LGBTQ+ people (and their allies) are not going back

LGBTQ+ rights (and especially trans rights) are in grave danger of erosion nationwide with the return of bigot-elect Donald Trump to office

At the behest of

Julia Serano

, LGBTQ+ people and their allies, including me, will publish and amplify pieces called “LGBTQ+ people are not going back”.

As Democratic allies and members of the LGBTQ+ community, we urge Democrats to stand strong to protect our LGBTQ+ (and especially our trans, nonbinary, intersex, and gender nonconforming) folk and not jettison them like what Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) would like to do.

In the wake of bigot-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House, there is justified concern about the erosion of hard-won LGBTQ+ rights (and especially trans rights), such as nationwide policies that erase trans existence by designating male and female as the only legal genders, forced outing and forced misgendering policies in school settings that endanger student safety, bans on gender-affirming care on trans minors (and possibly adults), nationwide Don’t Say Gay or Trans laws mimicking Florida’s infamous law, and a whole host of harmful anti-LGBTQ+/anti-trans/anti-drag policies.

Julia Serano at Switch Hitter Substack:

Last week, I proposed a mass action for today (Tuesday, December 3, 2024), in which LGBTQ+ people and allies who have platforms of any kind would publish individual creations (writings, videos, podcasts, social media posts, etc.) with the shared title “LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back.” While each of our creations would be in our own voices—as no single individual speaks on behalf of our entire community—we would all encourage our audiences to contact their representatives to let them know that we will not tolerate any more backsliding on LGBTQ+ rights!

The rationale for this action is thoroughly explained in my original post, so I won’t reiterate it all here. In this post, I will: 1) provide resources for you to call your representatives today (although if you’re discovering this at a later date, it’s never too late to call!) and 2) compile links to everybody’s LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back creations, so that we can all appreciate and boost one another’s work!

Noah Berlatsky at Everything Is Horrible:

Julia Serano, the pioneering trans writer and theorist, has called for an action today to demand that Democrats support trans people against the coming MAGA fascist assault. She’s asked people who support trans rights to publish articles with the title “LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back.”

Bad politics

As Serano discusses, the election loss has led some Democratic pundits and a small number of Democratic representatives (like bigoted butthead Seth Moulton) have started signaling that they may want to capitulate to the GOP on national legislation targeting trans people—first by banning trans women from sports, and then who knows? As Erin Reed has argued, trans sports bans have consistently been used as a way to dehumanize trans people in preparation for further bigoted legislation. The goal is not to “protect women”; the goal is to force trans people out of public life.

I don’t doubt that Moulton is sincerely transphobic, but he (and Democrats like him) are also turning on trans people because they think it will be their advantage electorally. Trump spent $29 million on anti-trans television ads attacking Harris for supporting surgeries for trans prisoners and trans undocumented people in detention (ie, for providing life-saving health care for people in federal custody, as is required by the law and by basic human decency.) In comparison, Trump spent only about $5 million in ads on the economy.

Trump gambled big that the (cis) public hates trans people, and that hatred would deliver him the election. And then he won the election. Ergo, the public must really loathe trans people, and to win elections, Democrats should start scapegoating trans people a at least a little too. Bigotry; it’s successful. Everyone should do it!

[…]

In this case, the Democrats are contemplating jettisoning their longstanding, often compromised, but nonetheless important identity as the big tent party of multiracial democracy and civil rights. Instead, the Moultons and Yglesiases argue the Democrats should embrace just a little fascism in order to torment trans kids and get those sparkling transphobic votes.

But, again, there are no transphobic votes to get. Trump went big on transphobia, and almost lost an election that should have been an easy blowout. More transphobia will not help Democrats. If it does anything, it will harm them, by driving away queer people—a group who, as Serano points out, “represented 8% of all U.S. voters and voted for Harris at 86% according to 2024 exit polls.”

Veronica’s 2nd Act Substack (a fellow Illinoisan):

My state of Illinois continues to show that you can be a vocal supporter of trans rights and it can be a winning political issue. Advocacy comes from the top of the ticket in Illinois, with Governor JB Pritzker continuing to make codifying trans rights in Illinois a top priority.

Just this year, Illinois passed a law so that Illinois will issue a court order to update an out of state birth certificate for residents born out of state. Currently, HB 5164 is making its way through the Illinois Senate after clearing the Illinois House. This bill would waive the public notice requirement so that marginalized people are not subjected to a judge's whim when not wanting to out themselves and reduce the residency requirement to three months to change your name when moving to Illinois. Heck, when the new for 2024 Illinois law that should have made it easier to not publish notice without outing yourself did not work for me as expected, I contacted my Illinois State Rep to let them know. I was hoping for a future meeting to update the law. What I got was my rep personally responding to me in less than thirty minutes asking if I wanted assistance and offering to get the ACLU involved. This led to direct assistance from other organizations. It was the pivot point in allowing me to get my name changed without outing myself, and my name is not stored on a public website documenting name changes. This is exactly the type of advocacy that we need and have a right to expect and Democrats in Illinois state government up and down the ticket consistently go to bat for the trans community. Since the Democrats have gone to bat for expanded trans rights in the state, they have had huge gains in Illinois governance. Illinois had a Republican Governor as recently as 2018 and that seems almost unfathomable today.

So while Democrats are on the defensive and have eroding support in many places, Democrats are on offense with expanding support in Illinois.

Civil rights IS a winning issue when Democrats embrace them for all Americans. The GOP is going to release a hellscape on all marginalized people. Trans people are at the tip of the spear. LGBTQIA+ people represent 8% of the voting public and 86% of us voted Democrat in this election. We need national Democratic leaders to grow a spine and advocate for us NOW. Republicans have already started their attacks in this cycle, dehumanizing Sarah McBride, the first openly trans person elected to the US House of Representatives, by not allowing her to use the women's restroom. I'm not going to get into Sarah McBride's response to these attacks, as I can certainly understand why she would not want to start her service in Congress by talking about her restroom habits while the press doesn't ask for comment on the restroom habits of the other 534 members of Congress. We cannot afford to let this continued erosion of rights happen and LGBTQIA+ people are not going back. The rollback of rights doesn’t stop when the right achieves a goal, they immediately move to the next goal. For example, when the right realized they had “won” the Capital restroom battle without a fight, they immediately moved on to a bill to rollback the rights of trans people to use restrooms on all Federal properties. They won’t be stopping at the next restriction either. Their goal is the complete erasure of all LGBTQIA+ people from public life. They will be coming for the right to marry, the right to serve in the military openly, and the rights of all queer people. Democrats need to act as a breakwater now. If you are a Democrat and you are not meeting the Pritzker standard on LGBTQIA+ rights, we will not be voting for you. Period.

Ari Drennen at Ari’s Threads:

Trans women are held to uncomfortable standards of femininity and behavior, and punished unduly for ever showing an anger that would split many others in half. But the reality of being a member of a tiny marginalized community is that you do not get to determine the standards by which you are judged. In the years after the start of the pandemic, an increasing share of the public appears to judge us quite harshly. The legislative consequences have unquestionably made things worse for trans people from Jacksonville to Spokane. We must gather sympathy wherever we can find it. None of this is fair. Nothing ever is.

Although Sarah has been accused of "complying in advance" by not fighting the House’s unjust change to its rules, none of us are obligated to die on the first hill they come across. Sometimes there’s better terrain nearby, and reinforcements waiting. Any struggle as big as the fight for trans equality demands a diverse set of tactics and leaders. While Sarah was once an activist whose job was to call attention to the injustices faced by trans people in America, she is now the duly elected representative of a million Delawareans — people with sick family members and bills they can’t afford and rising seas on their doorstep. They do not have time for a food fight with Nancy Mace. They would be ill-served by an escalating conflict that could have led to their chosen representative being removed from committees or even expelled from the body.

Sarah’s approach has already attracted a chorus of support from people who have sat quietly or been publicly hostile to the cause of trans rights — meaning that if Nancy Mace and Speaker Johnson have future humiliations planned, Sarah will be standing on firmer ground. I only expect her list of allies to grow in her time in Congress. I understand why people don’t feel trusting right now. I understand why people do not want to wait. Trans people have watched for the last four years as state after state has rolled back freedoms and protections. It is all too easy, in such a circumstance, to feel as though the walls are closing in. It is all too difficult to be confuse patience with passivity. But patience is the stuff that change is made of. And Sarah McBride’s example is the antidote to the poison seeping into our culture. If you cannot find it within yourself to give her your trust, yet, consider the gift of your patience.

Tomorrow, there is a big case on the docket at SCOTUS that will be heard for oral arguments and the biggest one this term: United States v. Skrmetti. The Skrmetti case deals with gender-affirming care, more specifically Tennessee SB1 which bans GAC in the state for trans minors. We are hoping and praying that the MAGA Majority on SCOTUS sees the wisdom of protecting trans children by ruling against Tennessee’s short-sighted ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

If the MAGA Majority on SCOTUS rules in favor of Tennessee in Skrmetti, then there is a serious risk for a nationwide ban on gender-affirming healthcare for trans youths (and possibly even adults) that will get forced upon Blue states like Minnesota, Illinois, and California, such a move would be good cause for Blue states to resist such a lawless ruling and be a step towards Blue state secession.

I am thankful we have Ari Drennen, Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, Erin Reed, and Montana State Rep. Zooey Zephyr, to name a few, fighting the good fight for our trans brethren (and the LGBTQ+ community more broadly). Also, we are thankful we have Chris Geidner, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Rep. Eric Sorensen, Rep. Marc Pocan, Rep. Becca Balint and Michigan AG Dana Nessel, to name a few, on our side fighting for the LGBTQ+ community.

Contact your state legislators and Congress folk to remind them that protecting our LGBTQ+ folk is paramount, regardless of what party they belong to:

State legislators: https://5calls.org/issue/transgender-state-legislation/
Congress: https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

- Justin Gibson (he/him/his), cis LGBTQ+ ally 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Granite City, IL