Michigander Pete Buttigieg Adds Compassionate Perspective to Trans Youth Sports Debate
Former transportation secretary calls for thoughtful, community-level approach based on 'fairness'
Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg offered nuanced comments on transgender youth participation in sports during an NPR interview on July 28, emphasizing compassion while acknowledging concerns about fairness.
"The approach starts with compassion," Buttigieg told "Morning Edition" host Steve Inskeep. "Compassion for transgender people, compassion for families, especially of young people who are going through this, and also empathy for people who are not sure what all of this means for them."
When asked whether a parent concerned about their child facing a trans kid in girls' sports "has a case," Buttigieg said, "Sure." However, he rejected blanket federal policies like those being enacted by the Trump administration.
"These decisions should be in the hands of sports leagues and school boards and not politicians, least of all politicians in Washington trying to use this as a political pawn," Buttigieg told NPR.
The former mayor's comments come amid heightened political tensions over transgender rights. Recent polling shows public opinion has shifted against inclusion of trans athletes, with a June 2025 Gallup poll finding 69% of U.S. adults believe trans athletes should only play on teams matching their gender assigned at birth.
Buttigieg acknowledged the complexity of the issue, noting different sports and age levels require different considerations. "I think that chess is different from weightlifting, and weightlifting is different from volleyball, and middle school is different from the Olympics," he told NPR. "So that's exactly why I think that we shouldn't be grandstanding on this as politicians. We should be empowering communities, organizations and schools to make the right decisions."
Since returning to office in January, President Donald Trump has signed executive orders banning transgender girls and women from playing on female sports teams, among other restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights.
The Supreme Court is set to weigh in on the legalities of transgender sports bans, having agreed to hear two related cases in its upcoming term beginning in October.
The debate has reached Michigan, where GOP lawmakers recently called on the Michigan High School Athletic Association to adopt policies complying with Trump's executive order banning transgender girls from female sports teams. In March 2025, the Michigan House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution urging the MHSAA to ban transgender girls from participating in girls' sports and adhere to Trump's executive order. However, the small scale of the issue is evident in the numbers: the MHSAA reports just two transgender athletes currently play on high school teams statewide out of about 180,000 total athletes.
LGBTQ+ advocacy groups have warned that such bans affect far more than the small number of trans student-athletes. According to GLAAD, fewer than 10 transgender student-athletes compete among the NCAA's 510,000 athletes, but bans have led to documented cases of cisgender girls being falsely accused of being trans and subjected to harassment or invasive screening.
In the same NPR interview, Buttigieg addressed broader Democratic Party strategy following the 2024 election losses. He warned that Democrats shouldn't try to restore everything that Trump has dismantled, arguing the party has been "too attached to a status quo that has been failing us for a long time."
"It is wrong to burn down the Department of Education, but I actually think it's also wrong to suppose that the Department of Education was just right in 2024," Buttigieg said, suggesting Democrats need to embrace change rather than simply returning to pre-Trump policies.
Buttigieg also discussed what he called "the politics of fear," saying the fear of political retribution or violence "is more real than at any point in my lifetime." He advocated for "a politics of courage" as the only antidote to fear-based politics.
The former transportation secretary, who has grown a beard since leaving office, avoided questions about whether he would run for president in 2028 or whether he would shave the facial hair for a potential campaign.
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