Trans journalist Erin Reed has published a list of Democratic midterm candidates with anti-trans records, and the question she is forcing is one the party would rather not answer: if trans voters keep rewarding Democrats who harm them, what signal does that send? The calculation is real, the stakes are high, and there is no clean answer.
If someone said “I want to kill you humanely” and their opponent just said “I want to kill you”, I think the rest of us wouldn’t be chastising you for refusing to vote for either. This is an issue easy for cis people to counsel a cost-benefit analysis on, but it’s deeply personal for the victims.
If these politicians think throwing them under the bus will net them votes that’s on the politician to prove, not for their victims to support.
I’m cis myself, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a very personal stake in this fight. I have yet to hear of a Democrat politician that thinks trans people should die - I wish I could say the same about republican politicians.
They have though. Once you support one policy against trans people based on nothing more than unscientific fear and bigotry, there’s no logical reason you can’t support all of them. Trans women have no advantage in sports; it’s based on nothing but stereotypes. And every place that’s started with sports restrictions have moved on to far more restrictions.
Here’s what I would like to see these transphobe dems suggest. Put your money where your mouth is. Propose compromise legislation that actually does what you say your policies are. Are sports really what you care about? Fine. Pass a national law that says:
Is this really about sports? Fine. Fucking act like it. If this really were about sports, I think most trans people would happily trade a ban on sports participation in turn for all of our other rights being firmly protected and enshrined in federal law.
I don’t believe that most politicians of either party actually give a fuck about women’s sports in general - they certainly never have before this issue came up. For cowardly democrats on the anti-trans side of the sports issue, they simply see this as a way to avoid appearing too “woke” to independents and conservative democrats, while only directly affecting the handful of mtf athletes among their constituents.
I fully agree that most trans folk and their loved ones would gladly cede the sports issue in exchange for some real protections - I certainly would.
I’m not saying that these anti-trans democrats are trustworthy; I’m saying they are motivated by poll numbers, not personal animosity. Losing won’t motivate them to do better unless they lose to someone with better values - that’s why we can teach them lessons in the primaries but not in the general election. If they lose in the general, the lesson they will take is that they weren’t conservative enough, so withholding your vote at that point is counter-productive.
The republicans want to pass bills that will make life overtly harder for trans folk, beyond sports and even bathroom use. The priority right now is to take away their majorities in the House and Senate, so that those bills can’t even be brought to the floor for a vote. Beyond that we have to hold them accountable during their term, and we can primary them next time around. There is no situation in which withholding votes from Democrats in the general results in better outcomes for trans people.
Another cis person telling trans people they know better. Mansplaining at its finest.
Because it’s of course totally impossible for me to have a personal stake in the well being of trans people without being one myself, right. There’s no way there could be other people in my life already feeling the damage done by this administration…
I’m also a lifelong atheist, and very much opposed to religion playing any part in government affairs. If I refused to vote for any politician that invoked god on the campaign trail, I’d have never voted in 25+ years of adulthood. Regardless of what the issue is, refusing to vote for the better/less harmful candidate means prioritizing your own emotional self-satisfaction over the well being of those most directly affected (whether that includes you or not). It might feel good and righteous to take such a stand, but it’s a trap.
It would be mansplaining for me to try to tell you how to feel about these candidates, or about the experience of being betrayed by the “better” party - I’m not here to do that, nor would I have any right to. I’m saying that however you feel, you shouldn’t let your feelings determine your vote. That shitty candidate that cares more about getting elected than about your rights will never know why you didn’t vote for them (in fact they are likely to guess the opposite), and you’ll be stuck with the one who revels in causing you pain. Please don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the bad if the only other option is the downright monstrous.