Virginia congressman's meeting with transgender Democrats erupts into profanity. Then he walked out

Rep. Eugene Vindman came to a predominantly Republican Virginia county Tuesday night expecting to tell local Democrats why they needed to help him win reelection and put their party back in control of Congress. Instead, the first-term Democrat spent much of his visit defending himself to transgender members of his own party before leaving after a profane confrontation with a constituent.

At least two transgender women and one transgender man challenged Vindman over his May vote for GOP-backed legislation affecting transgender students. Some described being outed to unsupportive parents. Others questioned why transgender people should trust Democrats to protect them when members of the party sometimes support Republican measures targeting them.

“Congressman, you need to shut up and listen,” one cisgender Democratic committee member told him during a hallway confrontation.

Vindman said he was listening and had stayed despite “you all attacking me.”

“Shut the f*ck up,” the committee member responded.

“No,” Vindman said, moving toward the man. “You can’t f***ing talk to me that way.”

Vindman then walked out, shouting “no” when one constituent asked if they could ask one more question.

Shortly afterward, a Vindman campaign spokesperson contacted The Advocate seeking an opportunity to discuss what had happened. Vindman sent The Advocate a statement Wednesday morning.

“I want to sincerely apologize for my actions,” Vindman said. “I failed to meet my own high standards, and for that I am sorry. As a leader, I should spend more time listening and less time talking. Last night I failed to do that.”

“I know that people in our communities are hurting, and I commit to listening to them and fighting for them,” he added.

The King George Democratic Committee declined The Advocate’s request for comment.

Related: Virginia Democrat who praised LGBTQ+ inclusion is now helping Republicans out trans kids

The Republican bill Vindman backed

Vindman began the evening discussing President Donald Trump, affordability, and the midterm elections before inviting questions.

One transgender woman immediately asked about H.R. 2616, the Republican-backed legislation Vindman supported in May.

“How can you one week say, ‘Hey, they’re important to our community,’ and then the next week, vote to out kids?” she asked.

The House passed H.R. 2616 on May 20 by a 217-198 vote, with Vindman among eight Democrats who joined Republicans. The measure would condition certain federal education funding for public elementary and middle schools on parental consent before changing a minor student’s gender marker, pronouns, or preferred name on school forms or providing different sex-based accommodations. Critics warned it could endanger LGBTQ+ students who confide in school staff by pressuring educators to disclose their identities to potentially unsupportive parents.

The bill has not advanced in the Senate.

Vindman told the room he still considered himself a supporter of LGBTQ+ people, then addressed the politics behind Republican legislation involving transgender rights.

“Why do you think the Republicans put forward a bill like that?” Vindman asked. “They put forward a bill like that so they can get Democrats in districts that are very purple where they can beat them over the head.”

Vindman insisted his own vote was rooted in parental involvement.

“I’m a parent. I’m a dad,” he said. “I care deeply about my kids, and that’s what I voted on.”

Related: These 8 Democrats voted for the Republican national ‘Don’t Say Trans’ bill passed by the House

‘Not every parent is the loving person’

That explanation collided with the experiences of transgender people sitting in front of him.

Joseph Gaborow, who identified himself as vice chair for membership of LGBT+ Democrats of Virginia and serves as secretary of the King George Democratic Committee, told Vindman the organization had discussed his vote and “completely” disagreed with him.

When Gaborow pressed him about transgender children without supportive parents, Vindman again returned to his role as a father.

“I voted as a parent,” he said.

“I’m going to vote to help the vast majority of people the majority of the time,” Vindman continued. “Is it going to help everybody? No.”

Hailey, a transgender woman and military veteran, then told Vindman what disclosure had meant in her own life. The Advocate is withholding her last name for safety reasons.

She said she knew she was transgender when she was 9. At 15, she confided in a trusted adult at school. The information reached her parents.

“My parents went after me saying that I was not the son that they wanted and kicked me out,” Hailey said. She told Vindman she ended up on the streets before joining the Army Reserve at 17.

“You need to know that not every parent is the loving, cherished person for that child,” she said.

A transgender man described another childhood shaped by fear of parental rejection. He told Vindman he had been told nobody would love him if he were a boy and remained closeted until his 20s.

“If I had had a space where I was able to come out at school saying this is me and my parents had been told, there would’ve been hell to pay,” he said. “I barely survived my childhood.”

He later told The Advocate that a teacher or counselor may be the one accepting adult a transgender child has.

“By making the teachers have to report to parents that are possibly unsupportive, you’re taking away the teacher that could be the supportive person in the child’s life,” he said.

As the discussion continued, Vindman’s campaign manager, Arif Hasan, gestured for him to wrap up.

“This is an important issue,” Vindman said. “And I’m happy to have side discussions on this, but I don’t want this issue to manipulate the entire meeting.”

King George’s own LGBTQ+ fight

The issue was hardly abstract in King George. Last week, the ACLU of Virginia and Potomac Law Group filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of two students who say the county school board prevented them from forming a gay-straight alliance at King George Middle School while allowing other noncurricular student groups.

The Advocate asked Vindman what he would tell LGBTQ+ residents confronting that local fight.

“In the short term, looking to this federal government for protection is low probability until we get a change,” Vindman said.

If Democrats regain congressional power, he said, “we’re going to have a positive agenda that is going to look to restore the rights of these communities so everybody can be treated with dignity and respect.”

Trump carried King George comfortably in 2024, as did Republican congressional candidate Derrick Anderson. Vindman won the broader 7th Congressional District with just over 51 percent.

Local Democrats have since worked to become more visible in the heavily Republican county. Several attendees said they had had few opportunities to raise concerns with Vindman directly. The Advocate found no record of him holding a public town hall in King George since taking office.

‘Pretending they’re listening’

As the committee moved to regular business, Vindman invited anyone who wanted to continue talking about “the trans issue” to join him in the hallway.

One transgender woman challenged him again over his insistence that his vote was based on principle despite his acknowledgment that Republicans use transgender issues politically against Democrats in competitive districts.

“No, no, no,” Vindman said. “I said that I’m a dad and this was a vote on parental rights. Yes. There is a political reality here, but I voted on the principle.”

A Black woman told Vindman she had been respectful and was merely trying to “plant a seed.”

“If you don’t want to listen to your constituents, then we’re really just going to get another Republican,” she said as she walked away.

“Yeah, I don’t think so. There’s a huge difference,” Vindman responded. “You’re walking away, but I am Jewish, and I’m an immigrant, ma’am.”

The woman said she was walking away because of how he had responded to people raising concerns.

“You are showing your privilege right now,” she said.

“I’m showing you my privilege? OK. Got it,” Vindman replied.

“Congratulations. I’m glad you can embrace that,” she said.

Another Democratic committee member intervened.

“Congressman, you need to shut up and listen,” the member said. “Sometimes your constituents — you’re getting feedback right now.”

“This is me standing around here,” Vindman responded. “It’s contentious, but I came in here, and I was attacked by you, and I’m staying here to continue this conversation.”

The exchange culminated in the profanity that preceded Vindman’s departure.

After he left, transgender attendees questioned whether Vindman had actually heard them.

“I felt like I talked to a wall,” Hailey said.

The transgender man added that talking to an actual wall “would feel better because then at least I’d be alone.”

“Now I have somebody pretending they’re listening and they’re not listening,” he said.

He said the frustration was especially acute because transgender people are routinely told to turn to elected officials when their rights are threatened.

“When your rights are being stepped on, how many times do you get told to call your congressman?” he said. “So if your congressman is voting for rights that’s against your minority group, you’re supposed to call him? What? How does that make any sense?”

Another transgender woman said transgender people had become an especially convenient political target.

“They have finally found a group that is so small and is so generally uncomfortable to the general populace that they can attack us kind of wantonly and with no concern about blowback from the wider public,” she said.

Still, she said Vindman otherwise had “a very good record.”

A community ‘deeply disappointed’

Gaborow also put his concerns in writing after the meeting.

He provided The Advocate with a copy of a letter he sent to Vindman’s campaign, stressing that he wrote and shared it in his personal capacity, not as a representative of the King George Democratic Committee, LGBT+ Democrats of Virginia or any other board on which he serves.

Gaborow said he was “deeply disappointed” by Vindman’s defense of his H.R. 2616 vote and what he viewed as the congressman’s unwillingness to listen to people directly affected by it.

“Democracy is not simply about protecting the majority,” Gaborow wrote. “It is also about protecting the rights and dignity of people who are not in the majority.”

His larger warning was political.

“This is exactly the kind of behavior that causes Democrats to become disengaged and, ultimately, stay home on Election Day,” Gaborow wrote. “They simply decide whether they feel heard, respected, and represented.”

He added: “As of tonight, I do not know whether I can vote for Congressman Vindman’s reelection.”

A Democrat favored in November

Vindman faced no Democratic primary challenger this year. Republicans nominated retired Army Lt. Col. Doug Ollivant to face him in November, and current election ratings favor Vindman.

One transgender woman described the choice as one between “callous dismissal and active hatred.” She lamented that Vindman had no primary challenger who might have forced a debate over votes like this one.

Yet as the meeting broke up, attendees were still walking out with yard signs for Vindman and Sen. Mark Warner.

Even after Vindman had left, one of the transgender women acknowledged what she expected to do in November.

“I hate to say it,” she said. “I’m still going to have to vote for him.”