Happy Pride! A new poll shows that support for LGBTQ+ rights is dropping in the U.S. I’ve got to admit, that bums me out, but it’s also not a shock considering the sustained attack on queer people being carried out by the most powerful people in the country. Especially the attack on transgender people, which is particularly vicious.
I remember back in the day when there was a sizable contingent of lesbians and gays who thought that transgender people shouldn’t be included in the fight for civil rights. Barney Frank, one of the first openly gay members of Congress, was one of them.
“Even as he fought for protections for gay Americans, Frank insisted that trans rights not be included in the protections he was trying to advance on Capitol Hill,” writes Katelyn Burns.
I remember this well. It was 2007. I’d say it was a stunning betrayal, but it wasn’t. A betrayal, yes. Stunning? No. Establishment LGB people were working to exclude transgender people long before that became the favorite game of the extremist right.
“[The Employment Non-Discrimination Act] was meant to prohibit employees from discrimination based on their sexuality or gender identity, but the inclusion of transgender people left some in the House’s Democratic supermajority worrying it wouldn’t pass,” Burns continues. “Though Frank agreed to exclude trans people in order to help advance the bill through the House, it ultimately still died in the Senate.”
In other words, Frank ultimately caused all of that hurt for nothing.
Frank spent his career advocating for gradual change, cautioning that making America too gay too fast would alienate people.
And he did the same thing in an interview shortly before his death.
Speaking with Jake Tapper, Frank complained that the left, which he called extremist, was still pushing for things that weren’t popular enough with mainstream America.
He used transgender athletes as an example (though he did not use the word “transgender,” opting for more, um, outdated terminology).
He pointed to the fight over trans athletes, which he framed as the “analog” to “male-to-female transsexuals playing sports designated for women.” Forcing the issue, he argued, only alienates people. “In the interest of the transgender community, as well as others, it could be better to go at that in a more granular way, and not simply announce that if you don’t support it, you’re a homophobe,” Frank told Tapper. (“Transphobe” would be the more fitting word.)
In other words, Frank believed that we must stop using support for transgender people as a litmus test for who gets to be embraced by the Democratic Party.
This was surely music to the ears of centrist Dems who have gone out of their way to let “normal” Americans know that they, too, think trans people are icky.
Fascists support the complete exclusion of trans people from public life and, if possible, their annihilation from the planet.
The issue of trans girls and women in sports, often framed as one of fairness and common sense, is the roost many centrist Democrats have flocked to in order to demonstrate that, “Hey, I’m a perfectly kindhearted and accepting person, but a trans woman wanting to play volleyball is a bridge too far! That doesn’t make me a fascist.”
Except it does. Fascists support the complete exclusion of trans people from public life and, if possible, their annihilation from the planet. Banning trans women from sports, not to mention public restrooms, is just part of that agenda. When centrist Dems publicly agree with fascist ideas about trans people, they’re not rejecting the rest of the agenda, they’re giving weight to the entire thing.
Look, there is no middle ground with fascism. And, frankly, I don’t care if you “have questions/issues/misgivings” about trans girls and women in sports. All of this concern and care for girls/women’s sports being professed by the entire Republican Party — a party that does not support women or girls in any other facet of their lives, eagerly stripping reproductive rights and opposing the Violence Against Women Act — is window dressing. It’s a way to make “trans people aren’t human” more palatable.
Because that’s what is really at issue here. The humanity of transgender people. The value of trans lives.
And a lot of right-wing extremists aren’t even bothering to couch their hatred of trans people in the language of “protecting women” any more. Because they don’t have to. Being anti-trans is mainstream for conservatives. A new Gallup poll found that only 5% of Republicans think that gender transition is “morally acceptable” compared to 60% of Democrats.
That’s a huge gulf. Yet Democratic candidates and elected officials think that they need to find common ground with anti-trans Republicans rather than focus on the majority of people who actually vote for them.
Societal attitudes change, sure, but doing what is right and moral, which is standing up in full support of people targeted by fascists in order to protect them from harm and affirm their humanity, isn’t so malleable.
You’re either on the right side of history, or you’re on the fascist side. And it’s really hard to watch how willing some Democrats are to accept a spoonful of fascism here or there as if it isn’t poison. No amount is safe.