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transgender rights
Defending Trans Rights Is Good Politics
The Democrats' problem isn't "wokeness," but rather their failure to counter the Republicans' cruel anti-trans narrative.
Dec 23, 2024
In the wake of the Democrats' devastating loss last month, there has been no shortage of arguments and analyses about what went wrong and how the party should move forward. It has been deeply concerning to see some of these arguments taking Republican fearmongering and propaganda as a basis, particularly on the subject of transgender rights. Falling for Republican propaganda will not only bring terrible harm to the most vulnerable members of society; I believe it is also a losing political strategy for Democrats. Instead, the Democratic Party must be vigilant against Republican propaganda, and must proactively counter it.
The Democrats' failures in messaging on transgender rights were evident throughout the campaign. Despite the Biden-Harris administration's progress - such as signing executive orders aimed at curbing discrimination, expanding health care access, and raising awareness of the societal barriers and violence that transgender people regularly experience - the Harris campaign appeared to studiously avoid discussing transgender people at all.
Democrats must make clear to the public that while Republicans cynically claim to be "protecting children," they are in fact doing the opposite.
One of the few exceptions, and thus the most visible mention of trans people by Kamala Harris during the campaign, was in her October 16 interview on Fox News. When the host, Bret Baier, challenged the Biden-Harris administration's policy supporting gender-affirming medical care for prisoners, Harris had an opportunity to make a defense on moral grounds. Instead, she counterattacked by pointing out that the Trump administration followed the same laws, and thus the argument was "throwing...stones when you're living in a glass house." By doing so, she implicitly condoned the narrative that gender-affirming care is a luxury rather than a necessity, or, worse, somehow wrong or shameful, rather than a fundamental human right that should be afforded to all, including incarcerated people.
Setting aside for a moment the moral aspect, try to coldly consider the political message this phrasing sent to voters. After the provision of gender-affirming care was presented as though it were a problem, the Democrats seemed to be saying, 'it is a problem that both we and the Trump administration failed to deal with.' Meanwhile, the Republicans were promising to 'solve' it in the next administration. So why would an uninformed voter, after hearing both parties apparently acknowledge a 'problem' but only one party offer to 'solve' it, be expected to support the Democrats?
If Democrats want to be seen as competent, then they must stop catering to the Republicans' fearmongering and dehumanizing narrative and instead proactively counter it. Democrats must stand up and say yes, our policy is to support the provision of gender-affirming care, and we are proud of this policy. It is not a problem, but a protection of our citizens' basic human rights. The Democrats already campaigned on messages of freedom, self-determination, and bodily autonomy; these are precisely the values that must be applied not only to cis Americans, but to trans Americans as well. It is indeed somewhat astonishing that the Democrats failed to consistently articulate as simple a concept as: our platform of freedom and bodily autonomy also applies to trans people.
Of course, Harris was not the only high-ranking Democrat to weaken their own political position by failing to stand up for trans rights. Senate candidates Colin Allred and Sherrod Brown both ran television ads legitimizing Republican fearmongering about trans kids playing in school sports. After the election, Representative Seth Moulton went farther, portraying trans children as a physical danger to cis children, saying he didn't want his daughters to be "run over on a playing field" by trans students. Trans kids already suffer from bullying, abuse, and depression at significantly higher rates than their cis counterparts, and it's not hard to see why, when even Democratic lawmakers are demonizing them.
Democrats... appear to implicitly accept the premise of the supposed 'problem,' but do not offer a solution. Again, how is a rational but uninformed voter supposed to respond?
Again, let us try to dispassionately consider the potential political effect of such messaging (absurd as it is to set aside the ethical aspects of politicians attacking already marginalized children). The Republicans claim that trans kids are some sort of malign threat, and advertise policies to neutralize this 'threat' by denying them legal protections, further isolating them, and trying to erase the very existence of their identities. In other words, Republicans have presented a (manufactured) 'problem' and a (monstrous) 'solution.' Democrats, meanwhile, appear to implicitly accept the premise of the supposed 'problem,' but do not offer a solution. Again, how is a rational but uninformed voter supposed to respond?
The only logical path forward is for Democrats to explicitly renounce the Republicans' false premises. Trans children are not a threat to cis children, whether on the playground or in the bathroom, and bullying of trans kids not only by other students but by adult politicians is an outrage. Democrats must make clear to the public that while Republicans cynically claim to be "protecting children," they are in fact doing the opposite.
Unfortunately, there is no time to lose. Trump has announced a stream of extremist anti-trans appointees to key administration roles, including Secretary of Education (Linda McMahon), Secretary of Health and Human Services (Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.), Secretary of Defense (Pete Hegseth), and Secretary of State (Marco Rubio), among many others, who will enable the Republicans to make good on their promises to destroy protections for trans students, prevent access to healthcare and housing, purge transgender servicepeople from the military, promote anti-trans bigotry abroad, and deny transgender people the ability to openly exist in society. Not to mention the possibility of using the military to go after Trump's "enemy from within," which presumably includes trans people and their allies, whom Trump described as representing "a great evil."
The Democrats must unify to counter the Republicans' anti-trans propaganda and impending anti-trans agenda, not only to prevent the further oppression of millions of transgender Americans, but also to maintain credibility as a political movement.
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Voting for Kamala Harris With My Eyes Wide Open
While my emotions have been high surrounding the election and the genocide in Gaza, I am finding it important to take a step back and rationally assess my choices on November 5
Oct 29, 2024
I’ve crossed paths with Vice President Harris multiple times over the last decade at various phases in her political career. In 2014, I attended a luncheon in Los Angeles featuring then-Attorney General Harris sponsored by Junior State of America, the largest high school student-led organization in the United States, where I served as Southern California State Speaker of the Assembly. In 2019, I saw then-Senator Harris campaign for President in Iowa, where I served as a Field Organizer on the Bernie 2020 presidential campaign in rural areas outside of Iowa City. In 2023, as Climate Campaign Manager at the West Coast-based environmental nonprofit Pacific Environment, I was invited to greet Vice President Harris at LAX following my successful advocacy for the Biden-Harris Administration’s approval of an air quality regulation for California.
Fast forward to the presidential election season of fall 2024, and Kamala Harris is the Democratic Nominee for President going against Republican Nominee Donald Trump. Trump is running on a white Christian nationalist Project 2025 agenda of restructuring the contours of U.S. democratic government to dramatically increase the powers of the executive branch to limit abortion access nationwide, discriminate against transgender people, deport immigrants in mass, surveil Americans’ data without warrants, unleash undue force on First Amendment protestors, and censor critical theory in classrooms.
I am voting for Harris-Walz for the best realistically-possible political conditions for pro-Palestine organizing—and other forms of progressive organizing—in the United States for the next four years.
Harris is the Vice President of an Administration that spent $22.76 billion in arms transfers to Israel between October 7, 2023—September 30, 2024 as Israel’s religious extremist, apartheid government has conducted a full-blown ethnic cleansing campaign of the vulnerable Palestinian refugee population that Israel mass incarcerates within the 160 square mile Gaza Strip. The Biden-Harris Administration has enabled Israel’s Jewish supremacist government to weaponize Israeli suffering caused by Hamas’s October 7 attacks to carry out a systematic genocide of Palestinian non-citizens intergenerationally mass incarcerated in the Gaza Strip and under the control of the Israeli state. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has attacked Gaza with the equivalent force of several nuclear bombs, killing over 40,000 Palestinians and destroying 80% of schools in Gaza, 60% of buildings overall, and 57% of agricultural land. Recently, the American-armed IDF has attacked Lebanon with the stated goal of targeting Hezbollah, leading to mass civilian casualties including the killings of over 1,640 people.
Meanwhile, during this election, I’m a first-year Ph.D. student in Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley focusing my research on post-World War II U.S.-Israel-Palestine-Iran relations. I’m an Iranian American transgender woman with relatives who live in Iran, including Tehran, where the Israeli military just attacked with the blessing of the Biden-Harris Administration. I’ve also been a volunteer Palestine solidarity activist since 2017 with Students for Justice in Palestine at Yale University, the Democratic Socialists of America’s BDS and Palestine Solidarity Working Group, and other organizations. How do I vote and advance my political interests in and beyond this election?
Some Americans in my position who care about Palestinian, Lebanese, and Iranian dignity, freedom, human rights, and peace and want to make their interests known in this election are opting to vote for third party candidates. They seek a candidate who does not have a track-record of financing Israel’s 76-year-long, Jewish-supremacist military occupation and systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. They seek a candidate that can be trusted with protecting human life during this moment of global crisis that the Biden-Harris Administration’s reckless decision-making has worsened.
I’m highly sympathetic to these Americans and I even voted third party in the presidential primaries. That said, for the presidential general election, I respectfully disagree with voting third party most especially in swing states. I will be voting for Harris-Walz, even though it’s quite hard to stomach given how Harris has positioned herself in relation to Israel-Palestine and Iran over the course of her career, in her Vice Presidency, and in this election. I am voting this way not out of an overabundance of enthusiasm for Harris, but due to a realpolitik calculation of what is necessary to defeat Trump and prevent our global crisis from getting even worse.
The reality is that most Americans think of politics through the lens of the two-party system. This, I believe is a flaw in our democracy that prohibits creativity, but it is a current reality. The project of strengthening additional parties to be able to compete in presidential elections is noble, but it is going to more time than we have available before November 5, 2024. Third party presidential candidates are not realistically going to win enough electoral college votes to secure the presidency. This means our two realistic choices for our next President are Harris and Trump. A pro-Palestine voter’s vote for a third party candidate in a swing state may thus inadvertently help Trump win that state and ultimately the Presidency.
I am voting this way not out of an overabundance of enthusiasm for Harris, but due to a realpolitik calculation of what is necessary to defeat Trump and prevent our global crisis from getting even worse.
While the Biden-Harris Administration’s management of this moment of global crisis has been nothing short of abhorrent, a Trump-Vance Administration would be materially worse. In addition to campaigning on cracking down on rights of transgender people and women domestically, denying climate change and opposing climate action, and revoking the visas of pro-Palestine international students at U.S. universities, Trump believes in an unqualified Israeli offensive on Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran. He told Netanyahu in response to Iran’s missile attack on Israel an unrestricted “do what you have to do,” and has explicitly stated that Biden has gotten in the way of Israel’s war. Meanwhile, while the Biden-Harris Administration has armed Israel in its war, it has recently threatened to stop the flow of arms to Israel, openly criticized Netanyahu’s tactics in the war, and pressured Israel into narrowing its attack on Iran to targeted non-nuclear military sites. As an Iranian American with family in Iran, I worry for the possibilities that could arise with someone as unstable as Donald Trump as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces during this moment of global crisis. Trump should be nowhere near in charge of American nuclear weaponry in a time as fragile as this.
That said, my political action is not confined to my vote. Just as important as voting is organizing. I am voting for Harris-Walz for the best realistically-possible political conditions for pro-Palestine organizing—and other forms of progressive organizing—in the United States for the next four years. I see my vote as a prayer for the possibility of a shift toward a U.S.-policy of peace, justice, reparations, democracy, freedom, and equality in the Middle East against the current status quo of institutionalized supremacy and political violence—possible only with good political conditions and good organizing. Trump, an open white nationalist and warmonger with a wide religious fundamentalist following, as President would foreclose many possibilities for peace in Israel-Palestine. Harris at least represents more of a multiracial coalition and speaks the language of pluralism. Between these options, there is more political room under a potential Harris presidency to organize for advancing a pro-Palestinian, pro-human political agenda.
While my emotions have been high surrounding the election and the genocide in Gaza, I am finding it important to take a step back and rationally assess my choices on November 5 in the context of this moment of global crisis. It’s clear—even if hard to stomach —that Harris-Walz is the best realistic choice.
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Second Trans Woman's Candidacy Challenged Over Deadname in Ohio
"This effort to remove trans candidates, due to an obscure law, comes at a time when the General Assembly has ramped up efforts to use their role in government to wage an outright attack on the LGBTQ+ community," said Arienne Childrey.
Jan 12, 2024
Days after a transgender woman's campaign for a state House seat in Ohio was abruptly ended over her failure to include the name given to her at birth on her election paperwork, a Republican leader in the state was aiming on Friday to disqualify Arienne Childrey, another transgender candidate.
The chair of the Mercer County Republican Party, Robert Hibner, submitted a letter of protest to local election officials late last week, alleging that Childrey violated a 1995 statute requiring all candidates to include on candidacy petitions any other names they have used within five years of the election.
Childrey, a Democrat, said in a statement that "the name change provision is not included in the Candidate Guide issued by the secretary of state's office, nor any of the other paperwork or forms," and noted that the recent disqualification of state House candidate Vanessa Joy and her own campaign's potential end comes as Republicans in Ohio and across the U.S. are pushing anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.
"This effort to remove trans candidates, due to an obscure law, comes at a time when the General Assembly has ramped up efforts to use their role in government to wage an outright attack on the LGBTQ+ community," said Childrey.
According toThe Guardian, the 1995 law includes an exception for people who change their name due to marriage, but not one for transgender candidates' deadnames—the names they're given at birth which don't match their gender identity.
Mercer County election officials deemed Hibner's challenge to Childrey invalid this week because state rules require letters of protest to be filed by members of the candidate's party. The county's assistant prosecutor told local reporters on Tuesday that the board can still proceed with a hearing on Childrey's candidacy, which is scheduled for January 18.
"I entered this race to fight for the people of the 84th District and to fight against the rising tide of hatred in our district and our state," said Childrey. "Regardless of the outcome of this hearing, I will continue that fight."
Childrey began her campaign to challenge state Rep. Angela King (R-84), who last year introduced a bill to ban drag performances in public spaces.
On Wednesday, a day after Joy lost her appeal regarding her own candidacy to the Stark County Board of Elections, the GOP-controlled state House voted to override Republican Gov. Mike DeWine's veto of a bill to restrict transgender youths' participation in team sports and ban puberty blockers and other gender-affirming healthcare.
"The transgender community in the United States of America is currently in the midst of a state-sponsored genocide, brought on by the Republican Party," said Joy on Wednesday. "We are currently in stages 8 (persecution) and 9 (extermination) of the genocide of the transgender community. The persecution portion is the incredible amount of legislation being passed to take away our rights, and the extermination portion is the fact that in the states that these laws have passed, deaths will rise within the community."
"Ohio is no exception, and in fact is becoming one of the most dangerous places in the country for transgender people to live," said Joy.
The ACLU tracked 510 anti-LGBTQ+ bills that were introduced, advanced, or passed in 2023, including seven in Ohio. Restrictions on gender-affirming healthcare account for 175 of the bills.
A study out of the University of Washington in 2022 found a 73% decrease in depression and suicidal ideation when transgender people can access gender-affirming treatment.
On Monday, the Mercer County Democratic Party passed a resolution opposing Hibner's complaint over Childrey's candidacy.
"Mr. Hibner's protest is nothing but a hateful attempt to further discriminate against a community not meeting the GOP definition of 'normal'—a radical approach to alienate qualified candidates and stifle the will of the voters," said Don Holtvoigt, vice chair of the party. "The radical right should cease and desist in their efforts to divide our community."
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