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.
I am absolutely NEVER voting for a neo-liberal or establishment Dem ever again. Never, ever. I will only vote for progressives.
Neo-liberals are conservative. It is immoral to vote for a conservative.
If your going to do a protest vote then you need to organize and do it en masse, in one election, in one very public voice.
Otherwise it’s just a waste as no one will know or care about your vote.
Look at the Abandon Harris movement, only a few thousand, had no overall impact to the election but sure a shit had an outsized impact on the political landscape with some analysts pointing to them as one reason why this primary, progressives and the anti-apaic movement won.
I’m done too. I sense the same sentiment from most progressives.
It’s okay. Soon nobody will be voting at all.
Disaster for the candidates too. They won’t win a single extra vote with this bullshit
But they’ll lose some
Yeah, this kind of tactic won’t attract nearly as many centrists as the amount of leftists that now won’t vote for them.
Oh are we throwing away votes again this year?
We all know of course that those are effectively votes for Nazis, so I can hardly think of a less effective way to express one’s self.
If you don’t vote to allow us to slowly chip away at your rights over time, then you’re basically voting to have them all taken away at once.
The problem is not trans voters. The problem is shit allies who are more eager to blame us for our own suffering than call their congressperson and say, “Hey, stop doing transphobic shit.” Enough people do that, and the politicians will need to come out and say, “My bad. We don’t want to do that transphobic shit anymore. We heard from many, many constituents, and actually we want to protect and support this super marginalized community instead.” And then trans people can vote for these candidates without needing to deny their own humanity.
“Vote blue or get fucked” isn’t the threat you think it is when both parties’ position is that trans people should get fucked.
My primary goal is to avoid unchecked fascism, such that any additional progress is possible.
It sounds like our goals differ.
Democrats have been running on that slogan since 2018, but no one seems to actually be stepping up to combat the rise of unchecked fascism. If that’s your goal, you are failing. Just voting is not working, and blaming people because they didn’t vote how you wanted isn’t going to help either. So what else have you got?
I don’t even know how to respond to a comment so removed from reality.
What was the size of the non-voting cohort of 2026?
You are thinking logically, but a lot of people rather, vote emotionally. Why would they go out and vote, if they don’t feel hope for any future?
To create hope for the future
We must think logically. You have to be reasonable about these things. 2 years ago we voted with our tummies and we got fascism. Time for a change.
Yep. Because we learned nothing and are super proud about it.
It’s infuriating that the Democrats refuse to learn and continue to push away their base like this.
For those democrats where this is actually true, I agree. For the rest, this is russian bot propaganda in action.
The right: let’s do a genocide on trans people.
The centerists: how about a little bit of genocide, as a bipartisan treat.
Can you explain how democrats are genociding you right now? My attention has been stretched thin with all the children in cages and, you know, the actual genocide in Gaza, etc. so I’m out of the loop.
I’m not going to actually answer your question because you don’t seem to be open to a good faith discussion about how the word genocide can be defined. And instead seem mad at an ally of yours for a perceived watering down of the words meaning.
However, please note that the genocide that is happening in Palestine is also a bipartisan effort brought to fruition by the right and the centerists.
Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic nominee for Texas governor, spawned an online backlash from some lefty trans posters by appearing to mock pronouns. “My pronouns are mom, Texan and soon-to-be governor,” she says in a recent campaign video posted to YouTube. When I made a post on Bluesky pointing out that none of those words are pronouns, and implied that it was wrong to mock trans people’s pronouns with this style of joke, a bunch of Bluesky liberals took umbrage.
Some of the replies are fucking wild.
Just for once, people: if someone is fighting for your rights, the right response is to say “thank you” and try to help them win.
Why are you criticizing a Dem politician defending her pro-trans votes? Who is trying to defeat an anti-LGBTQ incumbent?
Maybe just once people can stop criticizing Dem politicians and thank them for standing in the line of fire to protect our rights.
(That’s all one account)
Any criticism is viciously piled on. One of the people in the replies said it best:
We can believe someone fucked up AND STILL VOTE FOR THEM while critiquing them!
Imagine the absolute audacity to say Trans people and those who support their rights are making things worse for themselves by asking for the tiniest shred of dignity from the candidates they support.
MLK jr really did a disservice to black folks by causing such a ruckus. He should have been thankful, ya know?
They gave you your own water fountain Martin what’s the problem?
This is exactly the attitude. Makes me sick.
When Erin dropped that Guide to Anti-Trans Democrats last week, almost every bit of discourse I saw was about how trans voters should shut up and take it because the other side is worse.
But it’s not. Maybe short-term, I guess, but long-term? If no party is opposed to transphobia, then transphobes win. The right takes more and more aggressive positions, and the left keeps moving right to attract a mythical “centrist.” Eventually, both parties will be trying to strip all my rights. Electing transphobes puts transphobes in power, regardless of if there’s a D or an R next to their name.
The solution should not be to tell me to vote blue no matter who like I’m a toddler who won’t eat their vegetables. The solution is to go to these candidates and tell them you disagree with their rhetoric and their positions. Tell them that you support the trans people in your community and don’t appreciate seeing them thrown under the bus to attract a few votes. Even if you vote for them anyway, at least make sure they’re hearing the displeasure.
I’m advocating for myself. I’ve called and written my congressman many times over the years. But I’m just one person advocating for a very small minority. The best way to help trans people is to step up for them, not to get mad at them for pointing out a serious, looming threat to their rights, health, and safety.
The article talks about this a bit too.
In Iowa, a spokesperson for Josh Turek, the Dem candidate for Senate, made a statement to the New York Times, which stated, “Josh opposes taxpayer-funded sex changes, and anyone who says otherwise is lying.” The statement was in response to questions about a multimillion-dollar ad campaign by Elon Musk targeting Turek over trans rights. Presumably this would include Medicare and Medicaid, meaning Turek would support a Hyde Amendment-style (the federal law forbidding federal U.S. tax dollars to be used to fund abortions) ban for gender-affirming care.
…
With the state of the midterms right now, this will likely end up being the biggest Democratic midterm sweep in a generation. I think that at least one deep red state will shockingly elect a Democrat to the Senate this fall. But I keep coming back to Turek’s promise to ban federal dollars from being spent on any transition care.
I have an idea for my american comrades who think criticism of the Dems is support for Trump: how about you give details on the grassroots support networks ($$$) you have established to mitigate harm when the lesser of two evils gets elected? What’s that? It’s not fair to ask you to sacrifice so the lesser evil can win?
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
we do only have one or two days a year
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.
^ 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.
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.
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?
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…
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Cut off thy nose to spite thy face.
This is slop shit. Complete bullshit. This site isn’t even reputable. This claim might as well have come from Better Home and Gardens.
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I heard a great discussion on The Professional Left that addressed this kind of thing very well, I thought.
Boils down to - even the Democrats that supposedly are not sufficiently supportive of trans are reachable and it may be possible to educate and move them in the right direction on the issues.
That won’t be the case for the Republicans, especially if they get too much power. They’ll be building concentration camps. Given the chance, Republicans will destroy you, where “you” is whatever the current out-group is that they are punching down on. And they definitely want to get around to all of them, but probably starting with trans…
This is around the 26:30 mark…
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Once again, as in the ancient times of two years ago, nothing matters if they lose. Look at where trans rights are right now. If we want more and worse, throw the dem vote away.
Supposed “anti-trans” Democrat is still going to pass trans-friendly judges and cabinet members (unless they’re a real Manchin or Sinema in which case they’ll still pass trans-friendly budget must-pass bills).
The experience of a queer individual is really different if they’re the ones being thrown under the bus for political points.
And I don’t blame them if they refuse to vote for these slick Willy’s.
It’s not a good sign as to how their voting record on trans rights is going to look, once they’re in office. If they don’t have the spine to be an ally at the risk of criticism, they’ll “negotiate” with enemies of the queer community to further political interests.
What use is it to “get Dems into office to fight fascism,” when you might end up in the same exact position as before?
