Welcome to #TransTuesday! This is part 2 of a series that are some of the most important Trans Tuesdays ever. Cis friends, again… please read. Take it to heart. Talk to other cis people about this, we need you. Here comes TRANS POLITICS 2: YOU MUST VOTE TO PROTECT US.
Cis friends, I have two big asks for you at the end of this essay. Please take them to heart.
Also, a quick reminder that Trans Tuesdays are off next week for election day. We’re back on Nov. 12!
To begin with, please be sure to have read TRANS POLITICS 1: STOP TOLERATING TRANSPHOBIA. You need to understand how and why transphobia, and all bigotry, cannot be, must not be tolerated.
Perhaps you think I’m blowing things out of proportion. Perhaps you don’t know about all dangers the trans and broader queer community face. Biden’s been president for four years, how bad could it be?
Biden’s not running again, so I’m not going to get into the specifics of his policies, but I will note that while he did some things to protect trans folks, he also did some things to harm us. And he repeatedly said he “had our backs” and then did nothing to stop half of the country from legislating trans rights away.
Here’s an incredibly long list of anti-trans legislation making its way through statehouses all across the United States. Look at what’s been happening on the Biden administration’s watch!
But they haven’t attempted anything on the federal level, at least! Right? Right? Incorrect.
Policies like these will cause trans people, and trans KIDS, to end up dead. Sure maybe they can’t pass now… but if the Republicans take control of the house and senate and presidency, what then? They already have the Supreme Court.
To prohibit the use of Federal funds to develop, implement, facilitate, or fund any sexually-oriented program, event, or literature for children under the age of 10, and for other purposes… This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Stop the Sexualization of Children Act”.
They classify telling kids that trans people exist and are a type of person you can be as part of this. And call it SEXUALIZING children! When trans kids who don’t receive gender-affirming care already are at very high risk of suicide! See the Trans Tuesday on TRANS KIDS AND THE INTAKE EXAM.
Read that bill and see how many things it would affect. Schools. Libraries. Private businesses. THEY ARE TRYING TO ERASE US FROM EXISTENCE. Which will cause trans people (including kids) untold pain and suffering and possibly a lifetime of trauma. It’s sickening and abhorrent.
And if you don’t understand how these laws result in dead trans kids, please do some reading.
That proposed bill definitely didn’t become law, but it’s not a one-off thing, is it? They’re not gonna go “aw shucks” and never try again, are they? Especially if they control all branches of government.
Just look at what Project 2025 says about trans people.
Project 2025 classifies EXISTING AS TRANS as being pornographic (and that we’re child predators by default), and then it says pornography should be outlawed.
THE MAIN REPUBLICAN PLATFORM IS TO MAKE BEING TRANSGENDER ILLEGAL.
THE FACT THAT WE EXIST IS NO MORE SEXUAL THAN THE FACT CIS PEOPLE EXIST.
oh my god oh my god I’m so mad. Are you as enraged as we are? YOU SHOULD BE.
And it’s not like that’s the end of the horrors of Project 2025. It’s a nightmare in every conceivable way, and you had better be familiar with it. It’s the Republican plan.
Trump has tried to distance himself from it, but it’s almost entirely created by his former staffers and he lies about literally everything, so what does all that tell you? Just look at the dangers of this thing.
And if that is somehow not enough, remember that in Trump’s last term he appointed three Supreme Court justices! It’s been the conservatives’ plan to overtake the judiciary branch and stuff it with judges who will rule along their ideological lines regardless of facts and truth and impartiality. Last Week Tonight did a recent segment on the four alarm fire that is the federal judges situation. Have a watch.
Here’s a series of articles tracking all the threats to trans and queer people another Trump presidency would bring. It is… extensive.
Here’s another article collecting quotes and information about the incredibly real threat another Trump presidency poses for trans people.
We have to STOP THEM RIGHT NOW, so they do not control both houses of congress and all three branches, because if that happens BILLS LIKE THE ABOVE AND PROJECT 2025 WILL ABSOLUTELY PASS.
PAY! ATTENTION!
There’s a reason every minority group of every stripe favors Democrats. Because the other party wants to strip us of every right we’ve fought so hard for and would rather we all just went away (and that’s putting it far too kindly).
EQUAL RIGHTS ARE NOT, AND CANNOT BE, A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION.
Everyone is deserving of them, and that’s an objective fact. The only people who disagree are bigots.
Black people are routinely disenfranchised (as is everyone who’s not a non-disabled cishet white man, but Black people get the brunt of it). Antisemitic attacks are on the rise. Disabled people have to fight for every bit of access and assistance they are due and still often don’t get what they need.
Defending trans people and trans rights should be enough on its own. We’re human beings and deserve to be treated as such. But if that’s still somehow not enough to motivate you, first question your life choices, and then know everyone who’s not a non-disabled cishet white man is next.
There is no way things get materially better for Black people, disabled people, immigrants, seniors, queer people, trans people, Jewish people, Muslim people, or any other marginalized community under Trump. There’s NO. WAY.
We must do what helps all of us.
None of us without all of us.
See the Trans Tuesday on TRANS INTERSECTIONALITY if you need to understand why.
THEY’VE ALREADY COME FOR ROE. There’s so many caps in this essay BUT COME THE FUCK ON. WHAT WILL MAKE YOU WAKE UP??
States like California have had to become TRANS SANCTUARY STATES to protect trans people feeling from horrid, harmful laws in their home states!
Can things really change with politicians who will defend trans rights in charge?
Look what happened in Mexico City, when lawmakers understood the very real violence we trans women face.
Look what happened in Australia, when lawmakers undertook the very real ways trans people, especially trans women, lose homes and jobs and fall into poverty after coming out.
But could voting for Kamala Harris actually help things like that happen? If Democrats have the house and the senate too, just maybe!
Oh, you heard Harris was transphobic and put trans women in mens’ prison etc etc? None of it’s true, it’s propaganda from the right to get progressives to not vote for her. Here’s what actually happened, what she actually did, how she took accountability for it, and worked to change the law so it would never happen again.
She received some criticism for a position she took as AG, backing the state of California when it sought to deny gender-affirmation surgery to a trans prisoner. But Harris has pointed out that when she was attorney general, the state’s Department of Corrections was a client of hers, and she had to represent its interests — but she worked behind the scenes to get the policy changed so that any inmate requiring such procedures could receive them.
That is WHAT YOU WANT IN A POLITICIAN! She had to follow a bad law, admitted it, and then said let’s change this bad law so this never happens again.
In fact, she co-sponsored the first (in the nation!) bill to ban THE TRANS PANIC DEFENSE (broadly, it’s “I learned this person was trans and panicked, so I killed them” and states ALLOW this as a legal and valid defense!).
And after she got it banned in California, she worked with other states to get them to ban it too!
Here’s more on her incredible pro-trans record.
And the Advocates for Trans Equality (the new name of the organization that ran the 2022 US TRANS SURVEY) and is the largest organization fighting for trans rights in the US, has enthusiastically endorsed her.
Maybe you don’t love some of her other policies (same for me!). Maybe you think she could be far, far better on some of her policies (same for me!). But you cannot argue, in any kind of good faith, that she would not be better than Trump on any policy (unless you’re a bigot or a billionaire).
Politics isn’t about perfection.
It’s about harm reduction.
It’s about taking the bus that gets you closest to where you want to go.
It’s about choosing your opponent as you push for all the things you want our society to be.
Do you want a flawed but compassionate lady who cares and whose mind can be changed?
Do you want the person who ghosted Netanyahu when he appeared in congress and has pushed Biden to be better on Palestine (his response there, and his abdication of covid precautions, are also huge problems for me), or do you want the guy who’s friends with Netanyahu and has pushed for Israel to be even more violent, and said “Biden was too tough on Netanyahu?”
Harris has been endorsed by over 100 Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and progressive Democrats and Palestinian Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman, who has many legitimate concerns about Harris, said she is voting for her “for the people in my district and state who cannot survive another Trump presidency” and because she knows she’s the only candidate who can be pushed to be better on Palestinian rights.
Do you want the guy who will ignore all we say, deport millions, strip citizenship from people he doesn’t like, jail his opponents, further disenfranchise anyone who doesn’t vote for him, tries to suppress voting, staged a coup (and hasplainly said they don’t plan to leave office ever again), and would criminalize trans existence?
Or do you want the person who is literally the opposite of all of that?
I get it, it can be disheartening when a politician isn’t all you want them to be. Or even does things you really don’t like.
My representative is Adam Schiff. He’s incredibly corporate, incredibly centrist, and he’s done a lot that pisses me off. I vote for someone else in every single primary, (like Maebe A. Girl, she’s amazing!). Schiff is running for senator this time, and as he’s up against a Republican so I HAVE TO VOTE FOR HIM AGAIN AND I AM SUPER SALTY ABOUT IT.
Maebe didn’t make it to the general election this year, but you can bet she’ll have my vote in 2026.
In California the top vote earners in the primary advance to the general, regardless of party. As Los Angeles county is deep deep deep blue and has a higher population than 40 entire US states do, this means our general election can be between two Democrats. Hooray!
But when it’s between a Democrat and a Republican who is harmful to the human rights of everyone who’s not a non-disabled cishet white man, I will vote for the Democrat, even if it’s Adam Schiff. I will not like it, but I will do it for harm reduction and to protect those who the Republican candidate would attack.
I also do not like our governor, Gavin Newsom. He’s done some stuff I like, but like Schiff he’s very corporate and very centrist and has done a lot of shit I despise (like all his recent anti-homeless bullshit).
Multiple times I’ve had to vote for governor between him and a Republican, and I will vote for Newsom. Every. Time.
I do not like him! I DO NOT LIKE HIM.
I am SO MAD my fellow Californians refuse to primary him so we can vote for someone better, thus forcing me to keep voting for him.
BUT I DO IT BECAUSE HE IS BETTER THAN THE ALTERNATIVE.
I know there are people who feel if both candidates have policies they don’t like, they will just not vote (or will “protest vote” for a third party with no chance of winning).
And I understand that impulse. I do. I’d say our two-party system was broken, but it isn’t. It’s working exactly as designed. It was DESIGNED to only give us two options, and that’s not great!
But pretending that is not the case does not change that it is the case. For President, for nearly every federal seat, ONE OF TWO OPTIONS WILL WIN.
The system needs to be changed, and we do that by voting for more progressive candidates in local elections, building up support and experience, and changing things from the inside. You cannot cannot cannot change things by not voting or voting for a person with zero chance of winning.
Republicans don’t want you to vote. They work so hard to take votes away from so many people.
Because you not voting helps them. Bigots always, always, always vote. And they vote Republican.
But there are a finite and rapidly dwindling number of them, which is why they have to work so hard to gerrymander and disenfranchise to hold on to power.
NOT VOTING HELPS PUT REPUBLICANS IN OFFICE. For the presidential election, VOTING GREEN PARTY OR LIBERTARIAN OR FOR ANY THIRD-PARTY CANDIDATE HELPS PUT TRUMP IN OFFICE. That’s the sad truth of it.
TV writer/producer John Rogers has talked a lot about this in a way I feel is very easy to understand… “the thing is what it does,” which basically means that regardless of what something was designed to do, the outcome it produces is what it actually does.
I’m going to quote some of his BlueSky posts here where he was replying to someone who felt not voting was the morally superior option. He totally deserves a follow. He showruns Leverage!
You need to vote in EVERY ELECTION, including LOCAL OFFICES where your voice has the biggest impact, and much more progressive candidates can get into office.
You can often engage DIRECTLY with candidates for local office and pressure them on trans rights (and other things you believe in). I have, and it’s WORKED.
The ACLU and Planned Parenthood often put out progressive voter guides so you can get more information on the people running for office. Seek them out for your area.
There are likely others, people putting in the work and research to help you be more informed. USE THOSE RESOURCES.
In California, Vote 411 is a really great site that lets you compare candidates directly. Even if there’s not always a ton of info for every local candidate, you can learn a LOT by seeing which people and organizations donated to/support each candidate. Look at who has money coming in from huge corporations, who’s been endorsed by who, and it can tell you so much.
Especially because you can see which “Democrats” are really Republicans calling themselves Democrats (this happens in California sometimes). Watching who they’re willing to be associated with and take money from can tell you as much or more than what they say their own policies are.
Cis friends, if you want to be an ally, if you want to BE AN ACCOMPLICE, you HAVE to vote for people who will fight for trans rights, or we’ll never get them. We’re too small a part of the population to do it on our own. IT IS THE BARE MINIMUM YOU CAN DO.
And now here’s the big ask, cis folks. This is SO IMPORTANT:
I want EVERY SINGLE CIS PERSON READING THIS to commit to always voting for the candidates who will protect trans rights.
But JUST AS IMPORTANT:
You need to talk to your friends and family that you know vote to hurt trans people. You have to try to convince them to change. If they won’t? GIVE THEM CONSEQUENCES.
Remember TRANS POLITICS 1? We cannot tolerate intolerance. That is the death of actual tolerance.
You need to tell your friends and family that if they continue to vote for people who will strip rights away from and criminalize the existence of people who are different from them… you’re done with them until they change their minds.
Stop going places with them. Stop inviting them to family gatherings.
Why would you want to be with a bigot anyway?
You, right now, can be a hero.
You can fight for justice and equality.
You can make a difference by fighting the rise of fascism.
Don’t be the German citizen who did nothing to stop the Nazis, because THEN YOU’RE NO BETTER THAN THE NAZIS.
THE TIME IS NOW.
FIGHT HATE. FIGHT BIGOTRY. FIGHT FASCISM.
STAND UP FOR EQUALITY AND JUSTICE.
TRANS PEOPLE NEED YOU.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com
PS – California has permanent vote-by-mail, and these are all the ballot drop boxes in Los Angeles County (and this doesn’t include post offices or mailboxes!). This is what the opposite of voter suppression looks like
PPS – LET’S GET IT DONE.
