Strange Bedfellows

They say politics make strange bedfellows, I don’t think that very many trans people want to get involved politics but are very survival demands it.

‘We have way more power than they think’: Advocates host Trans Folks for Harris Zoom call
More than 1,000 people attend Trans Folks for Harris Zoom call.
The 19^th News
By Kate Sosin
August 14, 2024

In a historic first, approximately 1,000 transgender people logged into Zoom Tuesday night in a show of support for Vice President Kamala Harris’ bid for the presidency.

The call came on the heels of a new survey from Advocates for Trans Equality, the nation’s largest trans rights org, showing that 75 percent of transgender respondents who were eligible to vote reported doing so in the last presidential election.

“A lot of times, elected officials have not really taken our issues seriously, in part because they think that we’re too small of a community to matter,” said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of Advocates for Trans Equality. “Now we’ve been able to prove that that is not true at all.”

The event marks the first time that transgender leaders have mobilized for a presidential candidate. The meeting hosted transgender leaders including Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride and activist Charlotte Clymer.

My first thoughts on reading this was “Only 75% voted?”

On Tuesday’s call, to highlight gains made by the community in spite of legislative attacks, Clymer rattled off a list of transgender elected officials — from McBride, who is poised to become the first transgender person in Congress, to Kim Coco Iwanoto, who just became Hawaii’s first openly trans lawmaker.

More and more trans people are running for office… and winning! And that is a torn in the Republican side. In some states, the Republican controlled legislature refuse to recognize the dully elected legislator and censoring them when they do speak.

Republicans vote to censure Montana's first transgender state legislator
House Republicans voted to bar Rep. Zooey Zephyr from the floor for allegedly encouraging protesters to disrupt proceedings Monday.
NBC News
By Jo Yurcaba
April 26, 2023


Montana House Republicans voted Wednesday to censure Rep. Zooey Zephyr, a Democrat and Montana's first transgender state legislator. The vote came roughly a week after Zephyr told lawmakers they would have blood on their hands if they supported a measure to restrict gender-affirming care for minors and two days after she was accused of inciting protesters in the chamber.  

The House voted 68-32 along party lines to censure Zephyr. She will keep her position but will be barred from physically participating on the House floor. She will be able to vote and attend sessions only remotely for the rest of the legislative session, which ends May 5.

Zephyr was allowed to speak ahead of the censure vote. She defended the comments made last Tuesday during the debate on a bill to restrict transition-related care for minors, when she said, “I hope the next time there’s an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands.”

Them there words were “fighting words” to the Republicans… how dare her to point out the increase in suicides in states where trans healthcare is banned! AP News wrote,

The latest high-profile instance of one party in a statehouse deciding who can be heard during legislative debate has ended for now after a judge denied a transgender lawmaker’s bid to get back onto the Montana House floor and the Legislature adjourned.

[…]

Her silencing drew hundreds of protesters last week to the Montana Capitol. From the House gallery, Zephyr’s supporters chanted, “Let her speak!” as Zephyr raised a microphone in defiance. Police in riot gear cleared the gallery and arrested seven people for trespassing. Zephyr was voted off the House floor for violating its rules of decorum.

The phone call did a lot to raise awareness for us.

The event signals a substantial nod of confidence in Harris from a critical part of the LGBTQ+ community that has historically eyed her with hesitancy. Four years ago, her selection as President Joe Biden’s running mate raised eyebrows among more progressive queer voters who worried that her past as a prosecutor, including overseeing an office that denied gender-affirming health care to a trans detainee, forecasted a lack of support for trans rights.

And Trump judges have been fighting it tooth and nail…

Last week, former President Donald Trump tried to use that support against Walz, criticizing him as “very heavy into transgender.”

In an interview with Fox and Friends, Trump said, “Anything transgender he thinks is great, and he’s not where the country is on anything.”

I think that the more Republicans lambastes us the more the independent voters are saying wait a minute and are seeing what the Republicans are doing is wrong.