Democrats look to inject fresh energy into the LGBTQ+ movement

It's been a dozen years since the Stonewall Democrats, a once-prominent LGBTQ+ rights group, went defunct. But now, on the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration, a new coalition of state-level advocacy groups is reestablishing a national presence to gird against the incoming president and a Republican-controlled Congress.

The group, the National Federation of Stonewall Democrats, comes together at a fraught time for movement, amid recriminations from within the Democratic Party that its focus on transgender rights harmed Democrats in November. Those behind the new organization, whose establishment was shared first with POLITICO, said they plan to press congressional Democrats to oppose what they fear will be an onslaught of bills and executive actions targeting their communities — even though such efforts are likely to have a limited impact given that the party is out of power in both chambers.

“Our job is to continue to push for the Democrats who are elected to make sure that they're speaking up,” said Jeremy Comeau, the federation’s president and a Democratic activist from Massachusetts. “If they just let the Republicans steamroll these issues through the Congress without providing the words of support for the community … we’re doomed.”

The umbrella group, composed of 21 state-level advocacy organizations, is emerging at a time when Democratic resistance to Trump and Republicans’ policies has otherwise been fractured and largely floundering since his November win.

Stonewall Democrats have reason to be on edge in the fight over transgender rights. Trump, who will be sworn in for a second term on Monday, vowed in December at the conservative gathering AmericaFest 2024: “With the stroke of my pen on Day 1, we are going to stop the transgender lunacy.”

He also promised to get “transgender out of the military” and in K-12 public schools and upon his return make it “the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders — male and female” through executive orders.

Trump’s Cabinet picks are an immediate concern for the coalition. His nominee to lead the Defense Department, Pete Hegseth, has been critical in the past about gay people serving openly in the military, though he has said more recently that they should.

But Stonewall Democrats are also dealing with fractures within their own party over transgender issues. While Hegseth was fielding senators' questions, across the Capitol, House Republicans passed a bill banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s and girls sports at institutions that receive federal dollars. Two House Democrats, Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, voted in support of it.

Organizers are not ruling out intervening in Democratic primaries as a method of “holding candidates accountable” — including sitting Democrats — following in the footsteps of another group, the Christopher Street Project PAC, that has said it will pressure and potentially primary Democrats who take anti-trans votes. Some activists said they feared the party may be backsliding on the issue — with at least two people affiliated with the National Federation of Stonewall Democrats calling out Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) by name.

The six-term Democrat ignited backlash from some in his party over his comments immediately following Kamala Harris’ loss to Trump that suggested the party’s electoral defeats were at least partly to blame on its embrace of transgender issues and Republicans’ success in weaponizing that against them. Republicans, for instance, had hammered Harris with an ad that said: “Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you.”

Following the election, Moulton, who has since tempered his comments on the issue and did not support the GOP-led transgender athlete bill, told The New York Times that “Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face.” He said he didn’t want his own daughters “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.”

But his initial remarks continue to outrage LGBTQ+ advocates.

“The congressman is absolutely out of his mind if he thinks that that's the reason why we lost the election,” Comeau said, adding that one goal of the group is “ to call out Democrats when they are using our community as a reason for these reasons that we lose elections.”

Refurbishing the Democratic Party's credentials on LGBTQ+ issues, advocates say, will start with influencing the party's core infrastructure. Stonewall Democrats members are meeting with candidates running to be the party’s next chair and are discussing organizing and messaging strategies around potential policy fights across levels of government. They have also established a political action committee with hopes of recruiting and supporting LGBTQ+ candidates in the 2026 midterms.

“This isn't just simply about saying Democrats are right and Republicans are wrong,” said Brian Sims, a former state representative who made history as the first elected gay state legislator in Pennsylvania. “This is about giving the DNC and national Democrats an opportunity and platforms and expertise at the ground level to advocate for equality … but also to understand what the pipeline looks like for challengers to bad members of Congress [and] to support better members of Congress.”

Shia Kapos contributed to this report.