LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back
I Don’t Usually Do Requests, But…
When Julia Serano asks, she receives. I doubt she needs my help specifically. My corner of the internet is very tiny, but ever since Nancy Mace started her bigoted roadshow and some Democrats signaled their willingness to nod along, I thought I’d say my say.
The Democratic Party, and the Center-Left world more generally, is made up of a hodgepodge of communities in search of different yet intersecting kinds of justice–economic, political, judicial, social, sexual. At moments of defeat it has a nasty habit of finding whichever of those communities has been most stigmatized by the right recently and offering to sacrifice them to pick up a few white moderates in the suburbs (or wherever). This is not only morally wrong, but also bad strategy. It’s a message to every community in our coalition that all the right has to do is run a few mean ads about you and we’ll screw you over for power. How long can trust last in a movement that operates like that? We’re supposed to be standing up for each other, not looking for reasons to give it to each other in the neck.
I know the response to that is that the survival of the broader left-of-center project requires the occasional expedient move, but my response, taken from Judgment at Nuremberg is as follows: survival as what?
So, Democrats, understand this. If you backslide on trans rights, I will consider you no longer trustworthy. I will seek primary candidates who’ll run against you and make your lives difficult or possibly even depose you. The LGBTQ+ community doesn’t want to go back, and I don’t want any of you putting hands on them to try to force them back. You know better than that, so do better than that.
If you’re interested in encouraging your representatives to do right by a constituency that gave them 86% of their votes last go-around, you should start with a visit to Find Your Representative. There you’ll type in your zip code, which’ll take you to your U.S. House member’s contact page. Ms. Serano’s own post has some sample language to get you going on what to say, but you should consider that a starting point and make the language and sentiments yours. It’ll carry more weight. You should also contact your U.S. Senators, and probably your state legislators, governors and local officials too (5calls.org will get you started with that). After all, if you’re in a blue state like mine, your state government is going to be your first line of defense against Trump and his merry monsters. Your politicians need some encouragement or a kick in the butt, too, lest they fall back to the posture of offering you every support short of help. If you’re in a red state–first off, my sympathies because I’ve been trapped in one and know it sucks rocks–there are probably at least few politicians, some who may even represent you, who need to be reminded that you’re still there and you really don’t need to have them backsliding right now, especially since your states will be the laboratory of really bad laws and policies affecting the LGBTQ+ community.
I’m not a member of the LGBTQ+ community myself, but I want you to know that I’ll do my best to help the community in any way I can. We’re all in for a rough ride, and I don’t know when it’ll end or where we’ll be when it does. My hope is that the experience of hanging together through it–starting with what Ms. Serano has gathered us together to do–will make us strong, smart, and kind enough to build a more just future on the other side.
So when you’re ready, make those calls and write those messages to your representatives. Let them know where you stand, and whom you stand with.