Democrats’ Dilemma on Trans Issues

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Amanda Dumas had seen the signs.

By age 4, her youngest child, who was born female, favored boys’ clothing and superhero costumes, and began asking for boyish haircuts. Dumas and her husband finally relented.

“I knew that giving him this buzz cut … was opening a door that I wasn’t prepared to walk through,” she said. “I was scared.”

That started her child, who is now 14 and goes by Michael, on a path that’s led to puberty blockers and hormone treatments. It also started his mother on a path to activism.

“I was always very, very passionate about the minority communities that I cared about,” she said. “Then my kid became part of that community and my passion turned to advocacy pretty quickly.”

In 2023, Dumas was elected to the town board of Huntersville, a Mecklenburg County community of nearly 70,000. She was one of seven Democrats who swept the board and mayor’s office in the nominally nonpartisan election.

This February, she proposed a nondiscrimination ordinance, or NDO, that would protect residents against discrimination in employment and housing on the basis of gender identity and expression, as well as race, religion, disability, and other factors.

The measure now appears all but dead.

“Our board is divided on this,” said Mayor Christy Clark, who supported the measure. “My goal is to make sure everyone feels safe and welcome in the town of Huntersville. And this would help.”

The board’s misgivings mirror the dilemma for Democrats across the country in dealing with an issue that’s become a third rail for their party: How do they support a vulnerable community without alienating a lot of voters?

“Is it a message we want to send as Democrats? Absolutely,” said Drew Kromer, Mecklenburg County’s former party chair. “But what’s the cost? And what do you gain?”

The debate comes as the LGBTQ+ community, and especially transgender people and their families, face what they see as the most threatening political climate in years. They feel under fire from federal and state governments.

The U.S. Supreme Court said in 2020 that an employer who fires someone for being gay or transgender violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That ruling might also apply to fair housing laws. But advocates for transgender people say NDOs provide further clarity and enforcement capability, and also send a message about a community’s commitment to fairness for all people.

“You are seeing some people afraid to stand for the trans community because of all the attacks right now,” said Holly Savoy, executive director of Charlotte Trans Health, which offers health care and support for the transgender community. “But that is exactly the opposite of what we need … We need to have allies not give in to all of these policies and pressures that are harming people in our community.”

Dumas says her ordinance is about more than gender identity. For example, it would also protect people with natural hairstyles from discrimination. “To me this fills the gaps and tells everybody in our town that we’re protecting them,” she said.

The HB2 Backlash

It’s been nearly a decade since a North Carolina nondiscrimination ordinance created a national firestorm.

That was a 2016 Charlotte ordinance that, among other things, allowed transgender people to use the bathroom of the gender they identified with. Passed by a Democratic city council, the measure ran into a buzzsaw in the Republican-controlled General Assembly.

Lawmakers passed HB2, a bill banning local NDOs. But the backlash was swift. The NCAA canceled planned championships in the state, companies refused to relocate here, and the NBA canceled its All-Star Game in Charlotte. The Associated Press projected losses to the state of $3.76 billion.

The law was repealed in 2017. But lawmakers put a three-year moratorium on new NDOs and banned any bathroom provisions unless authorized by the General Assembly. Since that pause ended, at least 22 jurisdictions—including Charlotte, Raleigh, and Mecklenburg County—have passed nondiscrimination ordinances.

Despite that, Huntersville town attorney Emily Sloop told the board on February 18 that she did not believe the town has “clear-cut authority to pass a nondiscrimination ordinance.” That was the last time commissioners discussed the proposal in public. 

Sloop declined to be interviewed for this article.

Her statement appeared to influence some board members. “That’s a concern,” Mayor Pro Tem Jennifer Hunt, who presides in the mayor’s absence, said at the meeting.

“Is it a message we want to send as Democrats? Absolutely. But what’s the cost?”

Drew Kromer, former chair of Mecklenburg County Democrats

Dumas disagreed. “I’ve spoken with a number of attorneys over the last year who disagree with our lawyer’s perception of authority,” she said at the February meeting.

She cited a 2016 memo by former Charlotte City Attorney Bob Hagemann that said local governments can pass NDOs “under the broad powers granted to cities by the General Assembly and other related laws.”

In 2021, Charlotte amended a version of its NDO. It added protections for people at work or in public accommodations for sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, as well as things such as natural hairstyles and pregnancy. Under state law, such ordinances can be enforced through civil fines or court injunctions.

‘For They/Them’

In 2023, Huntersville was a showcase for Mecklenburg Democrats.

Registered Democrats trail Republican and unaffiliated voters in North Carolina’s 16th largest municipality, and Republicans have done well in local elections. After the 2021 elections, only one Democrat was on the six-member board.

Kromer, the party’s county chair in 2023, used the Huntersville elections as an experiment for what he hoped would be big Democratic gains across Mecklenburg the following year. The party mobilized resources and volunteers in Huntersville–including phone bankers from Boston—behind a slate of candidates. Democratic turnout jumped in early voting.

A Republican group sent out flyers warning voters about “dangerous Democrat activists.” According to The Charlotte Observer, the mailer said, “Don’t be fooled by some of the candidates for local government. They’re not just Democrats, they’re liberal activists trying to take over town hall.”

The mailer singled out Clark and three commissioner candidates. It called Alisia Bergsman a “lifelong liberal activist focused on diversity, inclusion, and equity.” It said Dumas supported gender-affirming care for minors.

But Democrats swept the seven contests. “We took this entire town from red to all blue,” Kromer said.

Like Clark and Dumas, Bergsman backs the NDO. “People try to make this an LGBTQ issue but it’s not,” she told The Assembly. “For me it’s simply about doing what’s right and protecting the most vulnerable in the community.”

Commissioner Edwin Quarles said in February that he supports the NDO but raised questions about public support. LaToya Rivers questioned the enforcement provisions. Quarles, Hunt, Rivers, and Commissioner Nick Walsh all declined to talk for this story.

However, in election questionnaires to the LGBTQ+ Democrats of Mecklenburg ahead of this fall’s election, both Rivers and Quarles said they don’t support the NDO “at this time.” Hunt said she’d support it only if the state gives “clear-cut authority.” 

In the 2024 elections, Republicans hammered Democrats over the trans issue. The New York Times reported that GOP candidates and groups spent more than $200 million on anti-trans ads in the presidential and U.S. Senate races. One ad said, “Kamala Harris is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”

A Pew Research Center survey in February found changing attitudes on trans issues across the country, even among Democrats.

“People try to make this an LGBTQ issue but it’s not. For me it’s simply about doing what’s right and protecting the most vulnerable in the community.”

Alisia Bergsman, Huntersville commissioner

A majority of Americans, for example, favor making it harder for doctors to provide medical care for gender transitions for minors, and requiring trans athletes to compete against the gender they were born into. Even the number of Democrats favoring those positions rose.

Nationally, some Democrats have begun backing away from the issue.

This year California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg have questioned the fairness of trans athletes competing in sports. And former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who is considering a presidential run, told a conservative media host that a man can’t “become a woman.”

LGBTQ+ activists say they’re disappointed that the Huntersville NDO appears stuck.

“The NDO should not be something that should be that much of a challenge to get done, particularly to folks who ran as progressives and as Democrats,” said Eliazar Posada, executive director of Equality NC.

At the February board meeting, Dumas alluded to public comments that night from a citizen who supported the NDO but urged the board to wait until after this year’s election.

“I’m only guaranteed this one term, as we all are,” she said then, “and I believe that it’s the right thing to do for my town. If it’s the right thing to do in November after the election, it’s the right thing to do now.”

‘God Made You What You Are’

For the LGBTQ+ community, the debate comes as state and national climates have darkened.

In July, the General Assembly overturned Gov. Josh Stein’s veto of HB 805. Among other things, the law recognizes only two sexes, requires keeping original birth certificates if a person changes their gender, and extends the time doctors can be sued for malpractice for treating minors for gender transition.

In 2023, lawmakers overrode then-Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of a bill that banned gender-affirming care for minors, including puberty blockers and hormones. (It does not affect minors who began treatment before August 1, 2023). It’s one of 27 states banning such care.

For some Republican lawmakers, the issue is basic biology.

“God made you what you are, and you come out of the womb as what you are. And we can’t change that,” said GOP state Rep. Mark Brody of Union County. “You can’t change what you are. You can change your appearance but you can’t change what you are.”

Republican state Sen. Vickie Sawyer of Iredell County said she voted for the bills mainly to protect women in sports and “private spaces.” “I don’t hate anybody and I do respect other people’s rights,” she said, “but unfortunately in the protection of women, you just have to pass those sorts of rules.”

Savoy, of Charlotte Trans Health, sees it differently.

“It’s just devastating to so many people that there’s such a focus on erasing a small portion of the community that isn’t doing anything to hurt them,” she said. “But they are taking actions to hurt trans people.”

Shortly after he was sworn in in January, President Donald Trump issued an executive order titled “Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation” that restricted gender-affirming care for minors. The Department of Health and Human Services followed with a report questioning the benefits of such care. And in June, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on the care for minors.

“It’s gotten so much worse, so fast,” said Elana Redfield, federal policy director at the Williams Institute, a research center on LGBTQ+ issues at the UCLA School of Law. “Over a short period of time there has been an unbelievable amount of anti-LGBT and especially anti-trans policy-making in the U.S. Trans people are at the heart of the current campaign but all LGBT people are affected.”

In June, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration was considering cutting federal funds to hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors.

“I don’t hate anybody and I do respect other people’s rights, but unfortunately in the protection of women, you just have to pass those sorts of rules.”

state Sen. Vickie Sawyer

Days later, Dumas told WFAE that Michael’s Atrium Health doctor said she could no longer treat her son, forcing the family to find another doctor. (Atrium did not respond to calls or emails.)  

This month, a coalition of state attorneys general sued the Trump administration over what one called “a cruel and targeted harassment campaign” against doctors and hospitals providing such care.

The Williams Institute estimates there are 21,800 transgender youth in North Carolina. (The state’s adult trans population is estimated to be 38,600.) It found that transgender people are four times more likely to be victims of violent crime. 

One study found that 40 percent of trans people and 56 percent of trans youth have attempted suicide. Dumas says that’s one reason she’s pushed the NDO.

“One accepting adult and one accepting community takes that risk of 40 percent back down to three to four percent,” she said. “Just to show the kids in town that are experiencing the hate that … they’re safe, that we love them, that this is their home.”

Contingency Plans

There appears to be little appetite on the Huntersville board to act on the NDO before the November election. Whether it will be a campaign issue is unclear.

“It is not an issue for me this fall,” said Jamie Wideman, an unaffiliated candidate for the board. “Typically speaking, discrimination laws are things that should be handled at a state and federal level.”

Dan Boone, a Republican running for commissioner, calls the ordinance unnecessary. So does Republican candidate Frank Gammon, who adds that it could hurt small businesses and be hard to enforce.

In a new scorecard, Mecklenburg’s LGBTQ+ Democrats gave “excellent” ratings to Clark and board candidate Scott Coronet; a “sufficient” rating to Walsh; “insufficient” to Hunt and Rivers; and “concerning” to Quarles. 

The NDO’s two biggest Democratic advocates aren’t running for re-election.

Bergsman withdrew in July after initially filing to run. “The increasingly toxic political environment and erosion of civil discourse has made it much harder to serve,” she said in announcing her decision.

Dumas is not only leaving the board, she’s leaving the country.

When The Charlotte Observer profiled her family in July 2023—before she ran for office—Dumas said she and her husband had made contingency plans to leave the country, probably to Canada where she has dual citizenship.

“Do we want to fight and try to save our home and be able to stay here and for everybody to be safe and make a difference in this community?” she told the Observer. “We decided we would stay and fight.”

But a lot has happened since then.

Now she plans to move to Canada with Michael this fall. Her husband and oldest son will stay for his senior year of high school. (A Williams Institute poll  in December found 45 percent of trans people surveyed wanted to move out of the country.)

“We always knew what our line in the sand would be,” Dumas said, “and that’s having our kid taken away from us … I’m really, really tired of raising my kid in an environment where we have to debate his personhood every two years.

“The fight is over and we lost. I’m heartbroken that we’re abandoning all these people who can’t leave. But we have to put our family first right now. And the right thing for our family is to escape.”

Update: This article has been updated with newly released estimates from the Williams Institute on the number of transgender youth and adults in North Carolina.