A tough stretch for rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., took a turn for the worse Tuesday as she watched members of her party vote for a bill she attacked to widespread derision.
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 Gonzalez, both of Texas, to vote against the bill. Cuellar and Gonzalez joined 218 House Republicans who voted in favor of the bill, which seeks to prevent federally funded educational institutions from allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ and women’s sports.
For Ocasio-Cortez, the idea of ​​Democratic congressmen voting for a Republican-backed bill before President-elect Trump even returns to office suggests her party is “not in good shape.”
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“We can’t be ninnies about this,” Ocasio-Cortez told The Independent on Tuesday. “It’s just early days. Trump isn’t even sworn in yet, and if a tiny little sports bill would cause the Dems to defect, we’re not in good shape.”
Ocasio-Cortez advised Democrats not to be “ninnies” on the same day she delivered a much-mocked tirade that included several unsubstantiated claims and unfinished sentences. Her rant drew several viral reactions on social media calling her “the dumbest person in Congress.”
For Ocasio-Cortez, it marks a bad start to 2025 after a rough 2024. Despite winning re-election to her New York House seat, 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 in her bid to become the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, being passed over by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va.
In addition, Ocasio-Cortez was often 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 retweeted a video of Green Party vice presidential candidate Butch Ware speaking out against transgender inclusion in women’s sports with a caption that said, “This ticket is predatory and people deserve better.” The post caused severe backlash on social media.
“The AOC says it is predatory behavior not to have men compete in women’s sports. For the AOC, acknowledging the biological reality is ‘predatory’. Do you know what is actually predatory to sexualize children and normalize pedophilia,” it wrote conservative influencer and former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines on X while posting a Pakinomist Digital article about Ocasio-Cortez’s comments.
The mockery of Ocasio-Cortez picked up several weeks after the election, when X users discovered that she no longer includes her pronouns “she/her” in her bio.
Ocasio-Cortez is one of many prominent Democrats who remain strongly in favor of transgender inclusion in women’s sports, even as the issue proved a vulnerability for Democrats in the November election.
Many Democrats who spoke against the bill Tuesday did not argue with the premise that transgender athletes should be allowed in women’s and girls’ sports. Instead, they argued that the measures preventing transgender inclusion will expose girls to genital examinations and sexual predators, despite the fact that there is no language in the bill proposing gender examinations for girls in sports.
Ocasio-Cortez included the unsubstantiated claim in her rant Tuesday, but gave a shout-out to transgender athletes when she shouted “Trans girls are girls!” on the floor of the House of Representatives.
In this photo on April 10, 2019, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y., during a House Financial Services Committee hearing with executives of major banks on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Ocasio-Cortez previously co-sponsored the Gender 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 girls’ 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 Democratic House representatives have publicly backed away from their support for transgender inclusion, including Reps. Seth Moulton, D-Mass.; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas; and rep. Tom Suozzi, DN.Y. Still, each of those Democrats voted against the bill on Tuesday.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
ONE national exit poll conducted by the Concerned Women for America legislative action committee found that 70% of moderate voters viewed “Donald Trump’s opposition to transgender boys and men playing girls’ and women’s sports, and transgender boys and men using girls’ and women’s bathrooms” as important to them. 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 consider whether transgender athletes of either sex 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 either never or rarely be allowed. When respondents were asked specifically about adult transgender female athletes competing on female sports teams, 69% opposed it.
