Numerous Democratic midterm candidates have previously made anti-trans statements or voted for anti-trans legislation. Trans journalist Erin Reed published a list yesterday of these candidates and advised her followers not to vote for them, lest their victories convince the Democratic Party “that throwing transgender people under the bus is a winning strategy,” Reed wrote.
One would love to put you in a reeducation camp and obliterate your entire existence. The other might say you can’t play soccer. Do with that what you will.
The issue is that electing transphobes normalizes transphobia. The Democratic party is always courting votes from “moderates” and conservatives, but no one is chasing trans voters. This is basically a perfect set up for the ratchet effect: Dems stop letting trans girls play sports, Repubs celebrate their victory and move the goal posts again, and now Dems are proposing some new “middle ground” restraint on trans people.
None of my local candidates were on Erin’s analysis, so I don’t have a horse in that particular race. But I do think it’s reasonable to refuse to vote for anyone who is willing to strip you of your rights because of your gender. I don’t think it’s fair to blame a marginalized group for why they’re being marginalized, when the other option is to advocate for them.
Looking at a trans person and saying “vote against your interests because if you don’t vote it might be worse for you quicker” is not fair or right. No one should be feeling smug when they do that, despite how much it seems to happen on Lemmy. The better, more useful, thing to do is to see if you are in any of the districts on Erin’s list, and, if so, advocate for your trans allies. Call your rep and say, “Hey, I want to vote for you, but your stance on trans people doesn’t align with my values.” Pressure them to not implement transphobic policies. You can still plan to vote for them anyway, but they don’t need to know that. Use the threat. Convince them that trans allies need to be courted, too, and Dems are not just the accepted and default candidate because “Republicans bad.”
FTFY
You can play soccer, but maybe not on the women’s team.
You know what? Let’s go. If all you have to offer is a slightly kinder abuser, march me to the Republican death camps, at least I know they just want me dead and don’t want to fundraise off of my continued suffering and browbeat me into supporting them as my only option.
Oh for fucks sake. At least there can be progress with democrats. Gay marriage, don’t ask don’t tell -> gays and trans folks allowed to openly serve in the military. Push in the right direction and you can get there. Or you can throw it all away and let the fascists take over because a half dozen democrats aren’t sure you should be playing on the girls volleyball team.
So that’s just it, progress can’t be made if the Democrats concede to anti-trans talking points. What’s worse is it will give way to anti-trans bills that would have been a party line vote to seeing bipartisan support.
In general, I’m just very tired of being told to grin and bear the less bad choice, the imperfect ally and the slow erosion of my rights because it could always be worse or because it’s not politically viable or because these things take time. I’m tired of my needs being the inconvenient disposable ones. I’m tired of these conversations that seem to have just turned into simple tone conversations where people don’t read the words and emotions and just make snap judgements and dump a bunch of rhetoric.
I wish we could have something new