Who's Up for a Fecal Feast?
Democrats are "recalibrating" their support for transgender people, we're angry about it, and the left is angry at *us* for being angry about it.
Imagine being a transgender person living and working in a small town. Now, this town has two casual dining restaurants. One of them, lets call it Gopher's, serves shit. Literally. Shit sandwiches, baked shit and cheese, shit soup, and strawberry tart without so much shit in it.* People who eat there often get sick and occasionally even die, yet Gopher's remains inexplicably popular. Perhaps that's because of their policies toward anyone they think may be trans or an immigrant. If you look like you belong in one of those categories (and others on their secret menu), you get extra shit. It seems that the regulars will happily eat shit if people they hate have to eat more than them.
You prefer the other restaurant, Demetri's. The staff are welcoming and friendly and the food is good, though a bit bland and uninspired . You and your friend group from work (all cisgender, but you don't hold that against them) eat lunch at Demetri's almost every day.
Another important thing to know is that every two years the management of the whole town is turned over to one of the two owners of these restaurants, based on the total number of customers each gets from the beginning of Autumn until what would otherwise be Election Day. Gopher Plackson's family usually wins. In fact, Demetri Rico's family hasn't gotten the town management gig in decades.
This year, though, enough residents are wondering what it might be like to not eat shit everyday that Demetri thinks he has a good chance of actually winning. In order to attract more customers, he considers dropping his prices or updating his menu, but finally decides that what will seal the deal is to let Gopher's diners know that he now thinks they have reasonable concerns about trans inclusion, and so he promises to add some shit to the meals of anyone who looks like "one of them". Not a lot, mind you. Just a sprinkle. He doesn't believe in being cruel after all.
You've heard about Demetri's new policy, and you idly mention to your coworker that maybe it's not such a hot idea, and that you are considering brown-bagging your lunch from now on. Your coworker wheels on you. "What? That's crazy! It's only a little shit." "Yeah," you say, "but why should I have to eat any shit at all?" "What's the matter?", he counters. "You're too good to eat shit? What happens if you don't eat the shit and Demetri's loses and has to go out of business? Do you know how much shit you'll have to eat when they send you to a concentration camp? Don't be stupid!"
"But, look," you try. "It won't even work. Nobody who eats at Gopher's is going to switch just because Demetri puts shit in my food. If that's his strategy, he's going to lose, and you'll all probably blame me. And if he wins anyway, everyone will think that's why, and they'll start shitting on me even more. I don't like this. I don't like this one bit."
"Stop being selfish," your friend says. "You know, maybe we've tolerated you long enough."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying shut the fuck up."
The above has been what this week has felt like to many in the transgender community upon hearing that James Talarico has come out against transgender girls participating in sports and transgender young adults getting top surgery. This came after Erin Reed compiled a list of Democrats turning towards transphobia in their campaigns. Talarico just couldn't resist getting in on that action.
Erin Reed
Almost exactly one year ago I wrote a thing about discovering my line in the sand when it comes to the way some Democrats talk about issues important to the transgender community. I was mostly focused on my Governor, Gavin Newsom, who invited all manner of nazis to his podcast to agree with them that he didn't like having trans girls playing sports, and on Pete Buttigieg who was trying out his new waffle recipe in the form of catering to "people's concerns". Since then Democrats won a number of high-profile races without throwing trans people under the bus. In fact, Zohran Mamdani went out of his way to include trans folks in his coalition and won big.
I briefly dared to hope that we would stop being every politician's favorite pawn, but then Amy Acton, the Democratic candidate for Ohio Governor had to go and do a transphobia, saying she would enforce the law keeping trans girls (or "boys" as she put it) out of girl's sports. Arienne Childrey, a transgender woman and candidate for the Ohio House tried to rally supporters and allies at Equality Ohio to ask Acton to soften her stance. The resulting meeting, to which Acton didn't show and Childrey was uninvited, was reportedly a "shit show". You can read more about it here:
Arienne Childrey
Many others, as reported by Reed, have been adopting right wing transphobic talking points this campaign season, with little pushback. Equality organizations seem at a loss on how to respond, and these candidates have been getting praise from media outlets like PBS News and Politico for "recalibrating."
Steve Peoples, Associated Press
I honestly don't know why they are doing it. We've seen race after race where candidates who support trans rights go on to win. Polls consistently show that voters just don't care that much about the issue. The only thing I can think is that centrist campaign consultants and media pundits want them to, or some of their bigger donors want them to, or maybe they just tell themselves they deserve to have some bigotry for a little treat to take the edge off a hard day of campaigning as a man or woman of the people.
Over on Bluesky, my doom-scrolling site of choice, trans posters who dare to say that Democratic "recalibrating" is very bad for trans people are getting barraged with replies reminding us how bad the Republicans are in comparison, calling us idiots, and threatening us with death camps if we don't sit down and shut up.
And, for the record, yes, we know how bad Ken Paxton would be for transgender Texans and Vivek Ramaswamy would be for transgender Ohioans.
Aleksandra Vaca
But telling us how much worse it can be doesn't help. What we're hearing is that it won't get any better under the Democrats.
I feel fortunate living in California. Our Democratic candidate for Governor, Xavier Becerra made Erin Reed's list because he tried floating the idea that nothing in the Constitution entitles transgender children to play sports, but walked it back pretty quickly when he was reminded that the California constitution says otherwise. He's actually been very good on trans rights and he doesn't seem to have an appetite for the kind of transphobic red meat his advisors are pushing on him. Even if I decided I didn't want to vote for him over this, I'm pretty confident he will win in November either way.
Look, I'm not telling anybody that they shouldn't vote for the Democrats in red or purple State races, but I'm honestly very glad that I don't live in any of those States where I might feel compelled to pull the lever for the lesser evil. But that doesn't mean I won't continue to call out stupid, pointless, bigoted behavior by my own party, even when it is defended by one of our own. Because it's not about electoral strategy, it's about human rights and dignity and living in fear.
It was very interesting to me in the thread below that Ari didn't respond to me, probably because she gets it, but some random poster whose profile says he is proudly gay and anti-Nazi was surprisingly comfortable with dropping some "prove your claim" bullshit into my replies. I responded by trying to change the parameters of the conversation, figuring he would either get bored or block me. At the end he seemed to be willing to have a real conversation, but stopped responding anyway, maybe because I wasn't giving him the argument he wanted.
If you really want to understand the transgender perspective on all this, please read the following two articles from Gillian Branstetter and Julia Serano. They are much better at explaining things than I am.
Gillian Branstetter
Julia Serano
Finally, I also highly recommend this piece by one of my favorites, A.R. Moxon. He perfectly captures why this is not an issue of strategy or greater or lesser evils, but rather one about who we are as a society.
A.R. Moxon
It all comes back to where your line is. Instead of getting angry with trans people for expressing their fear, be angry with the candidates who are exploiting it by appealing to people who are willing to vote for monsters if they think it will benefit them.
* "Strawberry tart without so much r̶a̶t̶ shit in it" is, of course, a reference to Monty Python's Dead Bishop sketch.