I’m writing this on June 1, 2026, the first day of Pride. Pride Month is a time to celebrate LGBTQ+ people and history and to demand full protection of LGBTQ+ people under the law. It’s also a great time for allies to be even more vocal about their support. (It should go without saying that if you’re an ally then you’re vocal about your support for LGBTQ+ people. If you’re NOT vocal about your support then you aren’t an ally. You’re basically a nonplayer character, watching LGBTQ+ people fight anti-queer monsters from the sidelines. In other words, you’re neutral, which is next to useless.)
Pride Month is also a great time to tell people who stand in the way of progress to fuck off. And I have a very specific list of eight folks, all Democratic U.S. Representatives, who deserve all of the expletives: Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Cleo Fields of Louisiana, Laura Gillen of New York, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Eugene Vindman of Virginia.
What did these not-so-fine people o’ Congress do to deserve this dishonor?
They all voted for H.R. 2616, the “Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act,” a bill that “would hand the Trump administration enormous leverage to strip federal funding from any school that ‘teaches or advances concepts’ related to transgender people” and would “require public schools to forcibly out transgender students to their parents before using their pronouns or chosen names,” reports Erin Reed.
This bill passed the U.S. House by a vote of 217-198 with all Republicans voting for it and, you guessed it, the eight aforementioned Democrats joining them.
Now, even if these Democrats had not supported the bill, it still would have passed. The Republicans have a majority in the House, after all. But that’s not the point. At issue here is the fact that these Democrats went out of their way to support a bill that would harm transgender people, including trans kids for no reason other than that they wanted to.
Reed points out that this is “the largest Democratic defection on any standalone anti-trans bill of this Congress.”
Defection is an interesting word to use here because while Democrats are demonstrably better on the issue of transgender rights, they still aren’t great. Centrist Democrats, especially, seem to be more than willing to throw trans people in the trash in order to “work with Republicans.” Now, we know that Republicans, who believe that Democrats are literally evil, aren’t going to help Democrats pass a damn thing. The Democrats, on the other hand, love to help Republicans pass legislation that hurts the very people who make up the Democratic base, including supporting bills to fund ICE and continually voting in favor of Trump’s nominees.
Still, support of H.R. 2616 is especially alarming. The right-wing rhetoric and dehumanization in the bill’s title, “Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act,” is gross enough. Acknowledging the fact that transgender people not only exist but have the right to exist is not “indoctrination” and while kids need protection from a great many things, transgender people are not a danger to children.
On June 1, 2026, Rep. Vindman posted the following to Bluesky: “Happy Pride Month, Virginia! This month, we celebrate our LGBTQ+ neighbors and honor the progress we have made toward equality — while recognizing the continuing fight for justice and inclusion.”
The overwhelming response was, essentially, WTF, dude? And not just from trans people.
“Hey just wanted to let you know that it’s not just trans folk who are unhappy with your recent vote discriminating against them,” wrote one user. “I’m an older straight woman who fully supports trans people.”
“Middle age cis white male here,” wrote another. “[Vindman] and every Democrat who voted for that hateful legislation are dead to me.”
“I deeply regret donating money to your reelection,” wrote a user with a trans son. “This hits very deeply.”
Rep. Gillen’s “Happy Pride Month” post on Instagram received similar responses with Reed herself posting, “You don’t get to use our flag after the vote you took. For SHAME.”
H.R. 2616 is headed to the Senate. “Senate Democrats blocked the federal trans sports ban earlier this year on a straight party-line vote, and the most likely fate of the ‘Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act’ is that it dies on the same procedural wall,” writes Reed.
But, Reed notes, the number of Democrats voting to hurt transgender people could very well grow.
Any Democrats going along with Trump’s concerted effort to hurt trans people should, indeed, be ashamed. So they need to hear from folks, especially folks in their districts.
It’s time to grab those bullhorns, take to social media, send some emails and make some phone calls. And if your representative didn’t support this ugly bill, take a moment to thank them. Let them know you’re watching.