‘Dump the Dems’: How the left’s gender policies scare off voters

No one knows for sure who is going to win the 2024 U.S. presidential election, but one thing I am sure of is that countless Democrats (and former Democrats) either won’t vote or will vote for Donald Trump. It is a phenomenon that has come to be known as “Dumping the Dems” (#dumpthedems has become a popular hashtag on X/Twitter).

A lot of people are sick to the teeth of the Democrats, for a variety of reasons, including their insistence that some men are women if they say so. I hear from such Democrats and former Democrats every day. Democratic Party leadership has only itself to blame.

Democratic Party leadership continues to ignore the 'Dumping the Dems' phenomenon at its peril. It’s not likely to go away any time soon.

I have never voted Republican in a presidential election. I registered to vote in 1990, voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, and have voted Democratic in every single presidential election since then, with one exception — I voted for Ralph Nader in 2020. I have voted Republican once in my life, many years ago, in a city mayoral election where the Republican was an openly pro-choice fiscal moderate and, I believed, genuinely the better candidate.

I will not vote for Donald Trump because I think he is a disgusting, sociopathic rapist and because I staunchly support abortion rights. At this time, I also do not plan to vote for Kamala Harris because I’m appalled at her enthusiasm for throwing women and girls under the bus at the altar of “gender identity.”

Democratic Party leadership has been attempting (and often succeeding) to enshrine “gender identity” in the law at least since 2015 when Democrats in Congress introduced the so-called Equality Act. If enacted, the legislation would allow men unfettered access to women’s spaces, sports, and prisons all over the country by redefining the word “sex” to include “gender identity” for all purposes under U.S. civil rights law.

Leftist radical feminists — myself included — have been explaining to Democratic Party leaders how this harms women and girls as a sex class ever since. They have ignored us.

In November 2023, I published “The Reckoning: How the Democrats and the Left Betrayed Women and Girls.” I explained all the steps that leftist radical feminists have taken to get across to Democratic Party leadership that “gender identity” is sexist, homophobic, anti-science, and authoritarian.

I listed countless examples of women being housed in locked prison cells with male convicted rapists and murderers who claim to have female “gender identities.”

I provided a laundry list of female athletes losing races and medals to male athletes who claim to have female “gender identities,” and I explained that children are being irreparably harmed by doctors who are doing the bidding of a vicious industry that promotes “gender identity” at every turn. I told them to change course and provided a detailed policy prescription for doing so. They haven’t.

Tulsi Gabbard, a former member of the House of Representatives from Hawaii, made headlines when she left the Democratic Party in 2022. Among her reasons for leaving is that the Democrats “can no longer define what a woman is, demand we replace words like ‘mother’ with ‘birthing person,’ and place women at risk to please biological men who claim to be women at any given moment.” She’s right. Gabbard chose to become an independent rather than becoming a Republican, but today she is serving on Trump’s campaign team.

Gloria Romero, a former state senator from California and a prominent Democrat, went further this month. She announced last week that she’s leaving the party, becoming a Republican, and voting for Trump. She said, “It is terrifying to see how language has been modified so that, as a feminist and a former professor ... I would be condemned for saying that I can define a woman and distinguish between biological sex and gender identity.” (Romero elaborated on her decision for Blaze Media.)

As a lifelong leftist and feminist who has herself been condemned for knowing what a woman is and distinguishing between sex and “gender identity” myself, I can sympathize.

In August, I published an open letter to Vice President Kamala Harris, urging her to stand up at the Democratic National Convention and say that a woman is an adult human female and to apologize for the utterly embarrassing letter she sent to Dylan Mulvaney, congratulating him on his “365 days of girlhood.”

“You profess to care about American women and girls,” I wrote. “It’s time to walk the talk. Many of us will be watching and hoping you do the right thing.” I didn’t expect her to, and she didn’t.

Democratic Party leadership continues to ignore the “Dumping the Dems” phenomenon at its peril. It’s not likely to go away any time soon.