Prominent women leaving Democratic Party over education

They were fed up and just couldn’t take it anymore.

That’s what four prominent women said of their decision to leave the Democratic Party, addressing a crowd at the Moms for Liberty Joyful Warriors National Summit in Washington, D.C. over Labor Day weekend.

Tulsi Gabbard, Shawn Thierry, Maud Maron and Jennifer Sey made their remarks at the conference, which was headlined by former President Donald Trump, the current Republican nominee.

Gabbard, who formerly represented Hawaii in Congress and once sought the Democratic presidential nomination, left the Democratic Party in 2022, saying it is controlled by an “elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism” and working “to undermine our God-given freedoms.”

Gabbard said she gained inspiration from her mother, who once ran for school board in Hawaii and had a protestor spit at her feet and call her a “princess of hate.” 

“In the face of hatred and darkness, be strong,” Gabbard said. “Wear that armor of love and know that they are weak because they are driven by fear.” 

Thierry, a Texas state representative, announced Friday she was leaving the Democratic Party, adding that many Democrats from the federal and state level agree with her that “it is wrong to castrate boys and sterilize girls.” 

When she objected to laws approving of sex changes for minors, Democratic lawmakers told her, “Hold your nose and vote with us, or else we will destroy you.” 

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has welcomed her with open arms. 

Maud Maron, a former public defender and member of the New York City Community Education Council District 2, left the Democratic Party in 2023. She ran for Congress in 2022 as a Democrat against Congressman Dan Goldman but lost.  

“There is risk to speaking up, but there is more risk to not speaking up,” she said during the panel. 

“A PTA is going to have people supporting Trump and Kamala and third-party candidates because you’re the parents,” she told The Lion. “And every single one of those parents has to be just as welcome to walk through the door as every other parent.” 

Maron said she plans to vote for Trump in November, and she believes a far-left agenda is “bad for this country.” 

Sey was brand president for Levi Strauss but resigned from her job, claiming she was pushed out of the company for speaking out against school closings during Covid-19. Sey, who is also a former member of the United States women’s national artistic gymnastics team, later founded XX-XY Athletics, which she says is the only athletic brand to stand up for women in sports. 

“People ask me all of the time, ‘Why are kids and free speech the hill you’re willing to die on?’ and I ask them, ‘Why aren’t you? What’s wrong with you? If you don’t do it, who will?’” she said.  

Trump addressed the conference’s evening session. He has changed his political affiliation several times, last leaving the Democratic Party last in 2009 to become an independent and eventually a Republican in 2012. 

Trump expressed his concerns over more children identifying as transgender during a conversation with Tiffany Justice, a Moms for Liberty co-founder. 

“Think of it,” he said. “Your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s going to happen with your child.” 

Many of the children who transition eventually regret their decision, Trump added. 

Justice and Trump also talked about former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who lost to Glenn Youngkin in 2021 after the former famously said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” McAuliffe was governor in 2014-2018 before running again in 2021. 

“Who could even believe this is happening? So think of it,” Trump said. “You have these parents that end up in fistfights at school meetings, and the parents mean well. They end up getting arrested (and) put in prison. I’ve seen things, especially Loudoun County (Virginia).”  

Trump’s Agenda 27 outlines what he plans to do in education if elected, including cutting federal funding “for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and any other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children.”