Former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg is one of the Democratic Party's leading potential candidates for a presidential run in 2028. Sadly, like other Democrats, it seems like one of his first moves to try to appeal to a broader voting base is to abandon trans people.Buttigieg, like fellow Democrats Rahm Emmanuel and Gavin Newsom, has recently decided that he no longer fully supports trans rights. Now, he says there are "serious fairness issues" in the area of trans athletes, a talking point that comes straight from the Republican Party."The approach starts with compassion," Buttigieg said in an NPR interview about trans participation in sports. "Compassion for transgender people, compassion for families, especially young people who are going through this, and also empathy for people who are not sure what all of this means for them. Like, wondering, 'Wait a minute. I got a daughter in a sports league. Is she going to be competing with boys right now?' And just taking everybody seriously.""I think when you do that, that does call into question some of the past orthodoxies of my party, he added. "For example, around sports, where I think most reasonable people would recognize that there are serious fairness issues if you just treat this as not mattering when a trans athlete wants to compete in womens sports."After these remarks drew criticism from the LGBTQ+ community and allies, who pointed out that there is no scientific evidence showing trans athletes have an unfair advantage over cis athletes, Buttigieg responded.This time, the gay politician said that, while he has compassion for trans kids who are "being used as a political football," he also thinks "in order to bring people together on this, we also have to take everyone seriously.""People who have questions or wonder what this means they're going to have questions about how to make sure that's fair, and we should take those questions seriously and face those together," he added.With this stance, Buttigieg is not only capitulating to anti-LGBTQ+ conservatives and their arguments about trans people, but he is turning his back on the trans community. First of all, it bears repeating there is no scientific evidence that trans athletes have an inherent advantage over cis athletes.In general, studies find that trans individuals, following gender affirming hormone therapy, become more similar to their gender identity (post-transition) cisgender counterparts, or are somewhere between the expected male and female averages, D.J. Oberlin, an assistant professor of exercise science at CUNY Lehman, wrote in a comprehensive review of studies on trans participation in sports.Oberlin noted that while studies show only 0.5 percent to 0.6 percent of the population is trans, 2.3 percent of the population is "likely to fall above two standard deviations from a population mean" when it comes to height, weight, strength, and skill.There is no concern for restricting individuals who are exceptionally large or small, those who are genetically gifted, or those with differing hormone concentrations or muscle mass, so long as their gender and biologic sex align," he continued.Once you open your eyes to that reality, it becomes clear that the claim of "unfairness" is nothing more than a distraction a tactic from the right to make oppression sound more reasonable.This fearmongering echoes arguments Republicans made in the past against same-sex marriage. Politicians would rail on about protecting the "sanctity of marriage." Meanwhile, many of them would get divorced or cheat on their spouses.The Trump administration has employed the exact same "fairness" language Buttigieg has used to defend its attacks on trans youth."In recent years, many educational institutions and athletic associations have allowed men to compete in womens sports," states the Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports executive order. "This is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.""Therefore, it is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy," the order continues. "It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in womens sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth."Notice how the White House ties in fairness with "dignity and truth," and says that allowing "men to compete in women's sports" isn't just unfair, but is "demeaning" and "dangerous to women and girls."In reality, the specter of "fairness" in girls' sports is just a Trojan horse so that the political right can advance its more insidious beliefs about trans people. The "fairness" issue about trans girls in sports cannot be separated from transphobic lies about trans women being monsters, being violent, and being men.Megan Peterson, executive director at Gender Justice, says that the anti-trans movement has taken advantage of the fact that "sports tap into deep cultural values: fairness, competition, belonging.""The anti-trans movement has weaponized these values, spreading myths that trans athletes pose a threat, echoing the racist rhetoric used to justify the exclusion of Black athletes that they have an unfair advantage, their presence will ruin the game, that they dont belong," she stated in a February opinion piece in the Minnesota Star Tribune. "The fixation on trans athletes is a smokescreen. This movement isnt really about protecting women or girls, competition or fairness its about controlling who gets to exist openly and freely in our society."It's no longer just the right who is fixated on the "smokescreen" of fairness. Democrats are in on it, too, even Democrats who are allies or are queer themselves.The "LGB without the T" movement isn't new. For years, there have been groups of conservative queer people who want to exclude trans people from their movement. They say that trans people are extremists who are trying to rewrite the rules of reality and have nothing to do with gay rights.Now, this messaging is gaining momentum, even within Trump's government. Buttigieg's recent comments will only help it continue to do that.This summer, The New York Times published several articles advancing this view."They demanded that the entire society change in a fundamental way so that the sex binary no longer counted," Andrew Sullivan wrote in a guest essay about the "trans extremists" he argues have taken over the queer community. "Elementary school children were taught that being a boy or a girl might not have anything to do with their bodies and that their parents had merely guessed whether they were a boy or a girl when they were born. In fact, sex was no longer to be recognized at birth it was now merely assigned, penciled in."Sullivan maintained that while trans adults should have rights, including access to gender-affirming care, he argued that "fighting a losing battle to allow trans women to compete in womens sports and for biological men to be in womens intimate spaces and to perpetuate risky, inadequately tested sex changes on children, including gay and lesbian ones, is dumb, offensive to common sense and risks a much bigger backlash."It seems the Democratic Party, with leaders like Buttigieg and Newsom, agrees.In his comments, Buttigieg admitted that he knows trans youth are one of the "most vulnerable minorities in this country and in the world." So why won't he fight for them? It seems like Democrats have decided that supporting trans youth is a losing battle, and even if it is morally right, it's not worth the fight anymore.If the gay leaders in the party won't stand up for trans youth, will anyone?As more and more Democrats join in on Republican talking points about trans people, it's becoming more and more clear why a queer artist like Chappell Roan would decline to endorse Kamala Harris in her presidential run last year. The Democratic Party is making it clear that it doesn't see trans people as a priority. So it should come as no surprise that trans folks and their allies would soon return the favor.Mey Rude is a staff writer for Out.Voices is dedicated to featuring a wide range of inspiring personal stories and impactful opinions from the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. Visit out.com/submit to learn more about submission guidelines. We welcome your thoughts and feedback on any of our stories. Email us at voices@equalpride.com. Views expressed in Voices stories are those of the guest writers, columnists, and editors, and do not directly represent the views of Out or our parent company, equalpride.