We Need More Pro-Trans Politicians. This Group Thinks It Knows How to Get Them.

Por Elsie Carson-Holt — The Nation » Article

Politics

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October 6, 2026

We Need More Pro-Trans Politicians. This Group Thinks It Knows How to Get Them.

Talking to Tyler Hack, who leads the nation’s only political action group dedicated solely to getting trans rights supporters elected.

Elsie Carson-Holt

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Tyler Hack spent the 2024 election watching Republicans villainize transgender Americans, and Democrats distance themselves from trans people, or worse, join in.

“I was at fundraisers and meetings with members of Congress for the Democratic Party where I was the only trans person in the room,” said Hack. “Democrats threw trans people under the bus for the election loss not because of Republican millionaires or because of corporations ripping us off, but because of trans kids. We knew that we couldn’t wait for political power.”

Hack founded the Christopher Street Project, the only operating political action group focused solely on trans rights. Hack said she created the Christopher Street Project to elect pro-trans candidates and hold politicians accountable. The organization focuses on training its candidates on how to use effective, committed pro-trans messaging. The primary winners Hack and her organization have supported and campaigned with include New York’s Brad Lander and Claire Valdez, Minnesota’s Peggy Flanagan, and Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed.

Last month, Hack celebrated a particularly sweet victory after incumbent Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey trounced his challenger, Representative Seth Moulton, in the state’s Democratic primary election. It was Moulton who, less than 48 hours after Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election, infamously told The New York Times, “I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”

Hack spent the early weeks of September stumping for Markey, who made Moulton’s comments a key theme of his campaign. She then kicked off Markey’s victory rally.

“He wanted a promotion, and he got fired,” said Hack of Moulton. “Seth Moulton got booed at No Kings in 2025 while Markey showed up wearing a trans flag around his neck. Trans rights was the issue for this election.”

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But the Massachusetts Senate primary is only one race. With the midterms coming up, I talked to Hack about what the political landscape for trans rights looks like, why Republicans attack the trans community, and the playbook for getting pro-trans candidates into office.

—Elsie Carson-Holt

Elsie Carson-Holt: Can you introduce yourself and your organization?

Tyler Hack: My name is Tyler Hack. I am the founder and executive director of the Christopher Street Project. There was a question after 2024 of whether trans people still belonged in the Democratic Party, whether we would go the way of the Labour Party in the UK, and we, as members of the Democratic Party, are doing the opposite. We said Democrats who don’t stand with us, especially in safe seats, don’t stand by our democratic values.

ECH: What’s at stake in terms of trans healthcare and trans rights, looking at the upcoming midterm elections?

We need to prove that Democrats can win without throwing our community under the bus. It doesn’t mean that a Democrat in a swing seat is saying all trans kids should play all levels of sports, regardless of league rules and school boards. But it looks like saying, “This is a gross thing to be focused on. This is not what I’m running about. Why are we talking about this issue when no one can afford anything?”

The rights rollback that we have seen in the last two years has been the consequence of an electoral defeat. The Republican Party is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on anti-trans ads. It is quite grim. My goal is that this cycle will emerge with a few examples of people who ran in tough seats, didn’t abdicate on our rights, and won. I think that builds a successful playbook for 2028. If we’re going to take back our rights and freedoms, it means competing on the same battlefield on which they took our rights from.

ECH: How do you get pro-trans candidates elected? What is the playbook used to build a pro-trans Congress?

TH: Number one, we broaden the conversation. I think that we need to elect more queer people, particularly trans people. We have one trans federal elected official in the history of this country, and that’s going to change. We’re organizing and preparing to elect more trans members of Congress in future cycles. But when you look at the records of the people who are fighting for us in DC, many of them are not queer. Our first endorsement was Adelita Grijalva in Arizona Seven. She ran against two queer candidates, but she had the strongest record of delivering for trans youth and really all marginalized people.

That kind of success story shows what it looks like to build a pro-trans Congress: approaching someone whose life looks different than mine, and yet has the courage to stand up for what is right. Building a pro-trans Congress looks like working with those folks just as much as we work with the queer members of Congress. Some of them have trans family members. Some of them don’t. Some of them just know what’s right and are willing to fight for it.

I think there is no pro-trans Congress without a strong Democratic majority. But we also know that we need the right kind of Democrats.

ECH: Who are the “right kind” of Democrats?

TH: People who are unafraid to stand up for what’s right, even when consultants are telling them not to. People who will look at a trans kid and see them as a human being instead of a political prop. People who are willing to organize colleagues around that idea. People who know an inclusive democracy doesn’t leave anyone behind.

The Markey versus Moulton race is a repudiation of a type of age politics that says we only want young people [Markey is 80 years old, Moulton 47]. No, we want people who will stand up for us. If we’ve learned one thing from the last year, whether it’s Zohran Mamdani or Abigail Spanberger, people want authentic leadership.

ECH: Is it fair to say the purpose of the Christopher Street Project is sending a message to the Democratic Party that you don’t have to capitulate to Republicans on pro-trans politics, that pro-trans candidates can win big?

TH: It’s critical to show that when we talk about the attacks on trans rights being part of a broader rights rollback, when we talk about these attacks on trans kids being what they actually are, which are a push for genital inspections in schools and a push for subpoenas of hospitals for identifiable patient information, people find it gross, and we need candidates who will talk about that and win doing so.

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ECH: A recent Department of Health and Human Services study came out and found that people who support transgender people may be more likely to justify political violence. What is the purpose of using that language, of the “us versus them” narrative?

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TH: The Trump administration is using every tool at its disposal to defang the progressive movement, but especially transgender rights groups, organizations standing up to ICE, and people who don’t agree with their rogue foreign policy. It’s all the same playbook. They are losing public opinion. My ultimate reaction is that they’re scared. They don’t want to play on an even playing field, and they know if they did that, they would lose.

It’s all politics. It’s about an attack on anyone who doesn’t look, pray, love, or sound like the Trump administration wants, and they are racing towards a white Christian nationalist society that is at odds with the diversity that America should embrace.

They saw in 2024 that Democrats were not well equipped to respond to this issue. They think that this is a winning political issue for them. Our job is to make sure the American people know what’s actually going on, which is that this is a distraction from the cost-of-living crisis that Americans are facing. While people can’t afford anything, the Trump administration is spending $100 million of taxpayer money on their anti-trans crusade instead of putting that money in American pockets. They didn’t do nearly as much on this issue in Trump’s first term. In 2016, the incumbent Republican governor of North Carolina lost his reelection in large part due to the trans bathroom ban that caused so many corporations to pull out of the state; it was a losing issue for Republicans. Trump said in 2016 that Caitlyn Jenner could come into Trump Tower and use any bathroom she wanted. It’s all about the landscape. It’s not about the values.

ECH: What are some of the other races you have your eye on that are coming up?

TH: Minnesota is a key focus. Peggy Flanagan is running for US Senate. Matt Little is running for US House in their second district. Both are strong pro-trans champions and folks who will organize with us on the inside.

In Michigan, we have Abdul El-Sayed running for US Senate. We have Will Lawrence running for US House in district seven, another pair of pro-trans champions and folks who will organize with us. I’m really excited about those four folks. They’re showing what it looks like to fight without leaving anyone behind, and if we can get two or three or maybe even four of them across the finish line, it could be pivotal to proving that pro-trans politics have a place in competitive districts. We see a few Democrats doing that, and I’m excited about the progressive, courageous candidates who we have in some of these tougher seats, who are going to prove that we can win without leaving anyone behind.

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Elsie Carson-Holt

Elsie Carson-Holt is a journalist based in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in The Boston Globe, FAIR, and LGBTQ Nation, among other places.

Fonte: The Nation » Article