The Democratic Party has a problem: Americans are increasingly repelled by transgenderism.

Between 2022 and 2025, the average American’s favorability toward restrictions on transgender policies rose significantly. Support fell both for requiring insurance companies to cover gender reassignment procedures and for protecting trans individuals from job and housing discrimination.

The Democrats’ only long-term strategy is the faint hope that radical gender ideology will vanish into the cultural ether.

All of this happened as the share of Americans who consider it morally acceptable to change one’s gender has fallen from 46% to 40% since 2021.

This drop in support is seen in younger generations too. Eric Kaufmann found that between 2022 and 2025, the number of trans-identifying college students fell by half. The decline was even sharper at elite institutions: At Phillips Academy in Andover, the number of trans-identifying students fell from 9.2% in 2023 to a mere 3% in 2025.

At Brown University, the number of nonbinary students was nearly halved between 2023 and 2025. The data highly suggests those rates will continue to fall.

The Democrats’ problem grows more acute when considering the opposition to trans ideology from groups like Gays Against Groomers and the LGB Alliance. They are some of the most vocal advocates against drag queen story hours for children, gender reassignment surgeries, and cross-sex hormones for children. Their stand demonstrates to moderates that progressive gender ideology was always a radical, far-left movement.

All of this has put Democrats in an awkward position. The party fought hard to add transgender colors to the Pride flag, pushed to allow men to compete in women’s sports, and declared Easter Sunday “Trans Day of Visibility.” But as Americans withdraw support for transgenderism, the Democrats’ trans advocacy has become an electoral liability.

Though some Democrats like Rep. Seth Moulton (Mass.) argued after the 2024 election that the party’s over-the-top trans activism alienated voters, the party hasn’t backed away. Even as Democrats shift from their “party of empathy” messaging — which was meant to counter Trump’s “fascist,” muscular MAGA movement, now giving way to figures like Maine’s Graham Platner — their support for trans ideology has stayed consistent.

James Talarico, perhaps the Democrats’ last major pure empathy candidate, strongly supports transgenderism, though his stance has become noticeably awkward in his fight against Ken Paxton for the U.S. Senate in Texas. Recent reporting has revealed that Talarico’s church library is filled with pro-trans books aimed at children. And then there are his comments that “God is nonbinary” and that there’s nothing he “loves more than trans kids.”

Meanwhile, the gruff, populist Graham Platner, covered in tattoos and emphasizing his service in the U.S. Marine Corps, has centered his campaign around a Bernie Sanders-like socialist populism. But he still firmly backs trans rights. At a campaign event in 2025, Platner said, “I stand right in the f**king way of anyone who’s going to try to come after the freedoms of the LGBTQIA+ community.”

Though Platner and Talarico are almost complete opposites in aesthetic and presentation, neither is willing to abandon his support for transgenderism, even though it’s an increasingly unpopular issue for the average American voter.

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Democrats cannot openly denounce transgenderism, because they still have to keep the trans constituency in their electoral fold. They are stuck with people like transgender Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), whose political identity is built on trans advocacy.

The Platner wing of the party, which seeks to represent the average, working-class American, won’t make trans advocacy a key campaign issue. But this wing will never denounce transgenderism either. The Democrats’ only long-term strategy is the faint hope that radical gender ideology will vanish into the cultural ether.

The party can’t admit it was wrong. To do so would mean admitting to being complicit in child mutilation and pushing biological falsehoods. Running against the same ideology the Democrats spent years promoting would alienate the far left, whose support for transgenderism remains staunch.

So the Democrats are scrambling to de-emphasize their trans activism as they shift toward a more populist approach. But their overemphasis on transgender ideology will haunt them for years.

Conservatives need to press the Democrats on why they backed trans so aggressively, championing the stories of survivors and highlighting the lifelong consequences gender reassignment surgeries bring. Woke is not dead, and the trans issue remains a live one for Democrats.

Editor’s note: This article was published originally at the American Mind.