Virginia governor candidates duel over transgender participation in youth sports

By David Wright, Eva McKend, CNN

(CNN) — As Democrats continue their internal debate over transgender rights, Abigail Spanberger, the party’s nominee for governor of Virginia, is directly responding to Republican ads that echo the commercials run against Kamala Harris last year.

“I’m Abigail Spanberger, mom to three girls in public school,” Spanberger says in a new campaign ad that shows her daughters on screen. “Nothing matters more to me than the safety of all our kids, and as a law enforcement officer, I went after child predators, so it really angers me to hear these lies about who I am.”

“I believe we need to get politics out of our schools and trust parents and local communities. As a mom and as your governor, I will be focused on making our schools the best in the nation.”

Spanberger’s Republican opponent, Winsome Earle-Sears, is trying to follow Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s playbook from four years ago when he focused on schools and parental rights.

Earle-Sears, the state’s lieutenant governor, has been accusing Spanberger of allowing trans girls to compete in female sports as part of a broader wave of anti-transgender rhetoric. She is among several Republicans nationally airing anti-trans commercials that echo “Kamala is for they/them,” the tagline of three commercials run by President Donald Trump during his successful 2024 campaign.

Four years ago, Youngkin campaigned heavily on pandemic-related school closures and overhauls of how the history and implications of racism was taught in public schools, holding “Parents Matter” rallies across the commonwealth.

He seized on a fall debate moment from his Democratic opponent Terry McAuliffe when McAuliffe said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

McAuliffe was referring to a bill he vetoed as governor that would force schools to warn parents if their children will be assigned books with sexually explicit content. The former governor instead thought the decision should be left up to local school boards.

But the damage was done.

“We decide in fact that we are going to be in charge of our children’s education,” Youngkin repeated in the closing weeks of the campaign.

Earle-Sears, who is behind Spanberger in public polling and has faced Republican criticism about her campaign, is running ads that underscore she will “defend kids” and “empower parents.”

“It’s time for everyone to recognize what is settled truth. Girls are girls and boys are boys,” said Earle-Sears at a news conference last month.

Though the focus on transgender children was not as prominent then as it is now, tapping into gender issues in schools both animated Republican voters and drew religious and conservative Democratic voters in 2021. And after Harris’ loss to Trump in last year’s presidential election, some Democrats, notably California Gov. Gavin Newsom, have said trans girls should not be allowed to participate in girls’ sports.

Spanberger’s campaign declined to address the specific criticism in Earle-Sears ads, both in its new ad and in follow-up questions from CNN.

Spanberger has not answered whether she agrees that young people should be able to use any bathroom in a school building that corresponds with their gender identity even if it doesn’t correlate with their sex assigned at birth. She also has avoided getting into specifics when addressing transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports. She has instead said that her “priority is making sure Virginia’s kids are safe and supported.” Her campaign says she believes these are choices that should be made at the local level with local parental input.

“I understand the delicate balance that she’s trying to strike,” said Monica Hutchinson, a community organizer and parent of a trans young adult who attended Virginia schools. “We have allowed this issue to balloon and overshadow all of the other really serious issues that plague Virginia.”

Fred Hicks, a longtime Democratic strategist, says the Spanberger campaign is making the right choice by addressing the issue but doesn’t know if it will be sufficient.

“I think for an opening salvo, a first attempt at addressing it, this is a smart way to play it,” Hicks said. “The real issue at hand is, who do you trust to protect your children.”

All indications are that Earle-Sears will continue to focus on gender politics and that her campaign views it as a victory that Spanberger had no choice but to address it.

“Abigail Spanberger was forced to go on defense and release an ad after remaining silent about her stance on boys’ in girls sports and locker rooms. Now, instead of hiding in her basement, she’s hiding behind a manufactured TV ad trying to repair her badly damaged image,” Earle-Sears campaign spokesperson Peyton Vogel said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Governors Association is confident they can navigate the conversation around transgender students because they’ve combatted similar efforts in the recent past. In their view, this conversation is not what moves most voters; the governor’s race in Virginia will come down to public safety and lowering costs.

“In battleground races for governor in 2022, 2023 and 2024, voters consistently rejected extreme Republicans who spent all their time stoking division with culture wars in favor of Democratic candidates who won by aggressively campaigning on plans to address the biggest kitchen table issues impacting families,” said DGA Communications Director Sam Newton.

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