Well, the Democratic party’s anti-trans heel turn that many people have long expected may finally be upon us. After years of trying to bully trans constituents and their allies on the left into accepting more anti-trans candidates—particularly in red and purple states—many major candidates broke to the right last week, coming out against a variety of trans freedoms.
Dems are trying to attract centrist voters, and yes it sucks.
But the Nazis will put trans people and everyone else in cages. That is their promise.
Blue no matter who, because you’ve got to be reasonable about these things, and we can only fight one meaningful front at a time. We don’t want a repeat of 2 years ago.
We also don’t want to normalize transphobia in the Democratic party. I’ll vote blue no matter who, but my non-trans allies also need to call these candidates and threaten them with, “I want to vote for you, but I can’t abide your anti-trans rhetoric.” Let them know their efforts to attract centrists could result in “a repeat of 2 years ago.”
Because just voting in favor of transphobes without that feedback emboldens them to make bigger and bolder promises to keep up with the conservatives’ constant ratcheting to the right.
The feedback comes from your voting actions. If you say I don’t support what you and doing and still support them it is confirmation to continue doing what they are doing.
Feedback cannot come exclusively from voting actions, because people can vote for whatever they want for any reason they want. Without dialogue with my representatives, they have no idea if I skipped voting because of their policies, because I thought they had a dumb haircut, or because I got high and forgot it was Tuesday.
Trans people will only survive this assault on their right to exist if allies make their voices heard. Not just anonymous ballots, but calling reps or meeting them at events. Look your representative in the eye and make them explain to you why they support policies that hurt your community. Democracy can’t just be a thing you do one day per year and then cross your fingers on: dialogue and engagement are what change minds.
That’s all wonderful for what should and could be. But the fact of the matter is we do only have one or two days a year.
Stay home or throw away your votes at your own peril
What? No, that’s my point. Democracy is a full-time gig. You should be talking to friends and neighbors about what’s important to you. You should be contacting your representatives. Mine regularly host town halls where I can go downtown and yell at them on a microphone, and it’s great. If all you do is vote, then you better be perfectly aligned with your rep’s views, or your just going unheard and unrepresented.
what do most people do? Are most people making politics a full time gig?
We’re all busy with our actual full time gigs.
What is unreasonable about not wanting candidates to cede entirely to conservative talking points? If they don’t want to engage on trans issues, they can always redirect. If they think that they’re winning more votes by taking actively anti-trans positions then why is it incumbent of trans people and their allies to vote against their interests and not on the candidates to adopt a position that doesn’t abandon folks?
^ this is the exact same thing they said on The Professional Left podcast I mentioned on this thread.
Essentially, Democrats can at least be reached, probably educated and moved on the matter. Republicans won’t be doing anything but figuring out how to deport, imprison, or worse.
I’d also have to look at a case by case basis, but I think I’ve seen cases where someone (on the net) declares that a Democrat is being anti-trans simply because they admit there may be some amount of nuance to the “men in women’s sports” thing [1]. The Democrat may be all in on rights, but may hedge on sports and because it’s not all of the checkboxes, that puts them into the anti-trans camp?
[1] Which, by the way, the right hammers on that particular thing the most because the American population is overwhelmingly against the idea. If the Republicans force Democrats to run on “men in women’s sports”, like they want them to, it is a losing issue. All of a sudden, men that used to scoff about women’s basketball all of a sudden cannot stop talking about it, because the right wing noise machine tries to make trans the central issue, and they definitely try to make sports the central point of trans, when they aren’t talking about “mutilating” kids. Because sports is about the only thing where they poll better…
First it was us using the toilet, now it’s us playing sport, next it’ll be another right and so on.
There is nothing to gain by chasing the transphobic vote, and while you sit comfortably we are being shut out of society, unable to get jobs and suffering.
If this was about race and the Dems were backing black people being on seperate busses would you still feel comfortable saying we need to look on a case by case basis? You’re happy to throw us under the bus because you are not us and we’re such a minority that you never have to listen to our suffering.
Agree, but the solution isn’t to sit out because the blue candidate doesn’t fit some purity test.
Because sitting out OR voting red is a vote for fascism, full stop.
It’s always oh you oppose genocide or trans people being dehumanised that’s just a purity test, I can overlook such evil because I’m unaffected.
Thank you for voting for the GOP, I guess
Thank you for voting for genocide. I guess.
I’m voting for a chance at not having genocide.
Being willfully obtuse won’t get you very far in life. Best of luck to you.
Thanks Obama Biden.
The middleeast thanks you for your Operation Enduring Freedom.
I don’t think any (or not many) Democratic voters are calling for trans to be thrown under the bus. Certainly I am not. I think we need to define what terms like anti-trans or transphobic actually mean.
If a Democrat is punting on or not entirely supportive of government deciding how to weigh in on sports, does that mean they are throwing someone under the bus? Do you think that Democrat may be more or less supportive of trans than any given Republican would be?
I have trans people in my life that I very much fear for, most especially under Republican “leadership”. However, if a Democrat isn’t giving full-throated support for “men in women’s sports”, I don’t consider that the same as throwing trans under the bus. The candidate may need to evolve on that on particular thing, but then so does most of the American population (75% have reservations about transgender females in women’s sports).
The Republicans seem to be very craftily trying to winnow all the many issues out there down to making it all about trans, and then even more narrowly about sports. I don’t think Democrats would be wise to let them do that framing. The ones that don’t accept this trap I don’t consider “anti-trans”, either. The Republicans are so very obviously using this one thing to try to blunt what may be a historic blue wave and retain their power, given how unpopular their president is on nearly every issue, including even immigration.
They may be cynical AF in this framing and trying to sow division, but you can be sure that many of their candidates are true believers of the 7MM variety and will be coming for trans (even more) if they get more people into office.
Engaging in right wing talking points and transphobic framing of them is in fact, transphobic, whether or not the candidate has any particular hate in their hearts about it. In fact, it’s about the easiest thing to deflect and redirect to a solid issue with something like “I trust that our state and local sports associations are best positioned to make and define rules that are appropriate for their sport as they have done for decades, but what I am worried about is the rising cost of living.”
If one is willing to cede to conservatives on that, what is the next thing they are willing to cave on? Bathroom use? Heathcare? Civil rights?
I’m not including that deflection you reference as putting them in the anti-trans camp and sounds like you are not either, but I have seen online instances where people proclaim that because the Democrat is not proactively advocating for a certain position on sports, they are then anti-trans. That’s what I’m talking about.
That deflection is nearly perfect, by the way. There are far more issues that are far more cross-cutting than trying to get a Democrat trapped in talking about sports and then paint them as being fringe or hating women/girls, or whatever.
And no, none of those other things should be budged on.
Right now Democrat Marcy Kaptur is bragging about voting with Republicans to deny children ‘transgender ideology’. This does not end at sports, it never will. We draw a line now or continue to go further down this path.