponents and calling them “weird,” a strategy that made him the most popular candidate on either presidential ticket.

Walz’s line of attack resonated for a reason. There is nothing fair, normal, or “common sense” about obsessing over people’s genitals, and plenty of people are energized when a candidate acknowledges this. It is weird to accost a stranger in a bathroom. It is creepy to insist a child must have a vulva to hit a softball off a tee. Republicans are the ones forcing intimate personal matters into the public discourse, not Democrats. They are, frankly, being weird.

Former Harris aides have admitted that, uncomfortable with Walz’s adversarial approach, the Harris-Walz campaign “put him in a box” during the months leading up to the election. “He was encouraged to stop focusing on the ‘weird’ criticism,” one aide told Politico. “I think it is fair to ask whether, even if ‘weird’ wasn’t quite right, his instinct about how to approach Trump, to make him seem small, and a huckster, wasn’t closer to correct.” This decision was one of the retreats to the middle that, ultimately, cost Democrats the 2024 presidential election. But it is not too late to learn from it in 2026.

Right now, Rob Sand appears to feel little accountability to his base, campaigning like the nomination is already his. Indeed, he is the front-runner, but by maintaining his stance on this issue he will leave a weaker state and party behind. The state of Iowa as imagined by Rob Sand is a place where both major political parties are willing to play games with trans people’s safety and dignity. This is not a decision he should get to make, and it is not one the party or the base has to accept. Other candidates, party members, and everyone with a stake in Iowa must stand firm on support for civil rights and refuse to let Sand—or any Democrat—trade them away.

Additional reading:

Midnight Zero: Iowa Bans Medicaid Coverage for Trans Healthcare

Erin In The Morning: The Trans Sports Attacks Were Never About Sports


Top photo (left) is cropped from Phil Roeder’s photo of Des Moines students protesting an anti-trans law on March 11, 2022. The uncropped image is available via Wikimedia Commons. Top photo of Rob Sand (right) is by Greg Hauenstein, also available via Wikimedia Commons.

About the Author(s)

Taylor Kohn

  • Trans people being abolished ?

    Taylor, I read your entire article. Wow it’s long it’s devoid of many facts.

    first off trans people that is quite a catchphrase. We are born male and female science has proven that is such XXXY chromosomes make up 98.3% of the world population, changing one’s appearance doesn’t make you the opposite sex your pelvic bone structure defines male versus female Adam’s apple or lack of define male versus female DNA male versus female men cannot carry babies in a womb. That is a female that does such men do not have uterus ,women do not have sperm nor do they have a penis again excepting 1.7% of the world population.

    You think by keeping men who identifies as females out of girls sports or women sports is trying to get rid of trans people? nice try you look at the bone structure the muscle structure in the overall strength of a man compared to the woman. We have seen it time and time again the easiest way to rectify this problem is to make a whole another entity of sports called transport. I have zero issue with that But trying to tell me that a man that’s 6’4 claims to the world he’s a woman playing against my daughter who’s 5’6in basketball volleyball or other sports fair and goes with the ruling of title 9 again it’s devoid of facts.
    No one saying trans people can’t live their lives the way they wish do as you wish. There’s people that call themselves furry but they’re not looking to get into sports as a furry. That would be unacceptable as well. Same with a litter box in a school if a child stay in high school claims they’re a furry and wants to go to the bathroom in the litter box. Do we appease that mental issue yes or no?

    It’s not just Iowa. That’s the problem with the Democrats you’re willing to die on this hill that is an 80/20 or 90/10 issue. Most people do not want men competing against women in sports taking away what these girls and women have worked for their entire lives to get beat by a male that place is not even in the top 50 or 75 in male competition Again the answer would be have your own transport but see that’s not what they want. They want to make this a political wedge and it’s going to make the Democrats continue to lose.

    Men and women who have daughters do not want males in women, bathrooms, or in women showers no girls should have to go through that again. Have Tran shower trans bathroom trying to think that if you scream loud enough that this is some kind of way of reading the world of transgender people there’s been cross dressers since the beginning of time I’m willing to bet, but none of them tried to portray in sports or a wet in a bathroom to the largest degree that they belong in the opposite sex, changing with women.

    There is nothing served for the good of the people by having males competing against women in women’s sports and again yes this is nothing but a political bitch because it trans people wanted to compete sports we can just make a trans sport classification

  • Spot On

    Not sure what point the top comment is trying to make. They seemed to be obsessed with what is inside people’s pants and didn’t read your article. The conversation of gender and sex is multi-faceted and ought to include a conversation of epigenetics as well.

    I agree that any Democrat worth anything needs to listen to the majority of their base.
    Sand will lose this election because he’ll spend his time trying to grab 5% of the centrist vote in an attempt to pander some united vision of Iowa instead of trying to resuscitate and reenergize a party on the brink. I suppose he’ll try and bring that Zionist Fetterman back to Raygun. I’m sure the young democrats (like the ones we need to stay in this state post graduation) will love that.

    I am generally very skeptical of Sand. I hope for everyone I am wrong about him.

  • I don't see evidence that Sand is throwing people under the bus

    insomuch as this implies that he is going against what he knows to be right/true, he seems to be genuinely right-wing on this and other issues like the public-health/environment (still trying to find out if he supports or opposed school vouchers). But the general gist of the post is quite right for more actually (if only slightly) left of center folks like Wahls who should know better (reactionary propagandists like Rufo have been quite open about using this relative non-issue, so few kids really involved, as a wedge to push for more extreme measures).
    On a more general note Sand’s whole campaign against the (as he says) “poison” of the democrats agenda certainly supports “Right now, Rob Sand appears to feel little accountability to his base, campaigning like the nomination is already his. Indeed, he is the front-runner, but by maintaining his stance on this issue he will leave a weaker state and party behind.” why are our elected Dems and other party officials letting this man trash them (and those of us who they are supposed to represent)
    across this state?

  • I thought Laura Belin did a good job some days ago...

    …of laying out a numerical voter-registration case that winning a statewide race in Iowa in 2026 will require getting a significant number of votes from voters who are not registered as Democrats.

    Is there an alternative numerical case that there are a lot of Iowans who are eligible to vote but are currently not registered, but who will register and get to the polls and vote Democratic if they are inspired by the right candidate, thereby making votes from Republicans and Independents unnecessary to win a statewide race in 2026? Because from what I remember of Laura’s post, that would sound highly optimistic.

  • Reply to PrairieFan

    I’m responding to the above comment assuming that the implication is that Rob Sand needs to be transphobic in order to win over Republican and Independent voters and secure victory, as I’m not sure how else this would be relevant to my post.

    I clearly addressed in the post that oppressing trans people does not have a history of being a winning issue in red states. Kansas, Kentucky, and Omaha are all recent examples I described. If transphobia was a non-negotiable for Republican and Independent voters, those elections would have turned out differently.

    There is no evidence that hating trans people is a high-priority issue for any voters. The politicians and pundits who say otherwise either have a personal interest in eradicating trans people and/or recognize that the time the media spends fearmongering about them is time that they don’t spend covering, for example, how unaffordable it is for almost everyone to live right now.

    The answer to this is not to roll over and jettison trans people from the coalition. It’s to fight back.

    (Also, I strongly suspect there *is* depressed would-be Dem turnout in the state from years of Democrats becoming Republicans while Republicans become fascists. But if so, there’s certainly no way to test that theory by running Sand.)

  • I Googled “announced candidates for Iowa governor.”

    I Googled “announced candidates for Iowa governor.” There are several articles, but I read an Iowa Capital Dispatch post from June 3. That’s a month and a half ago.

    In addition to Rob Sand, the 68-year-old Julie Stauch was mentioned. She has a track record of working for big-name Democrats as far back as Bill Clinton. As per the ICD, “her top issues heading into the campaign are improving Iowa’s water quality, supporting public schools, addressing current problems in Iowa’s health care system and protecting eminent domain. However, she said her goal on the campaign trail was learn what issues Iowans want their governor to champion.”

    I like that list, but it’s the same as Chet, Jack, Fred, and Deidre, and we’ve (Iowa) slipped into the gutter on each of these since 2010. My biggest concern is having a candidate, for once, who can win, and lead a climb out of the deep, deep hole Reynolds has dug. As I recall, Republicans first big retreat from the policies of yesteryear was the privatization of Medicaid and the near elimination of Chapter 20.

    Asking Sand or Wahls first thing about trans-athletics is a gotcha question. I don’t like the firm “no.” Every kid who shows up to play sports should be allowed to participate in an athletic competition — some where some how.

    For me, the best analogy on the question of fairness is the weight classes in the boys or girls wrestling programs. We don’t ask a 120# wrestler to pair off with a 190-pounder. As I recall, Iowa had little/no problem with girls in boy’s wrestling up until there were enough girls who wanted to wrestle and the state created a girl’s program. I guess if a boy wanted to participate in the girl’s wrestling squad, we’d have to let him, limited by weight classifications. If the “boy” (by Midwesterners standards) presented as a transgender girl, I’d advise the IGHSAU to green light her participation.

    But every sport is a bit different. In California, the state made a rule for the state girl’s track and field meet, knowing trans-athletes would want to participate. Where the trans-girl won, both she and the runner up non-trans girl were awarded first place and stood side by side on the podium. There was grumbling, but no shots were fired. Of course, Iowa is not California.

    I think we as a state are in a deep hole. A large portion of the electorate believes transgender people are only pretending, and have hardened their feelings. The majority legislature was so entrenched in anti-trans attitudes that they disenfranchised trans-people from the Civil Rights Code.

    We have a long ways to go to re-establish the legitimacy of trans-people. In the meantime, if the Republicans retain the trifecta, expect a full on attack on all LBGTQ rights, including the legality of same-sex marriages. The Republicans will make these “culture issues” their shield from any legislation about improving Iowa’s water quality, supporting public schools, addressing current problems in Iowa’s health care system and protecting eminent domain.

    I won’t be joining those who want to dismiss either Rob Sands or Julie Stauch, or any other Democrat who steps forward. Now is not the time to winnow the electorate into pockets over any one issue. As Laura reminds, the numbers are not very good, regardless of unanimity in the base. One of those candidates will win the primary and will get my vote in November 2026.

  • Taylor Kohn

    I was not responding to your post. I should have made that clear. I was responding to the two comments that seemed to be implying (and apologies to the commenters if I was wrong) that it is not necessary or even desirable for statewide candidates to try to appeal to centrists at all, in general.

  • No title

    In 2024, Marianette Miller-Meeks’ television and social media ad on transgender athletes ran repeatedly. It was likely her most-run ad during the entire election cycle, and probably for this reason: it worked. She did not mention gender identity, same-sex marriage, LGBTQ+ lifestyles, etc., but she beat the drum of transgender athletes into a bloody pulp. GOP candidates nationwide did (and continue to do) the same thing. One of the first things Donald Trump did as President in his second term was to sign an executive order, with great fanfare, banning transgender athletes from playing sports outside of their birth gender. Yet how many transgender athletes are there in Iowa’s schools? Five? A dozen? The number is tiny.

    Yet Democrats have been effectively dog-whistled by the GOP on transgender athletes for years now. The GOP created the bait, and we took it. Even the most liberal-minded people I know want sports competitions to be fair and on a level playing field. They recognize the physical differences between males and females in sports. Yet being opposed to transgender athletes competing in sports outside their birth gender does not make a person transphobic. Indeed, it should be perfectly acceptable for any Democrat (or person) in Iowa to oppose a ban on same-sex marriage, support non-discrimination policies and civil rights for LGBTQ+ citizens, AND at the same time, oppose transgender athletes from competing in sports outside their birth gender.

    I hope this issue of transgender athletes competing in sports, either inside or outside their birth gender, does not become a litmus test for the Democratic Party. If so, the Republicans have already won and will remain laughing to the Statehouse.

  • Reply to obe1katobe

    “it should be perfectly acceptable for any Democrat (or person) in Iowa to oppose a ban on same-sex marriage, support non-discrimination policies and civil rights for LGBTQ+ citizens, AND at the same time, oppose transgender athletes from competing in sports outside their birth gender.”

    No, it shouldn’t. Unequivocally, no, it should not be acceptable for anyone to jettison trans rights from their LGBTQ support. None of us are safe if you’re willing to throw some of us overboard. You are incorrect.

  • Reply to Taylor Kohn

    I’m not incorrect…you and I disagree. I believe opposing transgender athletes from participating in sports outside their birth gender is not transphobic. You believe it is. A disagreement, not “I’m right and you’re wrong.”

    In every other context, I support trans citizens’ rights to marry within their chosen gender, to be educated, to serve in the military, to live and work just like non-trans citizens. Those rights are now in jeopardy because the Republicans have quite successfully used trans girls in sports as a wedge against trans rights in general. I will agree with you on one thing…none of us are safe, but not because trans girls participating in girls’ sports are being thrown overboard. No, instead, the whole trans rights/civil rights boat in Iowa is sinking. Wahls and Sands (and I and others) are trying to stop it from doing so, or else we all drown. No litmus test on trans girls in sports, Democrats, unless we want to continue losing elections.

  • People

    are generally not well informed or educated on what the science has discovered and explained in the past few decades around gender biology.

    Sex “as a spectrum” appears from the science to be true (at least as a rough analogy,) but it’s not easy for the average straight heterosexual Joe to wrap their head around that.

    Thus, it’s damned easy to demagogue it.

    By the same type of people who once made it illegal for a black person to drink from a public water fountain.

    I love track and field. I believe black people tend to be able to run faster than white people, especially in the shorter distances. Look at the record books.

    So what? I don’t give a shit; I just like watching the best compete.

    I wish Rob would reevaluate.

    But like Gerald, I would not dismiss Sand over this. Biden figured out the civil rights issue of gay marriage before Obama did. People of generally good intent, honesty, and a willingness to learn can sometimes change their mind about stuff, given time.

  • Taylor Kohn your an ALL or nothing person ?

    Yes you can have a life in which in you choose to live as a man or a woman in this country , but because YOU or others choose to state things that have been labeled and still labeled as gender dysphoria doesn’t mean YOU get to do things that hurt others in the process .

    Sports do just that and again as others have pointed out, if you think that that vast majority of Americans are for men who believe they are a woman in their minds are able to beat up on woman I sports, or share bathrooms will ever be acceptable , because some wish to fear monger others saying you will die if we use common sense is gaslighting massively and the vast majority see that .

    People do not and will not allow men to steal from woman in sporting events and the vast majority doesn’t want men /boys in girls/woman safe spaces . Fact .

    So live your life ass you choose as a man or woman so as long as that doesn’t hinder or interfere with the lives of girls and woman. Simple really.

  • No title

    https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/magazine/scotus-transgender-care-tennessee-skrmetti.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap#

    This article, out of today’s New York Times Magazine, should be required reading for anyone interested in the issue of transgenderism and transgender rights.. It’s a long read but it outlines very clearly the evolution of transgender rights in the U.S. and the world, and the fault lines on both the left and the right (and within each camp) on transgenderism.

  • obe1katobe

    Thank you for that link. The article is indeed very long, but for me, it was worth the time.

  • I am wondering

    if Midwest Conservative has the same reservations if a man has fully transitioned into a female?

  • Basic Human Rights & Bodily Autonomy

    If Sands is going to continue to hardline his anti-trans position, and it IS anti-trans, then there is no way in hell I’d vote for him. The same goes for every other Dem (i.e. Repugnican Lite) who steps up on the anti-trans platform.

    If anyone believes that this isn’t going to spread like an infectious disease to other marginalized groups, they’re deluding themselves.

    All we have to do is look at women and bodily autonomy. It started out with abortion restrictions (22 weeks, 24 weeks, etc.), then it morphed to overturning Roe V. Wade, 6 week abortion bans, doctors unwilling to perform medically necessary procedures when faced with potential death of the mother, and even doctors refusing to care for a patient just because she’s not married (which just happened in TN).

    It’s not a slippery slope, it’s a boulder creating a landslide and every single group with the exception of cis-hetero, white, Christian men could easily be the next target.

  • If the major-party candidates turn out to be Rob Sand and Randy Feenstra, which seems likely, I will vote for Sand.

    Randy Feenstra may win, but if he does, I have no intention of spending his four-year term knowing that I helped put him in office by not voting for the general-election candidate who had the best chance of beating him.

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