The Christopher Road Challenge, a hybrid PAC and nonprofit named for the New York road that’s house to the Stonewall Inn, is aiming to be Washington’s first electoral group devoted solely to electing pro-trans Democrats to Congress.
The group says its launch, introduced this week, is a response to a rising tide of rhetoric and laws concentrating on transgender People and Democrats’ disconnected response to assaults on trans rights which might be led disproportionately by Republicans, based on the group’s founder, 19-year-old Tyler Hack.
The group, Hack mentioned, will fill a vital hole left by nationwide LGBTQ rights teams that decline or hesitate to name out Democrats for his or her votes or lackluster protection of the group.
“There’s no one giving Democrats their talking points right now and coordinating specifically on trans issues with the lens that we’re focused on,” Hack mentioned in an interview. “At the same time, we are also an electoral organization, and we understand the power of electoral politics.”
Hack mentioned the Christopher Road Challenge is already gearing up for the 2026 elections, and the group will spend most of its vitality over the subsequent two years ensuring that incumbent Democrats who assist trans-inclusive insurance policies are reelected.
Democrats who fail to guard transgender People in opposition to legislative assaults will “hear from their voters directly,” mentioned Hack, a former marketing campaign staffer for New York Democrats, and the group is ready to prepare in opposition to Democrats who vote in opposition to trans rights and mobilize voters to unseat them.
“Voters having another option other than an anti-trans Democrat in some particular races is going to be a really important thing,” Hack mentioned.
Democrats since November have wrestled with the position the occasion’s previous assist for transgender rights performed in a string of election losses that month that allowed Republicans to reclaim the Home and Senate and the White Home. In exit polls, most voters mentioned points just like the financial system and immigration drove their vote.
Democratic Reps. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) mentioned they oppose transgender athletes competing in girls’s sports activities within the speedy aftermath of President-elect Trump’s decisive victory over Vice President Harris, shifting proper of their earlier coverage positions and deepening fractures inside their occasion. On Tuesday, Reps. Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar, each of Texas, had been the one Democrats to facet with Republicans to go laws meant to bar transgender student-athletes from collaborating in ladies’ and girls’s sports activities.
In a press release following Tuesday’s vote, Gonzalez referred to transgender ladies as “boys” and mentioned they don’t belong on feminine sports activities groups. A spokesperson for Cuellar mentioned the lawmaker, who voted in opposition to the identical invoice in 2023, determined to alter his vote primarily based on “concerns and feedback” from his constituents.
The Christopher Road Challenge, which is trying to increase $100,000 by the tip of the month in each small- and high-dollar donations, has already received the assist of a number of distinguished Democrats in Congress, together with Reps. Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Jasmine Crockett (Texas), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Al Inexperienced (Texas) and Sen. Andy Kim (N.J.).
“I’m proud to help launch the Christopher Street Project and continue building a more just America where our trans siblings are treated with respect, receive the healthcare they need, and can live their lives free from discrimination and violence,” Pressley mentioned in a press release.
“As a proud advocate and defender of the trans community in Texas and beyond, I have experienced the growing right-wing attacks on trans children and their families as if they are attacks on my own family,” mentioned Crockett, who received right into a heated change with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) on Tuesday over civil and transgender rights. “I am grateful to see new organizations like the Christopher Street Project rising to meet this moment and provide insight, guidance, and education on the fight for trans rights.”
The group’s employees — a 10-member, all-volunteer operation — is principally LGBTQ, based on Hack. The group’s mission is private to them, and Hack is considered one of 1000’s of People whose entry to gender-affirming well being care is threatened by the incoming Trump administration, which has mentioned it is going to reduce federal funding for hospitals that present gender-affirming care to minors. Transgender rights advocates have mentioned the transfer is prone to disrupt take care of trans folks of all ages.
The president-elect made anti-transgender messaging a central a part of his marketing campaign’s closing argument, pouring tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} into tv adverts that went after transgender athletes and gender-affirming care.
At marketing campaign rallies, Trump steadily railed in opposition to what he described as “transgender insanity” and unfold the baseless declare that colleges are serving to kids get transition-related surgical procedures with out their dad and mom’ consent.
Trump has mentioned he’ll implement new legal guidelines that ban transgender athletes from girls’s sports activities and acknowledge solely two genders — female and male — as soon as he takes his oath of workplace subsequent week.
“We would like to work with anyone, but it’s not something that we expect to see results from,” Hack mentioned about probably working with the subsequent administration.
“That’s not an administration that is willing to listen to the Christopher Street Project’s opinions of trans people,” mentioned David Guirgis, a senior advisor for the group. “At the same time, it is important for us to raise these issues and point out, ‘Hey, what you’re doing is wrong’ — not necessarily to change the mind of Trump, but to change the minds of voters and everyday Americans who don’t necessarily understand what it means to be transgender, what it means to be a member of the LGBTQ community.”
The group’s ethos, based on Guirgis, is easy: if a Democrat in Congress takes an anti-trans vote, the group will mobilize in opposition to them.
“We are pointing out what Republicans are doing, and we’re taking that to Democrats and being like, ‘Are you okay with this?’ And if your answer is yes, that’s the wrong answer, and the Christopher Street Project is going to be ready on day one to point out that that is the wrong answer,” mentioned Guirgis.
