Top adviser resigns, Salem schools condemn Seth Moulton’s comments about trans athletes

The comments drew the ire of other Democrats in Massachusetts and criticism from the state’s LGBTQ+ community. On Friday, Moulton’s top campaign aide resigned but declined to give reasons.

In Moulton’s hometown of Salem, Mayor Dominick Pangallo and the school committee sent a joint email to city residents saying Moulton’s comments “do not reflect our values.”

“We want to reassure our LGBTQ+ students that as district leaders, we will always honor your identity, support your dreams and aspirations, and applaud your accomplishments,” the email said.

Matt Chilliak, Moulton’s campaign manager and head of his Serve America political committee, confirmed his resignation to the Globe but did not address whether it was related to the comments and directed further questions to Moulton’s office.

Moulton, who briefly ran for the party’s presidential nomination in 2020, said in a statement Friday evening that while he supports the rights of transgender people, he “strongly believes” in favor of limiting transgender participation in women’s competitive sports.

“These two ideas are not mutually exclusive and we may even disagree about them. Yet there are many who scream from the far-left corners of social media and believe that I have failed the Democratic Party’s unspoken purity test,” he said. “We did not lose the 2024 election because of any transgender person or issue. We lost in part because we shamed and degraded too many opinions from too many voters, and that has to stop.”

Moulton’s comments came as Democrats weighed in The country is trying to understand where its candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the party at large went wrong this election cycle.

After Donald Trump’s victory on Tuesday, Democrats took turns pointing the finger. Harris allies accused President Biden of staying in the race too long before dropping out, spoke of misinformation, and some, like Moulton, blamed the emphasis on identity politics at the expense of the economy and immigration, issues that working-class voters often consider such identified their greatest concerns.

Transgender rights, including whether transgender athletes should be allowed to compete in women’s sports, have long been a hot topic. Locally, a new state law in New Hampshire that bans transgender girls from playing girls’ sports in middle and high schools sparked a lawsuit from the family of a transgender girl.

In the late days of the campaign, Republicans spent heavily on ads attacking the rights of transgender people and attacking Harris for her previous comments supporting gender-affirming care for prison inmates.

The Massachusetts Democratic Party said Moulton’s comments “did not reflect the general sentiments of our party.” Leader Steve Kerrigan said the party was “proud to stand with the LGTBQ+ community, particularly our transgender friends, neighbors and loved ones across the Commonwealth.”

However, the state Republican Party applauded Moulton on Friday.

“The backlash against Congressman Moulton for this statement is one of the reasons Democrats have suffered significant losses across the country this election cycle,” said party chairwoman Amy Carnevale. “Republicans agree that it is certainly possible to respect gender preferences, but also recognize that the physical differences between men and women in sports pose special risks.”

Massachusetts state Rep. Manny Cruz, a Salem Democrat and a member of the city’s school board, said he agreed Democrats need to do some soul-searching, but “they shouldn’t look any further than themselves.”

“Hearing my congressman talk about identity politics as the reason we lost the election is completely wrong,” he said. “He has two ears and one mouth, and he has to use them in that proportion.”

While Moulton isn’t the only Democrat calling for a reckoning after election losses – Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats, invoked identity politics when he said Wednesday that the party had “abandoned working-class people.” – Some felt Moulton’s comments were mean-spirited and unnecessary.

The comments sparked sharp criticism from Massachusetts’ LGTBQ+ community, which has been vocal in recent days after Trump, who made attacks on transgender Americans a focus of his campaign, won a second term in the White House on Tuesday had.

LGTBQ advocacy group Mass Equality said Moulton’s comments were “both harmful and factually inaccurate.”

“Our community is deeply hurt by these comments that reinforce harmful stereotypes and undermine the dignity of transgender athletes,” said Tanya Neslusan, executive director of Mass Equality.

State Representative John Moran, an openly gay Democrat from the South End, called Moulton “weak” in a post Friday. And on Friday afternoon, about a dozen people came to Moulton’s district office in Salem to protest his comments, even though the office was closed for the Veterans Day holiday, which is Monday.

Aria Stewart, who identifies as a transgender woman, organized the last-minute protest “to send a message to Moulton that he is alienating people,” and accused Moulton of ” a well-known dog whistle” to use.

Kyle Davis, a Salem city councilman who attended the protest, also questioned the timing of the comments, just days after the election.

“With all the things Trump has said about trans people, this is a time when the trans community feels a lot of fear,” he said.

The Globe’s Billy Baker contributed to this report.

Samantha J. Gross can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @samanthajgross.