Transphobia backfired at the ballot box last year. Has the culture-war rhetoric lost its power?
Every time an extremist politician attacks a transgender kid to score political points, they are counting on silence. They expect no one to fight back. They assume cruelty will go unanswered.
They’re wrong.
Transgender Americans make up roughly one percent of the U.S. population, yet in a moment defined by economic anxiety and political dysfunction, the trans community, especially kids, has been turned into a punching bag by extremist politicians. In 2025 alone, more than 600 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced in state legislatures. These are coordinated attempts to legislate fear, erase dignity, and villainize trans people out of public life.
Elected officials who claim to believe in the sanctity of human life – in freedom, in liberty, and in justice for all – continue to deny transgender Americans basic freedoms and rights. And the consequences are deadly. Between November 2023 and November 2024, at least 36 transgender and gender-expansive people were killed. Half of them were Black trans women. Further, transgender youth report significantly increased rates of depression and suicidality compared to their cisgender peers. These attacks are not abstract cultural debates; they are creating a measurable crisis in people’s lives.
That crisis is why we decided to fight back.
I am part of a team of political strategists who launched Fight for Our Rights PAC to defeat anti-LGBTQ+ bullies where it hurts them most: at the ballot box. This organization seeks to defeat candidates who proudly run on transphobic hate – those who sponsor bans on gender-affirming care, who push so-called “parents’ rights” bills designed to isolate trans kids, and who use their platforms to demean and dehumanize people simply trying to live.
This is a moral fight, and it goes beyond transphobia. We know that those who seek to remove what little protections the transgender community has secured will not stop there. These same factions are already setting their sights on marriage equality and beyond, but our strategy is working.
In 2025, Republicans spent millions of dollars on anti-trans ads. The Republican gubernatorial candidate in Virginia, Winsome Earle-Sears, spent a whopping 57% of her entire media budget on them.
The attack lines were familiar: fearmongering about bathrooms, sports, and kids who just want to exist. And voters rejected it. Every one of the six bullies on the ballots we targeted in Virginia and New Jersey – including Mark Earley Jr., uno, Nancy Muñoz, and Michele Matsikoudis – lost and were replaced by equality supporters. Voters in those states sent a clear message: They want leaders who protect kids, not politicians who pick on them.
From the beginning, we deliberately chose not to center our campaigns on trans people as a political debate. Extremist politicians want that fight. They flood the airwaves with fear because they believe it will distract voters from their own records. We refused to help them do that.
Instead, we focused on accountability. Voters consistently prioritized affordability, health care, and economic security over culture-war attacks, even in races saturated with anti-trans messaging. Many of the lawmakers attacking trans kids had long voting records that were deeply out of step with their districts. By focusing on those records, we kept the conversation on leadership, competence, and the issues voters face every day.
We showed voters the full record. In Virginia, that meant exposing lawmakers who sided with Big Pharma to keep prescription drug prices high, voted against paid family and medical leave, and pushed extreme abortion bans with no exceptions. In New Jersey, it meant holding candidates accountable for aligning with far-right agendas while ignoring local priorities. Once voters saw that pattern, the culture-war rhetoric lost its power.
These victories were not accidents, but rather the results of disciplined strategy: anticipating attacks, testing messaging, responding clearly and immediately, and then turning the conversation back to what voters actually care about – safety, the economy, stability, and freedom.
While too many candidates still freeze or fumble when asked about trans people, our allies showed what courage looks like: refusing to take the bait, refusing to backpedal, and refusing to let extremists define the narrative. That is how you beat bullies.
And to the young trans people reading this: You are not alone.
There are adults across this country waking up every morning determined to make life safer for you. We are fighting for your dignity, your joy, your future. This fight is unfortunately far from over, but we will not stop.
Chris Cormier Maggiano, President and Founder of Cormier & Company, advises funders, issue advocates, and movement leaders to achieve their policy, political, and philanthropic goals. As a donor advisor and political strategist, Chris specializes in the intersection of progressive public policy, national campaigns, and funder engagement. Chris serves on the board of the Movement Advancement Project and lives in New York City with his husband, daughter, and squirrel-obsessed Pointer Hound, Easton. Chris holds a bachelor’s in architecture from Carnegie Mellon University and is an avid New England sports fan.