8 Congressional Democrats Vote To Defund Schools That Support Trans People

This is the largest defection of Congressional Democrats on a standalone bill targeting trans people in the modern anti-trans panic.

Eugene Vindman (D-Virginia) // Instagram

On Tuesday, May 19, the U.S. House passed H.R. 2616, the "Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act," by a vote of 217-198. The bill would hand the Trump administration enormous leverage to strip federal funding from any school that “teaches or advances concepts” related to transgender people, codifying into federal law the anti-trans definitions from Trump's executive order 14168, "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism." It would also require public schools to forcibly out transgender students to their parents before using their pronouns or chosen names. The bill is significant on its own terms for the harm it would inflict on transgender youth if it became law. But what made Tuesday's vote especially notable was the eight Democrats who joined every Republican to pass it—the largest Democratic defection on any standalone anti-trans bill of this Congress.

The bill's most consequential clause is its second section, which amends the federal education code's existing list of "prohibited uses of funds" to add: "to teach or advance concepts related to gender ideology, as defined in section 2 of Executive Order 14168 (90 Fed. Reg. 8615; relating to defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the Federal Government)." That single sentence slots an anti-trans line item into Section 8526 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the foundational federal law governing K-12 education in the United States. Adding "concepts related to gender ideology" to that list places the existence of transgender people on the same legal footing as activities the federal government considers prohibited. And by tying the definition of "gender ideology" to Trump's executive order rather than the statute itself, Congress would be handing enormous power to the president to strip public school funding.

The language "teach or advance concepts related to" is dangerously broad. At its most basic level, simply acknowledging that transgender people exist could be construed as "teaching" gender ideology. Books featuring transgender characters would likely be pulled from classrooms—an outcome already playing out in states with similar laws on the books. But the phrase "advancing concepts" could spiderweb in much more aggressive directions. Is a transgender teacher who uses their own name and pronouns "advancing concepts" related to transgender people? Is allowing a trans student to use the bathroom matching their gender "advancing concepts"? Is a high school production of Twelfth Night—a Shakespearean play built entirely around cross-gender performance—"advancing concepts" of gender ideology? These hypotheticals may sound far-fetched, but the Trump administration and its allies have already targeted versions of every one of them.

The bill would also require any school receiving federal funds to obtain a parent's consent before using a student's chosen name or pronouns, or before allowing them to use any sex-based accommodation matching their gender identity. In practice, the provision functions as a forced outing mandate. A transgender student who feels safe enough at school to use a gender-neutral office restroom or bathroom of their gender identity, or to be called by the right name in class, would lose access to those accommodations unless their parents had already been notified—and approved. Transgender youth face notoriously high rates of family rejection and abuse, and in the wake of the Supreme Court's Chiles v. Salazar decision last year, an outed trans student could face the prospect of court-greenlit conversion therapy.

But most devastating for transgender people was the uptick in Democratic support. Previous anti-trans bills had drawn defections from only a handful of habitually anti-trans Democrats—usually just Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, who have voted with Republicans on several anti-trans bills and amendments brought to the House floor. Tuesday's vote was different. Eight Democrats joined every Republican to pass the bill—the largest Democratic crossover on a standalone anti-trans bill in recent memory. The eight: Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Don Davis (D-NC), Cleo Fields (D-LA), Laura Gillen (D-NY), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), and Eugene Vindman (D-VA).

The move to target transgender people has been pushed for some time now by a small but vocal wing of Democratic-aligned strategists, pundits, and benefactors who portray themselves as "moderate"—from outfits like Third Way and the Searchlight Institute, to individual lawmakers like Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton and Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York, who have spent the past two years arguing the party should drop its defense of trans people. The wing remains small, but it continues to push to grow its influence—and its most significant elected proponent is California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a likely 2028 presidential contender, who platformed Charlie Kirk on his podcast to declare himself "completely aligned" with the late far-right activist on banning trans athletes, vetoed multiple pro-LGBTQ+ bills in California, and on a separate podcast appearance appeared to entertain the idea that trans people shouldn't transition before age 25.

For now, H.R. 2616 heads to the Senate, where the legislative filibuster requires 60 votes to advance—a threshold no standalone anti-trans bill has cleared in this Congress. Senate Democrats blocked the federal trans sports ban earlier this year on a straight party-line vote, and the most likely fate of the “Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act” is that it dies on the same procedural wall. Whether that holds—and whether the number of House Democrats willing to vote yes the next time keeps growing—is going to be important to continue watching moving forward.