HAPPY PRIDE

Another June, another Pride, another month of queer books, movies, history and people getting more of a spotlight. As I’m spending June in the U.S. instead of Canada this year, I know things will be slightly more muted due to less corporate sponsorship and more political on account of an administration intent on rolling back gains, tainting history and scaring its base in portraying trans rights as “threats.”

 

I am fortunate to be spending most of the month in Colorado which has a gay Democratic governor, Jared Polis, and two Democratic senators, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper. Polis has been married to Marlon Reis since 2021 and the couple has two children. 

 

Still, things feel very different from back home in Vancouver. Evan and I freely hold hands in Denver and he often moves in for a quick kiss—things I’d be far less comfortable doing in a red state—but I feel less at ease as we venture to more remote areas such as his family cabin and on hiking trails in the Colorado mountains. I have no stats to back me up but the more pickup trucks I see in a community, the more conservative it seems. Evan listens to NPR most of the day and, while it is purportedly a left-leaning news source, the station is fixated on Donald Trump. “Trump this” and “Trump that…” My mood drops as my level of agitation rises. Without fail, I find myself begging Evan to switch to a soft jazz station. He quickly honors my request, but I can tell he’s totally used to All-Things-Trump when I’m away. Such is the state of the union.

 

I expect a harsher political climate if I make a planned visit to see my parents in East Texas sometime this month. When I was there eight months ago, I stopped at sixteen gas stations, grocery stores and book shops on a Sunday in search of a New York Times. There didn’t seem to be a copy anywhere in Tyler, a city with a population of 115,000. My parents will sit for their daily dose of Fox News. Trump bumper stickers will be rampant. I Googled “Pride Tyler Texas” and the main event will not include something so public as a parade; instead, on Saturday, June 20, there will be food trucks, vendors and art displays inside a conference center, an event organized by Tyler Area Gays (TAG+). 

 

I can’t imagine what it would be like spending June or any month in many of the places I drove through in Southern Washington, Eastern Oregon, Idaho and Utah on my way to Denver. I would never want to return to the confused, lonelier, closeted existence I experienced while attending high school and university in Texas. All that was a long, long time ago but, aside from online connections, I don’t think I’d feel much better there in 2026. Life felt dramatically freer once I moved to Los Angeles in 1989.

 

I’d like to spend much of this month reflecting on the good fortune that has led me into a healthy, loving relationship with Evan, reaching out to the few gay friends who remain in my life and honouring those who died of AIDS and other causes. I’d like to ponder more about marrying Evan, a subject I didn’t even think possible when I landed in L.A. And I’d like to enjoy the two books I’m currently reading, Queer by Beatnik member William S. Burroughs and The Journalist of Castro Street, a biography of the late gay writer Randy Shilts (And the Band Played On; The Mayor of Castro Street).

 

Generally, during a day or month of celebration, it’s all about gratitude and festivities but in the eleven years that have passed since the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed marriage equality, there has been an alarming backslide in rights, in open expressions of queer support and in the movement toward understanding and accepting trans people and those who identify as one of the Plus groups under the LGBTQ+ umbrella. I continue to receive emails from and follow the website for Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE) as a way to stay informed and to consider personal political actions. I check the Advocate’s website weekly for affirming stories while also reading about setbacks at the state and city levels that have slipped through mainstream media coverage. Basically, I continue to be on guard and to not take my rights and freedoms for granted. To do otherwise would be a manifestation of foolish Pride. Alas, this is not a time for complacency. 

 

To other queers and queer allies, enjoy the positive, fun activities scheduled for this month, but I hope you also find time for self-education and honing a reality check of where things stand in terms of LGBTQ+ issues in the U.S., in Canada and around the world. We are stronger when we stay informed and involved.

 

  

BAN BANTER & TARGETING TRANS

No gun, no shooting. That’s my firm stance regarding the American “right” to bear arms. (Read the Second Amendment and tell me how gun-owning Joe Citizen living in an apartment in Peoria is part of a “well regulated militia.”) When it comes to gun control, I’m firmly against gun possession unless someone is on the job in a militia-like position, say a police officer, security guard or member of the military. 

 

That said, I’m also against stripping gun rights from certain people in the population while gun possession remains permissible to regular folks. The only exception I can accept is when someone is determined by a judge or a psychiatrist to be a threat to oneself or others. Safety then becomes a greater concern.

 

But gun advocates in the U.S. always blame the shooter and never see a problem with the existence and widespread ownership of guns. This blaming occurs following every mass shooting. Recently, two children were killed and eighteen were injured when a twenty-three-year-old shot up a Minnesota church. According to multiple reports, the shooter identified as transgender. 

 

You can guess where this is going…

 

In addition to the obligatory, ineffectual thoughts and prayers, some people are calling for a ban on gun ownership for all people who are trans. If one shooter who happens to be trans can cause harm with legally-obtained guns then, by golly, maybe every trans person is similarly dangerous. Yes, preposterous.

 

It’s a slippery slope when laws start cherry-picking who has a certain right and who doesn’t. Such tactics are inherently discriminatory. The onus then falls on the government to show that the discrimination is justified. 

 

According to a CNN article (and other news outlets), the Department of Justice is “seriously considering whether it can use its rulemaking authority to follow on to Trump’s determination to bar military service by transgender people and declare that people who are transgender are mentally ill and can lose their Second Amendment rights to possess firearms.”

 

My initial response was an eye roll. However, nothing said or associated with Trump can be dismissed as rhetoric. There are plenty of executive orders (including the ban on transgender people serving in the military) that have arisen from what might have once been considered idle threats and/or cheap talk to “rally the base.”

 

The argument for labelling people who identify as transgender mentally ill arises from the current DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) of the American Psychiatric Association. “Transgender” is not listed as a mental health condition but “gender dysphoria” is. There are nuanced differences in definitions such that gender dysphoria may only include some people who are transgender, that being those with “strong” desires or convictions associated with discontent regarding gender. The nuance can unfortunately feel tenuous.

 

As I’ve noted in previous posts (for example, here and here), because transgender people are a relatively small sector of the population (say, 2%) and are unlikely to vote Republican, they are easy targets of a conservative agenda seeking to demonize or freak-ify not just trans people but anyone who is anything under the LGBTQ umbrella. 

 

I will admit I cringed when reports came out the shooter was trans. Trans people must be perfect citizens. There can be no opportunity for criticism or attack on account of the words or actions of any single person who identifies as trans or genderfluid. Conservatives froth. As noted in the CNN article, however, only five trans people have been perpetrators in the 5,700 mass shootings in the U.S. since 2013. (5,700! Let that number sink in. Clearly, mass shootings cannot be significantly reduced by banning guns as acts of politically-based tokenism.)

 

Selective gun bans are unlikely to be upheld in court. In January of this year, a federal appeals court struck down a law that prevented 18-20 year olds from buying handguns. I suspect any executive order, policy or law that restricts the gun ownership from people who are trans or even gender dysphoric will be deemed an overly broad infringement on the hallowed Second Amendment. Still, that talk and the contemplation further villainize and cast hate on the trans community. Damage is done.

 

This “serious” talk may go away within days. It may only be part of the blame game that conservatives play after every mass shooting. Blame videogames, blame a song, blame a book. Blame divorces, blame basement living, blame an affinity for Goth appearances. Just never, never blame guns.  

 

 

 

 

 

  

A SPECIAL CANADIAN PRIDE

Justin Trudeau, Mark Carney
and that other guy

When Justin Trudeau stepped down as prime minister of Canada, there were concerns. Actually, my concerns began last summer, Trudeau’s popularity fading fast, which tends to happen when a particular party is in power for what some feel is too long. There are always pendulum shifts. 

 

The leader for the Official Opposition, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, smelled opportunity. He’d already been campaigning hard for over a year and kept going on about how Liberal Trudeau should dissolve parliament and call an election. Had Trudeau done so in late summer or sometime during the fall, I’m certain Poilievre would have won. 

 

Poilievre’s campaign consisted of nasty soundbites, lots of criticism, little in terms of his own proposals. Like all Canadians, he was aware of American politics and saw how being Mr. Nasty worked so well for Trump. I was shocked it was working so well in Canada, too.

 

This is not the Canadian way, I kept telling myself. I still believe Poilievre didn’t need to go low as he smelled blood and could almost taste power as prime minister. Trudeau had done what he could as leader and Canadians were tired of him. A rational, positive campaign by the Conservatives would have been just as potent, even if it generated fewer headlines. But Poilievre chose his path. 

 

Everything went wonky once Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office. Right away, he announced tariffs, specifically targeting China, Mexico and Canada.

 

What? Canada?! It felt like an affront to begin his new term by lumping Canada with China, a traditional “enemy” and Mexico, the country from which the bulk of illegal immigrants were entering the U.S. 

 

It’s no secret that Trudeau and Trump have never seen eye-to-eye. With Trudeau still not relinquishing power, Trump’s attack was supposed to bring Trudeau to his knees. But, no. Suddenly, Canadians clearly had someone to hate more than Trudeau.

 

Making matters worse, Trump talked of Canada becoming the 51^st state, an appallingly aggressive and/or belittling way of relating to the country that has traditionally been the United States’ greatest ally. Canadians boycotted travel to the U.S. and American products. While Trump continued to talk tariffs and refer to Canada as the 51^st state, all-things-Trump were reviled by Canadians. 

 

That included Pierre Poilievre’s campaign style, a carbon copy of Trump’s. Suddenly, the shoo-in next Canadian prime minister saw his popularity plummeting. When Trudeau stepped down as prime minister, all the hate for Trudeau had no place to go. Mark Carney became the interim PM with an election pending. Carney was respected, knowledgeable and, if a tad overly confident/arrogant, he was immensely more likable than Poilievre who had never campaigned on likability. 

 

Poilievre was caught off-guard by Trump’s antagonism and the ensuing backlash. Suddenly, his whiny, pit bull persona proved unpopular. The Conservatives never recovered. In fact, so sure they were of ascending to power—all those months of Poilievre calling for an election—they didn’t even release a party platform until the last days of the campaign, after so many Canadians has shown up for advance voting. 

 

In what no one would have predicted in the last half of 2024, the Liberals held onto power and Carney had his position as prime minister affirmed.

 

As a queer person, I am relieved. While some provinces have jumped on anti-gay and anti-trans initiatives that copy Republican-led American states, things remain protected at the federal level. A week ago CBC News ran a story with the headline, “Carney laments Pride ‘backlash’ and rolls out money to make 2SLGBTQ+ parades safer.”

 

Carney is quoted in the article as saying:

One of the strengths of Canada is recognizing that 

people can be who they want to be and love who they 

want to love. The federal government—we are the 

defenders of those rights.

 

Unfortunately, around the world, there’s a backlash

struggling against the progress that has been made. In

this time, Canada will always stand up for the 

vulnerable and the equal rights we cherish. We can 

take pride in how far we’ve come but we should also 

recognize there’s far more to do.

 

Trump’s aggressive, antagonistic tactics toward Canada have allowed the Liberals to hold onto power and keep LGBTQ protections in place, helping extend rights and normalize them with the Canadian public. During Pride month, I’m particularly proud of Carney’s leadership in affirming our equal rights.

  

 

 

THE WIN COLUMN

A writing colleague, a good friend of mine, is trans. We connect through FaceTime once a week to share a writing session. It starts with a check-in (How’s your week of writing going? What are you working on today?) and is followed by an hour where we disconnect and write before FaceTiming again to talk about how the hour went. 

 

They live in Seattle. As “safe” an area as any for someone who is trans in the United States but it’s still in the U.S. where Trump has already issued executive orders about trans in the military, trans girls and women in sports and trans healthcare for people under eighteen. I have sensed my friend’s unease with every phone call since the election. It’s hard not to feel targeted or to sense walls closing in.

 

For gay white cisgender men such as myself, the equivalent would be to live in a country whose newly appointed ruler issued orders banning gay marriage, gays in the military, gay adoption and discussion of anything gay in schools. If your tendency is to quibble over anything I mentioned that is not an exact equivalent, check your personal feelings and beliefs about people who are trans. How many do you know? Have you listened to them talk about trans issues? How much are you willing to be an ally and to truly include them in the Pride “community” we speak of every June if not throughout the year?

 

I have told my friend I will drive down to Seattle (or Olympia, the state capital) and rally alongside them. Just give me a date. I want them to feel my support is real, that there is substance behind my words.

 

Part of my frustration, however, has been that I’m not seeing rallies. I’m not hearing well-packaged soundbites like the highly effective, enduring “Love Is Love,” that helped people get behind gay marriage. I have not been able to point to an organization that is leading the cause to fight back and advocate for trans rights. GLAAD and HRC exist but their agendas are diverse and I’m not sure how many trans people see these organizations as representing their voices. I imagine trans advocates want trans people actually taking the lead. They need to be empowered while the rest of us, LGBTQ and otherwise, get behind them and lift them up.

 

I asked my friend, “What organization is leading the campaign for trans rights?”

 

I wanted the answer to roll off their tongue. There was a pause, but it didn’t take too long before they replied, “Maybe A4TE?” It was a tentative response. I didn’t ask them to explain what the letters and number stood for. I could do my own research.

 

Advocates For Trans Equality.

 

Not an organization known in households. Not yet.

 

A4TE.

 

A4TE.

 

A4TE.

 

A4TE, A4TE, A4TE…

 

I got it wrong a couple of times in the past week. Not rolling just yet. But I can say I’m getting familiar with the organization.

 

Advocates for Trans Equality is a merger of sorts, coming into being just last year after two organizations established in 2003 joined forces: National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF). Honestly, I’d never heard of either or, if I had, the names didn’t stick with me. Maybe I had just never made trans rights enough of a priority.

 

I spent an hour going through their website. At first, I was underwhelmed. This is it? That’s all? But then I subscribed to their newsletter and read the first one. I was emailed a link and listened to an excellent 90-minute webinar, “Trans Rights vs. Trump: How A4TE Is Fighting Back.” I started to feel more encouraged. The information is getting out there. A4TE is taking a lead.

 

A4TE, A4TE, A4TE.

 

One part of the website in particular resonated with me. When I scrolled down the ABOUT tab, I clicked on the first option, HISTORY, and reading through the web page, I came upon the heading, What We’ve Done, which begins with:

 

Over the last twenty years, NCTE secured over 100

federal policy changes in various agencies and

helped defeat hundreds of anti-trans state bills

across the country, and TLDEF saw major

victories and had unflappable persistence in

courtrooms across the country, having worked

on some of the most significant trans legal

victories in the nation.

 

The following six paragraphs offered specifics regarding what the separate organization accomplished before merging. There are significant victories arising from battling various institutions and the governments of the day. 

 

While Trump’s executive orders are setbacks and are clearly disheartening if not devastating to trans people and their families, the prior wins represent hope. Change can happen. There is an organization with a track record of victories. Defeats occur as well, perhaps fueling a sense of incensement that can rally people, but the victories motivate too. There are things in the win column. All is not lost. All is not dark. 

 

Hopefully, you will check out the website for Advocates for Trans Equality. I recommend subscribing to the newsletter. (The "subscribe" button appears at the bottom of each page on their website.) Read or skim the ones you have time for in your busy life. Perhaps mark them to be read later. 

 

I want the rallies. I want the “good trouble” the late Congressmen John Lewis mentioned. I want the court challenges. I want safety and security for people who are trans. I want more in the W column.

 

  

I AM ONE: A BOOK OF ACTION

 

 

Words by Susan Verde

 

Illustrations by Peter H. Reynolds

 

(Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2020)

 

Back in November, I posted two pieces about going Beyond the Vote. (You can read them here and here.) Trump had won the U.S. election and the Republicans held power in both the Senate and the House of Representatives but that only meant that people seeking change and advocating for trans and queer rights as well as topics like climate change and freedom from book banning needed to actively and steadfastly pursue other channels to affect change.

 

Frankly, going beyond and around formal political structures is where the fun is. The late U.S. Congressman John Lewis referred to some of these non-legislative actions as “good trouble.” I smile every time I think of the phrase and I recall some of the things I did during the height of the AIDS crisis. I was not a member of ACT UP which was more radical than I dared to be as I still had one foot in the closet. Still, I participated in protests and marches. When I attended monthly meetings as an AIDS Project Los Angeles volunteer, I removed all my money to have it stamped as “gay dollars” to remind people when the bills went back into circulation that gays had money and the economic power that went with it.

 

Clearly, we need to get creative in how we fight back against many of Trump’s executive orders and it will take a swell of participation from allies. Just this weekend, the president has gotten me more incensed than ever by imposing 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods while setting tariffs on China at 10%. Tell me how it makes sense to be most economically punishing to your long-term neighbors, your most natural trading partners? Why even target Canada (and Mexico)? We’ve had a good thing going between North American countries. I know that Canadians are outraged.

 

I, of course, can participate in protest actions and change initiatives relating to more than one issue and now I most certainly must. Trans and queer rights remain at the forefront. Canadian pushback now stands alongside that. 

 

I’ve talked with people over the past week who feel scattered and overwhelmed by the rapid change Trump is creating through his promised rainstorm of executive actions. That’s normal. Catch your breath, everybody.

 

But Susan Verde and Peter H. Reynolds’ book I Am One: A Book of Action reminds us in a simple yet inspirational way that change starts with one person doing one action. The message is comparable to the image of a drop in a bucket seeming inconsequential until another drop and another and many, many more are added in. Keep it coming. Keep doing the work. Let others see and feel your actions. Let those who are so motivated do the same or similar actions. Let them try another course of action. Let everything build.

 

A Book of Action was inspired by a quote from the Dalai Lama: “Just as ripples spread out when a single pebble is dropped into water, the actions of individuals can have far-reaching effects.” The book begins with a key question: “How do I make a difference?”

 

Yeah, we all feel that little old me syndrome from time to time. I hear people who are less hopeful opt out with the defeatist statement, “What difference does it make?”

 

All I know is I have control over my own thoughts and actions. I always believe in doing what I can. For the issues that matter most to me, I must move beyond talking the talk. I must walk the walk. Actions matter.

 

As the book reminds us, “Beautiful things start with just One.” 

 

One seed to start a garden.

One stroke to start a masterpiece.

One note to start a melody. 

 

Starting matters. That first action is the root of bigger things, sometimes even a movement. Not every action will have legs, but it’s worth giving it a go and seeing if it might. It’s worth checking out online what people are doing and adopting your own version of an action or actions that seem within your ability.

 

 

The book reminds us that that pebble drop in water the Dalai Lama referred to can create ripples and, with enough pebbles dropped, we can imagine ripples evolving into swells, then waves. 

 

It’s time to act. Try something. Try something else. Comment on and acknowledge what others are doing. Action feels so much better than sitting, stewing and fretting. 

 

I may be reading I Am One: A Book of Action on the daily for the next while. The book itself calms me and reminds me of opportunity, pushing me past passivity. 

 

Again, it’s time to act. 

 

What will it be?

 

 

 

 

TRANS ACTIONS

We’ve got to do better. When we say, “It gets better,” that must apply to everyone in the LGBTQ community. That includes trans. We’ve got to step up and continue the fight for queer dignity and queer rights.

 

Frankly, I knew throughout election season that, not only were trans people being demonized during the campaign, but they would then be blamed by their own side if Democrats lost the election. It’s doubly disgusting. The demonizing worked AND allies, needing to lay blame, pointed fingers at trans pronouns, athletic participation, bathroom usage and early hormone inhibitors. 

 

To be clear, blame does not belong to the trans community. Trans rights were not handled well by the left. Democrats were always playing defense or not playing at all and, in such situations, it’s pretty difficult to score. 

 

The weekend after the election, both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times published front page stories analyzing the result, clearly stating that trans rights proved to be a deciding issue. The WSJ article focused solely on the topic, the headline stating, “Transgender Rights Took Center State Late in Race.” The article’s summative point: “[A]s the campaign neared the finish line, it was the transgender debate that emerged as a powerful force that—along with..inflation and immigration—worked in Republicans’ favor and against Harris.”

 

An effective campaign conducts its research and highlights the issues and stances that will play best to its key voters and those who are undecided. According to the WSJ, “The Trump campaign spent heavily on transgender issues, accounting for roughly one in five ads it aired in the last couple of months,” costing $37 million. [Emphasis added.] The Harris campaign failed to grasp the damage caused by the ads. It did what Democrats have too often done—ignored issues and statements deemed outrageous. “Harris had an opening to address one of those ads, which focused on her support for taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for federal inmates, during her combative Fox News interview…[b]ut she ended up dismissing the importance of voters’ concerns on the issue.” Really, how many inmates would be getting trans surgeries in a year? As obscure as the issue may be, the ads caused the voter outrage Republicans sought.

 

This slogan is familiar, but I contend
it hasn't been effective enough.
Time to try a new soundbite.

Never ever let Trump statements go unchecked. Never let distortions go without a strong, soundbite-savvy response. Indeed that ad’s soundbite was “Kamala’s for They/Them. President Trump is for you.” 

 

No strong, easily grasped response from Democrats? Hello, damage. 

 

Same goes for all the fear and outrage lathered up over trans athletes. Even Representative Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) felt freaked out by the issue, telling the NYT, “I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.” I literally cringed from the quote. Even Democrats don’t understand trans issues or the extent to which issues have real life impact. The director of communications for the Michigan High School Athletic Association told the WSJ, “the issue of transgender girls playing girls sports was inescapable on the airwaves” despite the fact only two girls playing on high school teams in the state were trans. Two out of 170,000. A non-issue, spun hard by Republicans. 

 

Without effective pushback, all that outrage and fearmongering has caused damage to trans people and trans issues beyond election season. 

 

Yes, we failed. We weren’t there. We silently shook heads, tantamount to no response at all. I, for one, await both grassroots and well organized (non-election) campaigns to boost positivity and acceptance regarding people who are trans. 

 

*  

 

History is indeed cyclical and we only need to look at earlier LGBTQ struggles to see when things stalled and when real progress finally happened. 

 

Throughout the seventies and eighties, progress for gays and lesbians was slow. Singer Anita Bryant stepped up as a leading adversary. Senator Jesse Helms relentlessly called out gays as sinners, lumping them in with perverts and pedophiles. AIDS worsened any campaign for gay rights. While gays were in survival mode, bathrooms became a danger zone, with the false perception you could become infected from toilet seats seemingly unshakable. It was in conservatives’ best interest to allow the falsity to persist. Whatever it took to make people remain entrenched as anti-gay. Play it up enough and it meant Republican votes. 

 

Bathrooms remain big in conservative playbooks. So do families, especially children. Once, it was gay men who posed a threat. Recruiters! Abusers! Protect our kids.

 

Updated to trans hate, conservatives now perpetuate pedaling fear that their children will be harmed. “Biological boys” are invading girls’ bathrooms and taking over girls’ athletics! Again, there is little to no substance, no cases put forth as they continue to spin fear. Worse, one common Trump lie at rallies was that parents could send their child to school in the morning and that child would come home the opposite sex. 

 

Sometimes we think Trump’s statements are so outrageous and clearly untrue they don’t get enough pushback. The fact is many Republicans drink whatever Kool-Aid Trump’s serving. They may not truly believe what he spouts, but they’ll spout it too in the name of team spirit. I’ve said many times, Trump and his supporters remind me of WWE arena wrestling—all staged but totally consumed. 

 

Where gays finally made significant strides was during marriage equality campaigns.

 

Progress was not entirely linear. There were setbacks, even in California, which saw the passage of the Proposition 8 referendum, which took away the right to marriage. But the organization became stronger. 

 

One legacy from the AIDS crisis was that gays and lesbians honed advocacy skills. One of the first changes was that more gays came out. They couldn’t sit back quietly while so many gays died. They couldn’t let stand hateful rhetoric that AIDS was God’s wrath. They became politically and socially active because they had to, pushing for more AIDS funding, quicker approval of experimental drugs and protections from job and housing discrimination. Gay men were not united in what was the best approach. Some worked within the establishment while others focused beyond it. 

 

A generation of gay men became well-versed in political and social action. Their experiences then helped with marriage equality efforts. They had a sense of how to mobilize and a track record of what tactics and strategies were most effective. Marriage campaigns at the state level worked together. Each state that passed marriage equality legislation provided momentum. Bit by bit, change happened.

 

In my mind, one of the most effective aspects of the overall campaign was the creation and propagation of a positive, social media friendly sound bite: #LoveIsLove.

 

Where is the trans sound bite? 

 

It’s time for gays and lesbians to join all queers in mobilizing again. We have the experience. We have a better opportunity to affect change with greater numbers of people actively pushing for it. And let me be clear in stating that any gay man latching onto “LGB but not the T” is spinning selfish, hateful nonsense that should be left behind in the last century.

 

It would have been nice if the Democrats had a solid plan to respond to political potshots—no, attacks—regarding trans issues. Nicer if the response not only responded to fearmongering but also put a positive foot forward. If some Democrats believe trans issues hurt them, it’s on them to regroup and rethink how to effectively campaign for trans rights. It’s a no-brainer that, if Republicans found success scaring voters about trans issues, they’ll keep doing it as long as they’re given carte blanche to do so. 

 

But I think it’s incumbent on major queer organizations to strategize their own counterattacks and, more importantly “brand” trans identity as something positive. That’s right, “brand” it. This is something to sell in terms of politics. There needs to be a #LoveIsLove equivalent that people can embrace and that catches on. Keep floating them out there, see what sticks and then fly with it. Something with long legs. Gay marriage has been legal since the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision and people still #LoveIsLove all over the place, perhaps as much as they wave the Pride flag. 

 

A personal suggestion is #LetThemBe. It’s positive. It’s got the pronoun so many associate with trans, nonbinary and other queers. (I do realize many trans people go with she/her and he/him, but I think #LetThemBe gets a simple, positive message across. If a trans person does choose she/her or he/him, well that’s even easier for straight folks to go with. Less pronoun bumbling if they choose to get past archaic resistance with comments like, “You don’ sound like a woman.” (Yeah, I hick-ified it. It seems apropos.)

 

A friend of mine who is trans told me shortly after the election that many trans people are antiestablishment. They won’t get on board a united, seemingly centrist campaign that speaks to acceptance from straights. That’s not their raison d’être.

 

My response was that was fine. Historically, with gay rights, there has been more than one track. During the AIDS crisis, organizations like Gay Men’s Health Center in NYC and AIDS Project Los Angeles appealed to politicians and celebrities for support while ACT UP went with more controversial, in-your-face tactics that some gays felt were a distraction or even detrimental to the cause. I didn’t always like ACT UP’s actions, but I believe that, while traditional organizations went with diplomacy, there was also a time and place for agitation that occurred per ACT UP’s agenda, not GMHC’s.

 

Too often in politics, things take on an either-or, black-or-white dichotomy. Explore all channels. Let the pro-trans movement have diversity in the channels it pursues.

 

If we all get onboard advocating for trans rights, we can contemplate bigger actions and fund a campaign to counter that $37 million anti-trans advertising effort the Republicans put together. Yes, money matters.

 

What are the key organizations to contribute to in advocating for trans rights? A specific trans organization doesn’t come immediately to mind which underscores how much has yet to be done. During the AIDS crisis, ACT UP was known to most everyone. GLAAD and HRC are also well known, but they have broader agendas than solely advocating for trans issues. (We still need to donate to them and push them to strengthen their trans campaigns both in terms of people and resources.) What is a key trans advocacy organization? One or two need to emerge as having household recognition, spearheading campaigns, becoming prominent fund raisers, organizing a powerful national march, targeting states where change is likely to occur, building momentum off these wins and assuming an advisory role with state- and local-level organizations working to establish and/or protect particular rights.

 

If the LGBTQ community doesn’t show in bold ways how it is stepping up, how can we expect our allies to show up and grow. If we organize in bigger numbers with bigger coffers, we can also establish an expertise that can then better advise Democrat positions and responses—there MUST be responses—during the 2026 and 2028 election campaigns. Do better, yes, and do more. Let’s go!

 

 

Newspaper articles cited for this blog post:

“Democrats Sift Through Rubble, Seeking Answers: Assigning the Blame,” The New York Times, November 10, 2024.

 

“Transgender Rights Took Center Stage Late in Race,” The Wall Street Journal, November 9-10, 2024.

 

 

 

 

  

A RALLYING LIE

It’s supposed to be about issues, I keep telling myself. 

 

The man has no platform. He doesn’t want to talk issues. He’d have to defend them. Hell, he’d have to know them.

 

How can anyone disregard Project 2025 when he offers nothing to counter or clarify?

 

Instead of a platform, we get distraction. We get headline-making provocation.

 

And, for the most part, after a day of “outrage,” we shrug it off. There’s always a new provocation to get worked up about. The barrage of distractions should sink the man and his shot at the White House, but instead, he keeps trending, keeps getting the attention he craves.

 

There. That’s my preface. I know all this. You know all this too, right?

 

And yet one provocation that arose again last week—he’s down to re-spinning his greatest hits now—requires that I not shrug it off even though we were pelted with new provocations over the weekend. (Seriously, America, aren’t you exhausted?)

 

It’s Donald Trump’s repeating that schools are aiding and abetting—even actively initiating—gender changing procedures for minors that I cannot let go by with a shrug or a “Oh, that’s just Trump” non-analysis. (You really are exhausted, America.)

 

Speaking with Joe Rogan on Friday, Trump said, “Who would want to have — there’s so many — the transgender operations: where they’re allowed to take your child when he goes to school and turn him into a male — to a female — without parental consent.”

 

Like so many Trump comments these days, I have to reread or replay the quote first. The 78-year-old man has gotten less coherent in his rambles, but this statement is Trump at his clearest. And what he says is utterly preposterous. If anything, the quote should establish that Trump is not of sound mind. A generous take on it would be to say he’s woefully broadened and distorted the ongoing issue of pronoun preferences and whether teachers must have parental consent to address students with non-cisgender corresponding ones.

 

But even that should be damning. How can the presidential candidate for a major political party misstate or misunderstand an issue so badly? But he banks on the fact he’s not fact-checked by his supporters or even by begrudging non-fans in the Republican Party who still attempt to defend or deflect what the man says. 

 

“Oh, that’s just Trump.”

 

Yeah, that’s just the man on the ballot seeking another term as President of the United States. Shake yourselves, America. “That’s just Trump” is not an acceptable reaction. Donald Trump has been interviewing to get his job back for four years and, wow, this is not someone you hire. No, not even to run the fry machine at McDonald’s. 

 

You know this. And your crazy uncle/neighbor/co-worker knows this, too. They go along for the sport of it and, when I say “sport,” I’m talking the fake kind, that staged wrestling which made a household name of performers like Hulk Hogan. Fake sport, fake news, fake facts. (Damn Kellyanne Conway and her “alternative facts.”) 

 

Schools are not helping kids get hormones or operations to change gender. Trump knows this. He openly lies. And that’s deemed acceptable by fifty percent of the voting public. (Really, America? How is this possible? If you distrust politicians so much, why do you give a free pass to the most intentionally distrustful of the lot?)

 

This particular lie rankles me so much because I spent my career as a teacher and school principal. If there were even one case of school officials in some way transporting a student to a healthcare facility or otherwise enabling a gender-changing surgery, it would be all over the news. The teacher would be named. The school would be known. The school district would have to investigate, dismiss the school staff member and go into damage control. I would be horrified of such a case which is the reaction Trump is eliciting…just without such a case. 

 

This nonsense freaks out his base. They don’t understand gender pronouns much less actions to align one’s body with the gender that feels authentic. They have been plenty worked up over boys going into girls’ bathrooms and running against them at track meets. Now this? Surgery?! Without parental consent?! Outrageous! And not happening.

 

Trumped-up outrage causes more negative feelings toward people who identify as trans or nonbinary. It damages the greater LGBTQ+ community. It further tarnishes public education. It creates another dent in the trust and respect that teachers work so hard to gain. (Respect is far from a given anymore.) 

 

Trump doesn’t care. Trump was never a product of the public school system. Mr. Bone Spurs attended the private Kew-Forest School from kindergarten to grade seven, then went to private boarding school at the New York Military Academy. 

 

The disparaged groups are all traditionally Democrat-leaning voters. His allegation is a safe lie. No losses in terms of voters. It’s better than safe. It’s a rallying lie. Vote for Trump or those teachers are going to be out of control! Whole classes are going to have their genitals transformed during math! Fear the Woke. Vote them away.

 

This is gross. It’s pathetic. And…it’s working.

 

It undermines truth in reporting. It feeds conspiracy creators and spreaders. I’m glad CNN reported this yet again. In this article, CNN does an exemplary job debunking any allegation that schools are complicit in gender-changing medical care for children. Read it. Pass it on to your crazy uncle/neighbor/co-worker. They won’t read it, but they will have a clear takedown of Trump’s allegation within reach. Maybe, just maybe, curiosity will tweak them before they double down. It’s indeed a reach but it beats being resigned to not just playing with the facts but playing with all-out fiction.

 

And then look to see where Trump stands on issues. If you find nothing but a shell or a total void, know that's as good as it gets. Know that Trump will improvise presidential leadership just as he has improvised his campaign. Vote to make this circus roadshow go away for good. Let the exhaustion end.