Not everyone is loving the attention California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is getting for his ramped-up social media posts imitating President Donald Trump ― and the critics are not just MAGA adherents.
For many in the trans community, it’s worrisome to see so many people rallying around Newsom and positioning him as the de facto resistance figure against Trump, given the California governor’s complicated stance on trans issues.
On the governor’s titular podcast, “This Is Gavin Newsom,” he’s platformed fringe far-right guests, including some with transphobic views. He drew ire from some liberal circles in March, when he hosted pundit Charlie Kirk on the show and found common ground with Kirk on the issue of allowing transgender women and girls to compete in female sports.
“I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that,” he told Kirk in the episode. “It is an issue of fairness, it’s deeply unfair. We’ve got to own that. We’ve got to acknowledge it.”
Mercedes Weikal, a trans woman and a journalist who writes about the car industry, is among those troubled by Newsom’s about-face, especially because she sees him as a viable presidential candidate in many other ways. The politician “has the kind of energy the Democrats have been missing for far too long,” she says.
Newsom ― or at least some millennial staffers on his social media team — has nailed Trump’s social media style: the blustery, all-caps missives replete with name-calling and weird, buff AI portraits. He’s energizing the base.
“It’s unfortunate that this energy has come with terms and conditions, for trans people,” she told HuffPost.
Historically, Weikal sees Newsom as having been a better trans and LGBTQ+ ally than most politicians; she pointed out how, in 2024, he signed the SAFETY Act, a bill that helps protect California LGBTQ students from being outed by their schools. As mayor of San Francisco, he famously issued marriage licenses before gay marriage was legalized by the Supreme Court in 2015.
In 2022, California declared itself a refuge for transgender health care after Newsom signed a law ensuring gender-affirming care for California minors and those living outside the state.
But recently, he’s broken with liberals on hot-button trans issues. In the same March podcast episode with Kirk, Newsom said the Democratic Party was “crushed” on transgender issues in the 2024 election.
A Pew Research Center survey from February found that Americans have grown more supportive of restrictions for trans people, too. Roughly 66% favor or strongly favor laws and policies that require trans athletes to compete on teams that match their sex assigned at birth. About 56% support policies that ban health care professionals from providing care related to gender transitions for minors.
Weikal said she looks at Newsom ― and other Democratic politicians like him who are on the fence on issues like this ― and sees someone who’s decided that trans people and other vulnerable groups like unhoused people are worth sacrificing to score a political win.
“It’s understandable how trans people, including myself, are feeling sour about Newsom. It feels like we are in a no-win situation,” she said. “Trump and MAGA want to erase us, and the Democrats are keen to move aside to let it happen.”
Carlin Stiehl via Getty Images
Newsom has broken with liberals on many hot-button trans issues recently.
Though Newsom hasn’t officially said he plans to run for president, his star has risen exponentially in the party in the past few months due to his “fight fire with fire” approach to Trump, and not just because of the viral social media posts.
His efforts to curb Trump’s power include a plan to redraw his state’s congressional boundaries in response to Texas Republicans’ plan for mid-decade redistricting. He’s also sued Trump after the president federalized California’s National Guard in response to demonstrators against Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
At the same time, his support of the trans community has become less certain. Earlier this year ― right around the time he had Kirk on his podcast ― Politico reported that senior officials in Newsom’s governor’s office quietly discouraged Democrats from introducing transgender rights legislation, including legislation that would have required judges to consider children’s gender identity in custody disputes.
As reporter Erin Reed wrote in The Advocate this week, the “caution came precisely as red states were escalating their crackdowns, enacting increasingly hostile laws. California could have served as a bulwark — a safe ground — but instead, Newsom hit the brakes.”
Last month, the politician spent more than four hours on a podcast hosted by former U.S. Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan and refused to give a direct answer when asked what age is too young for children to undergo transgender-affirming surgery.
“I’m concerned with the direction Newsom’s politics have taken over the last few months,” Zoe Tunnell, a writer and trans woman, told HuffPost.
Newsom may have given a toast at the 2019 wedding of his godchild, who came out as a trans man in 2021, and his trans bride, Tunnell said, but in 2025 “he is sidling up to right-wing influencers on his podcast and claiming he doesn’t understand how pronouns work.”
“His latest shift, suggesting that 25-year-old adults may be too young to be able to consent to HRT is a radically right-wing opinion, far more conservative than even the deepest of red states have attempted to push through legislation at this point,” she added.
Bloomberg via Getty Images
“It isn’t ridiculous to refuse to support someone who won’t support our own right to live our lives as ourselves,” said Zoe Tunnell, a writer and trans woman.
As the Trump administration has released policy after policy targeting the rights and personhood of transgender people, Tunnel believes the trans community “deserves better” in Democratic politicians. It’s also frustrating to have people online suggest that trans people just need to grin and bear any potential Newsom run for the greater good.
“The resounding cries of required support for Newsom so long before the election by Democrats, when he has done nothing but show no care or empathy for trans people at a time when they are more targeted and terrified than ever, are insulting and exhausting,” she said.
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Mx. Dahlia Belle, a stand-up comedian and trans activist, feels similarly. She told HuffPost she wants more from her elected representatives than cheeky online clapbacks.
“I don’t want the U.S. political system reduced to memes and Twitter fights,” she said. “I want my fellow Americans to recognize that ‘not Trump’ will never be enough, that what those of us at the bottom rungs of society truly want and need is progress and, preferably, a genuine overhaul of a failed and broken system.”
The only serious way forward, Belle thinks, “is a progressive candidate equally unwilling to waver on principles of democracy, human rights, dignity and social equity.”
