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Once Again, It’s Not About Sports
Why trans allies objected to Rep. Seth Moulton’s comments last month
Since 2015, Seth Moulton has represented Massachusetts’ 6th congressional district, which includes the North Shore and the cities of Lynn, Peabody, his hometown of Salem, and the fishing hub of Gloucester (pop. 30,000). Running unopposed in the last election, he was reelected.
I grew up in Massachusetts in an adjacent congressional district.
Representative Moulton made the news recently for talking — on the surface, anyway — about trans kids in sports.
In Gloucester recently, as James Finn wrote: A trans boy, who had briefly played on the boys’ football team last year but quit due to threats, was beaten by members of the boys’ football team as he attempted to flee through the woods. This happened on August 30, the weekend before the school year began.
But that wasn’t Representative Moulton’s concern about trans kids in sports. He was talking about something entirely different.
On November 7, a couple days after Trump won the election, the New York Times quoted Moulton on what he believed the reasons were:
“Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges…
