A difficult situation for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., worsened Tuesday when she watched members of her party vote in favor of a bill she attacked to the cost of widespread ridicule.
Ocasio-Cortez’s viral rant against the Women and Girls in Sports Protection Act was not enough to convince Democratic allies Henry Cuellar and Vicente González, both of Texas, to vote against the bill. Cuellar and González joined 218 House Republicans who voted in favor of the bill that seeks to prevent federally funded educational institutions from allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ and women’s sports.
For Ocasio-Cortez, the idea that congressional Democrats would vote for a Republican-backed bill even before President-elect Trump returns to power suggests her party is “not in good shape.”
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“We can’t be stupid about this,” Ocasio-Cortez told The Independent on Tuesday. “These are just the early days. Trump hasn’t even been sworn in yet, and if a small sports bill was going to cause Democrats to defect, we’re not in good shape.”
Ocasio-Cortez advised Democrats not to be “stupid” on the same day she delivered a widely mocked tirade containing multiple baseless claims and unfinished sentences. Her rant sparked multiple viral responses on social media that labeled her “the dumbest person in Congress.”
For Ocasio-Cortez, it marks a poor start to 2025 after a difficult 2024. Despite winning reelection to her House seat in New York, Ocasio-Cortez saw members of her coalition, “the Squad,” lose their seats, including Jamaal. Bowman in New York and Cori Bush in Missouri.
Ocasio-Cortez also lost her bid to become the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, being passed over by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va.
What’s more, Ocasio-Cortez was frequently the subject of viral mockery on social media, often for her unwavering stance on transgender inclusion in women’s and girls’ sports.
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In November, Ocasio-Cortez reshared a video of Green Party vice presidential candidate Butch Ware speaking out against the inclusion of transgender people in women’s sports with a caption that read, “This post is predatory and people deserves better.” The post sparked a heated reaction on social media.
“The AOC says it is predatory behavior to not want men to compete in women’s sports. For the AOC, acknowledging biological reality is ‘predatory’. Do you know what is really predatory? Sexualizing children and normalizing pedophilia,” he wrote conservative influencer and former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines on X while posting a Pak Gazette Digital article about Ocasio-Cortez’s comments.
The Ocasio-Cortez mockery resumed weeks after the election, when X users discovered that she no longer includes her “she/her” pronouns in her bio.
Ocasio-Cortez is one of many prominent Democrats who continue to strongly support transgender inclusion in women’s sports, even as the issue proved to be a vulnerability for Democrats in the November elections.
Many Democrats who spoke out against the bill Tuesday did not argue the premise that transgender athletes should be allowed to participate in women’s and girls’ sports. Instead, they argued that measures preventing transgender inclusion will subject girls to genital examinations and sexual predators, even though there is no language in the bill suggesting genital examinations for girls in sports.
Ocasio-Cortez included that baseless claim in her Tuesday rant, but she thanked transgender athletes when she shouted “Trans girls are girls!” on the floor of the House of Representatives.
In this April 10, 2019 photo, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., listens during a House Financial Services Committee hearing with leaders of major banks on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Ocasio-Cortez previously co-sponsored the Equality Act, which was proposed in 2019 and had revisions that would “force public schools to allow biologically male athletes who identify as transgender on women’s sports teams.” In March 2023, Democrats, including Ocasio-Cortez, proposed a resolution “recognizing that it is the duty of the Federal Government to develop and implement a Transgender Bill of Rights.”
Unlike Ocasio-Cortez, other House Democrats have publicly withdrawn their support for transgender inclusion, including Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass.; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas; and Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y. Still, each of those Democrats voted against the bill on Tuesday.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
TO national exit poll conducted by Concerned Women for America’s legislative action committee found that 70% of moderate voters considered “Donald Trump’s opposition to transgender boys and men playing girls’ and women’s sports and allowing boys and men to play sports as important to them.” “transgender people use the girls’ and women’s bathrooms.” And 6% said it was the most important issue of all, while 44% said it was “very important.”
In June, a survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago asked respondents to weigh in on whether transgender athletes of both sexes should be allowed to participate in sports leagues that correspond to their preferred gender identity rather than their biological sex.
In that survey, 65% responded that it should never or rarely be allowed. When respondents were asked specifically about adult transgender athletes competing on women’s sports teams, 69% were opposed.
