White Democrats Back Gender Ideology. Black Democrats Don't.

What progressives don't want to admit about racial support of trans ideology.

Rep. Marvin Robinson being grilled after being the only Democrat to support the women’s sports bill.

The Kansas legislature passed a bill recently to restrict biological males from playing on women’s sports teams in K-12 schools and colleges. The governor vetoed the bill. Republicans were one vote shy of the two-thirds majority to override the veto, and the bill seemed dead in the water.

But the vote was 84-40, exactly enough to take the bill across the finish line (pun not intended). The lone Democratic defector was Representative Marvin Robinson of the 35th House District.

I have to admire Robinson’s fearlessness here. He knew that the bill was dead without a single Democratic vote. He knew that he could pay the price for putting principles over party. He knew that if he went against every single one of his fellow Democrats to vote for this bill, he would take far more heat for it than any Republican. With all that in mind, Robinson went up to bat and broke the color barrier for team sports, switching his vote from blue to red.

And the backlash did come:

Some people were confused—after all, wasn’t Robinson a minority? Wasn’t he considered part of an oppressed group? Shouldn’t he be standing with other minorities?

But that’s not how it works. As Mr. Horn kindly informs us, most Black voters are on Robinson’s side.

---

Let’s look at some polling:

There is a massive chasm between Black Democrats and other Democrats over whether or not one’s gender can differ from the one determined at birth. White Democrats are actually the most likely to support trans ideology.

Note the asterisk on the Asian Democrats. The pollsters only polled Asians that were fluent in English and comfortable enough with the language to answer questions from random pollsters. I can tell you from my lived experience that the Asians that aren’t fluent in English aren’t going around yelling "trans lives matter” in their native languages. Instead, they’re on WeChat and KakaoTalk and being outraged at news about kids being put on puberty blockers and getting double mastectomies.

And the near-universal hatred of the supposedly gender-neutral word “Latinx” tells you what you need to know about how most Latinos feel about gender ideology. As I’ve discussed before, the process of American assimilation actually turns immigrant groups liberal, not conservative.

And if 66% of Black Democrats say that gender is determined at birth, imagine what the numbers look like for Black independents, Black Libertarians, and Black Republicans. Ditto for other racial minorities.

---

So when Marvin Robinson casted his vote, he was representing the views of his own constituents. The district he represents is mostly working-class voters of color:

According to the 2020 census, the district’s population of around 22,000 is largely made up of Black and Hispanic residents, most of whom are under 40. Its median household income is about $43,000 per year, and one in five of its residents live below the poverty line.

Black and Hispanic voters have long been associated with the Democratic Party. But support among these demographic groups, particularly Latinos, is on the decline according to some experts.

Perhaps the biggest irony about the whole trans debate is that White people, who are supposed to be the world’s biggest oppressors, are actually the most supportive. Black people, who are supposed to be the most oppressed, are the least supportive. Immigrant Americans are also less likely to be supportive than native-born Americans. Working-class voters are less supportive than affluent professionals. The main driver of transgender support within the Democratic Party have been the progressive activists that make up much of the party’s leadership:

Compared with the rest of the (nationally representative) polling sample, progressive activists are much more likely to be rich, highly educated—and white. They are nearly twice as likely as the average to make more than $100,000 a year. They are nearly three times as likely to have a postgraduate degree. And while 12 percent of the overall sample in the study is African American, only 3 percent of progressive activists are. With the exception of the small tribe of devoted conservatives, progressive activists are the most racially homogeneous group in the country.

As the trans culture war rages on, we’ll start to see a pattern that will make White progressives shudder. The most vocal opponents of gender ideology will be people of color, while the most vocal supporters will be White. There’s only so much obfuscation progressive Democrats of color can do to hide the fact that the majority of the people that claim to represent are much more socially conservative than they are.

We’ve known this since the gay marriage debate.

We saw this when Dave Chapelle told a Netflix audience of millions that he was on “Team TERF” (trans-exclusionary radical feminist).

Protests outside Netflix after Chappelle’s comedy special.

We saw this when a crowd of angry Arab American parents stormed a school board meeting in Dearborn, Michigan—the most Muslim-populated city in the country—to demand that LGBT-themed books be removed from elementary schools. White progressives could only look on in shock and horror.

And has anyone ever done a survey of who takes their kids to Drag Queen Story Hour? I could find Proud Boys rallies with more racial diversity.

We will see this again, and again, and again. The Democratic Party likes to say that they are the party of the working class, of racial minorities, and of immigrants. Yet those are the exact same demographics that oppose gender ideology the most. As progressive activists gain further control of the party, their views on gender will increasingly be out of touch with the people they claim to represent.

The “big tent” cannot hold. Sooner or later, Democrats will have to make a choice between supporting the views of the affluent mostly-White progressive activists that make up most of their leadership—or the views of the working-class people of color that make up the bulk of their votes. It’s going to get real awkward when most support will come from affluent White liberals, who deem themselves oppressors, and most opposition will come from working-class people of color, who are usually deemed oppressed by the same people that deem themselves oppressors.

Perhaps we need to hold an Oppression Olympics to sort this all out. Although progressives have developed one easy trick to win the women’s division of those Olympics.

---