Here Are the Only 3 Democratic White House Contenders Who Didn’t Duck Transgender Questionnaire

(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Only three of the nearly 20 Democrats who might mount presidential campaigns in 2028 answered a questionnaire about transgender issues sent to them by Axios.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D), ex-Obama chief of staff and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, and former Biden transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg were the only ones to offer the following questions: “Should transgender girls be able to participate in girls’ sports? Do you believe transgender youths under age 18 should be able to be placed on puberty blockers and hormones? And what is your response to the question: ‘Can a man become a woman?'”

Former Vice President Kamala Harris, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA), Illinois Governor JB Pritzker (D), California Governor Gavin Newsom (D), and  Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (D), as well as Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) all either failed or declined to respond to the inquiry.

Shapiro’s team referred Axios to the following excerpt from an Atlantic profile of the governor:

What are Shapiro’s values when it comes to, say, transgender kids playing sports?

He shrugged off the question, saying his answer had always been consistent. Pennsylvania has a governing body that oversees debates related to scholastic sports, Shapiro said, and the experts of that body, not politicians, are the ones qualified to make these calls. But when I pressed—asking if his personal view was different from his political view—Shapiro said that it was. “Look, I think it’s a tough deal being born into the wrong body. And I don’t think these kids deserve to be persecuted and bullied by the president of the United States. I also don’t think they deserve an unfair advantage on the playing field.”

They also noted that Pennsylvania has joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its policy preventing minors from receiving sex-change treatment.

Emmanuel reaffirmed the positions he expressed on The Megyn Kelly Show last summer, when he answered several similar questions:

MEGYN KELLY: Do you believe boys should be able to play in girls sports?

RAHM EMANUEL: No.

KELLY: Do you believe that-

EMANUEL: Is this the round robin?

KELLY: Yeah, this-, we’ll do a quick rapid fire. And then we can move past this! Do you believe that kids under the age of 18 should be able to be put on puberty blockers, and then cross-sex hormones?

EMANUEL: I think parents have to make that decision themselves. I think that is too-, a child is too young at 18 to make that decision. It has to be made with a family and that choice. I think before somebody makes a life decision, they have to think twice about that.

KELLY: So you disagree then with the Tim Walz policy in Minnesota where a child who doesn’t get affirmed by his parents can go into Minnesota, and get jurisdiction there, and get the parental decision overruled?

EMANUEL: Yeah, look, I think these are life decisions, and I’m also slightly, both, I have two minds, not two minds, but two strains that influence an opinion. One, there’s a life decision, and a child can’t make that decision. You have to have some moral development, and character, and judgment, and foundation for that. Two, parents have to be involved in that, and I think that’s for them to make. I don’t think the public should be in that space.

KELLY: What if, I mean, there are some parents out there who are completely whacked in the head. There really are. They’re not all-

EMANUEL: Well, that’s not news, is it?

KELLY: No, it’s not news, but to me it’s terrifying.

EMANUEL: Look, and I left this out, but I want to repeat it is: I have a son and two daughters, and they are physically different. And that’s why, when it comes to sports-

KELLY: Why did all the Democrats bail off of that point? A couple came out right after the election and they said what you just said, and then they got brow-beaten, and they started to walk it back.

EMANUEL: The answer’s in the question. I mean, that’s not ever scared me. And you know, I used to say this to President Clinton, President Obama: sound is not always fury, sometimes it’s just sound. And don’t assume just because somebody’s screaming at you, they represent more than their own voice.

KELLY: Can-, should we be putting men in female prisons? Men claiming they’re women.

EMANUEL: No.

KELLY: And all right, here’s my last one for you. Can a man become a woman?

EMANUEL: Can a man become a woman? Not-, no.

KELLY: Thank you! That’s so easy. Why don’t more people in your party just say that?

EMANUEL: Because I’m now going to go into a witness protection plan.

And Buttigieg’s spokesperson cited an NPR interview that included the following exchange:

STEVE INSKEEP: Rahm Emanuel, former White House chief of staff and holder of other significant positions as a Democrat, gave an interview to Megyn Kelly just the other day, and she asked a series of questions about trans people. He ended up contradicting most Democratic Party orthodoxy about trans people, ended up by saying – agreeing with the idea that a man cannot become a woman and then said he was going to head for the witness protection program because he was aware that some Democrats would be unhappy. What’s your approach to that, and how would you try to appeal to people who disagree with you about it?

PETE BUTTIGIEG: Well, I think the approach starts with compassion – compassion for transgender people, compassion for families, especially young people who are going through this – and also empathy for people who are not sure what all of this means for them, like wondering, wait a minute; I got a daughter in a sports league. Is she going to be competing with boys right now? Right? And just taking everybody seriously. And I think when you do that, that does call into question some of the past orthodoxies in my party, for example, around sports, where I think most reasonable people would recognize that there are serious fairness issues if you just treat this as not mattering when a trans athlete wants to compete in women’s sports.

INSKEEP: Meaning the parent who’s complained about this has a case, in your opinion?

BUTTIGIEG: Sure. And that’s why I think these decisions should be in the hands of sports leagues and school boards and not politicians, least of all politicians in Washington trying to use this as a political pawn.

INSKEEP: When President Trump says something like, no boys in girls’ sports, which is a phrase that they use, it sounds like you’re not signing on to that.

BUTTIGIEG: I think that chess is different from weightlifting, and weightlifting is different from volleyball, and, you know, middle school is different from the Olympics. So that’s exactly why I think that we shouldn’t be grandstanding on this as politicians. We should be empowering communities and organizations and schools to make the right decisions.

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