I care deeply. As the proud and blessed mother of a remarkable, truly wonderful trans person I am so aggrieved with the fact that some DEM candidates are not on board with the full protections for all human rights- trans rights are human rights!!!
I am also old enough to remember that as a cis gender female I couldn’t even get a credit card 💳 or apply for a loan at a bank without a male relative’s permission and signature. I know the agonizing history of securing a woman’s right to vote in this nation- a reality this racist, supremacist, white nationalist regime wants to destroy.
None of our human and civil rights have been changed by not voting.
Those rights were fought for by every avenue available and for sustained presence over decades.
Do not stop exercising your right to cast your vote. 🗳️ Not voting is a choice that will not get the desired outcome.
And by continuing to repeat the same failed reactionary and rearview facing strategies, they continue to lose. This is why polling has been so fubared since 2016. Dems keep magical thinking-wishing-hoping anti-MAGA sentiment is congruent and synonymous with Dem voter motivation. It ISN'T, it HASN'T been, and in ten years the two data points have only moved FURTHER apart. The Dem data scientists are either bollixed or no one is listening to them.
Then our work is to be organized, committed and consistent in getting the attention of DEM Leaders and DEM candidates.
Our mission is to make sure they know we are here, and we are aware of their attitudes and beliefs about transgender people. We are committed to ensuring human dignity and rights for all human beings.
Erin is on the forefront of this effort as she keeps us updated and informed.
♥️THANK YOU 🙏 ERIN. I DONT KNOW WHERE I WOULD BE WITHOUT YOUR VITAL REPORTING!! ♥️💯💯💯💯
Our task is to not be distracted from our mission and efforts to secure the acknowledgment, inclusion, dignity, and full human rights of every human being, regardless of race/gender identity/sexual orientation/religion/ethnicity/disability/ or economic status.
This fundamental fight is for all of us. EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING.
Right now, there is no third political party that has enough power or influence to make an impact against the two parties that dominate this nation, at this point in time.
Anything that divides votes 🗳️ away from the lesser of two evils only serves to keep this current administration in power.
This administration has built concentration camps. They’re detaining, deporting and killing people -both citizens and immigrants- with no consequences.
If I compare that to the very real injustice of keeping trans people from sports participation it seems like the first thing we need to do is to make sure trans people aren’t sent to those concentration camps.
If you know the history of the third reich - you have a clear example of how dangerous this current regime is to our existence- our very life and breath.
They will take our lives. Kill us without blinking. Step over our dead bodies and keep killing.
If we’re dead, it’s game over.
We have to stay alive to fight for our rights.
Goal #1 is to stop the unchecked slaughter, violence & destruction of this federal regime.
If there is ANY OTHER clear way forward please tell me what that is, because try as I might, I can’t see one.
Touch grass. Lots of people use no-one. And who the heck do you think they're trolling? It's true, nobody is looking for Republican Light: not liberals or conservatives. Everytime someone actually liberal appears, Democrats bury them and then complain that nobody wants to vote for their crappy candidates.
Like this is so anti-inmogrant and anti-world and American-centric it is WILD. The fact you thought “Russian bot with awful typing and a perfectly reasonable history that isn't saying anything conteovercial” before “ex british immigrant” is WILD and speaks*so badly* of your characer.
They all talk about common-sense. Yet, none of them seem to listen to it. Common-sense would lead them to do more research on this topic rather than pick up easily packaged slogans of hatred. Instead, they are taking a shortcut, confusing their laziness and hatred for common-sense. And this will come with a heavy price that will cost them their election and most importantly the trust of the people.
Increasingly, when I hear people invoke common sense, I hear them invoking the peak of Mt. Stupid: Unwilling to learn more about the details and complexities of an issue, they are so satisfied with their position that they see any new information or data as so incompatible with their reality that they would rather reject it outright.
It's amazing how many atrocities have rested on the "common sense" of ill informed people.
MAGA has redefined common sense. It is frightening though that Democrats are taking up the mantle of “common sense” as a way to justify a choice to turn their backs on us. Trump has truly succeeded in shifting the Overton Window.
They really have, and this is, in my opinion, a greater threat than almost anything else about the Trump administration. We have fallen so far since 2024 already. If we emerge in 2029 with a Democratic president and congress, what will it matter if the border is to remain sealed, trans rights are to remain off the table, and DEI/affirmative action dead and buried? So we'll have more competent managers of the decline of our empire? Cool.
This is the sort of thing that people who write about authoritarian governments and the development of concentration camps warn about—and are currently warning about. Maybe they’ve been warning for so long that people aren’t hearing it, but I think it’s more that people are too invested in their own virtue that they are unable to see what they’re participating in (or ignoring.) Dems are really good at that.
Anti-trans Dems lack the common sense of scientists, belief in the primacy of the scientific method and any meaningful understanding of, and commitment to equality under the law. You and I know they face early extinction in a blue USA.
I notice he’s willing to play politics with immigration justice, too, illustrating clearly what happens when you try to appeal to “centrism” with fascism.
Once we start eliminating civil rights, we don’t stop, because the right needs scapegoats—having no other way of appealing to voters.
It always goes hand-in-hand, doesn't it? The Democrats quickest to abandon trans rights abandoned immigration in tandem or even beforehand.
What I would give for a politician to have the courage to say "you might disagree with me, but I believe strongly in these principles, and I think you should too, and here's why..." Instead, it's just complete cultural and ideological surrender to the fascists, at all times. Not even an effort to counter the propaganda.
Those moderate democrats are counting on "vote blue no matter who" to carry them while they auction off our rights to big hate for pac money. It's hot garbage facilitated by first past the post and district based counting. A lot of people are saying they're ignorant of how many votes they're losing, but I see it as callous self interest. They know better.
A Democratic Party that thinks my existence is negotiable is also a Democratic Party that thinks my vote is expendable. Good luck in November! Can't wait to be endlessly harassed by blue-no-matter-who types who think I should vote to have my rights taken away because orange man bad.
Well said. I’ve been an Independent my entire voting life and this is a big reason why. I haven’t voted for a Republican for any office in over a decade but the number of offices where I don’t vote for anyone seems destined to climb.
The only Democrat I can think of that is actually a governor of a red state supports trans rights, so it is a little odd to claim support for trans rights is the reason Democrats have issues getting elected in red states.
Just another example of how even the Dems are unreliable allies. They act like transgender girls and women in high school and collegiate sports is common. Even Charlie Baker the NCAA president in 2024 testified under oath in congress that out of 500,000+ NCAA student athletes, there were less than 10 who are transgender. How do these people think this is a sustainable winning strategy? The reason you don't here anything about transgender men in sports is because the real intention of the right is to totally get rid of women's sports period so they can institute their "trad wife" agenda.
I have no doubt this is the agenda. That means getting rid of all the progress I've seen in my lifetime, as slow and halting as it has been. Want to know what no girls'/women's sports looks like? In 1970, when I graduated from high school, there was one girl who was involved in any sort of sport. One. She was a tennis player. She learned to play tennis because her older brother had played. She was the first girl in my district in the San Francisco Bay Area to get an athletic scholarship to college. The only other sport-adjacent activity available to girls at the time was cheereleading, and that exclusively involved girls who were dancers. I don't give a rap about sports, but I think that such activities for girls and women should not only be available to all girls and women, but should get the same financial, scholarship, etc levels of support that boys' and men's do. So long as this society segregates sport by gender (which I think is a silly way to go about it), that's only fair. They want to go back to 1970--if not, before. Back to the times when girls were told you shouldn't run or swim or whatever, because otherwise it'd make your uterus fall out. Seriously. That's what the 5-minute film we saw in "sex-ed" said. Trans or otherwise queer people didn't exist, which is also what they want.
Contrast this to James Talarico — a Democrat who fills stadiums to overflowing across Texas — consistently highlighting the ugliness, misguided political calculation, and just plain stupidity of demonizing trans people.
Well, I just penned off a few fucking livid emails, including especially to the DNC, asking why I should continue being a loyal Democrat and why I should join a GOTV phone banking effort for Democrats Abroad. After the decades of sacrifice I've made to this party, I told them I DEMAND an answer - that at this point, I am OWED it.
I'm serious: News of this little shit weasel really hit me pretty hard this morning. It's a lot to unpack. Perhaps the most difficult thing is the realization that this is Third Way official policy. FUCK THEM! The DNC should not give their name or endorsement to candidates who cannot support the most basic of Constitutional rights for all Americans, regardless of who they are.
I’m beginning to wonder if Iowa has something in the water—or perhaps the Republican Party is secretly pumping talking points through the air vents.
Democratic candidates running for office in Iowa seem to have received the same memo: “Whatever you do, make sure everyone knows you’re against boys playing girls’ sports.” Apparently, independent thinking has been suspended until further notice.
Iowa has already piled up anti-trans legislation, and now Democrats seem determined to prove they can repeat Republican talking points with a straight face. Why bother having evidence, nuance, or an actual policy platform when you can just recycle the same fear-based rhetoric?
It’s almost impressive. Republicans spent years turning transgender people into a political punching bag, and now some Democrats appear to be saying, “Wait—save some of that bigotry for us!”
Here’s a radical idea: Democrats could actually stand for something. They could defend civil rights, listen to scientists and medical experts, and refuse to demonize an already vulnerable minority just because Republicans discovered that fear makes a great campaign slogan.
If this is the Iowa Democratic playbook, somebody needs to throw it in the trash and write a new one.
Because Democrats don’t win by becoming Republicans with slightly better manners.
I am always at loss when it comes to a candidate that is lacking common sense. Do I spend time or energy to email or call? Or do I contact other Democrats in his district to confront him. I like to take action but wonder if it is time well spent with this candidate.
GROW A GODDAM SPINE YOU COWARDS!! Voting to protect trans rights, along with all other LGBTQ+ rights is going to WIN you votes, while doing THIS will LOSE you votes. FFS!!!
Beyond disappointing -- another cowardly Democrat, as his constituent pointed out. Incredibly grateful for what you and S.Baum do here, Erin, and Ms. Zephyr has done in Montana, bringing light, intelligence, kindness to this discussion -- of basic human rights. Agree with Jaimie Hileman-- will NEVER vote for a Dem who stakes out this position. Not possible -- will not betray my loved ones.
He's so close to saying the quiet part out loud that underlies all trans sports panic: "sports skill is entirely about muscle size, and girls and women are fragile and weak compared to boys and men." Both wrong ideas that have contributed to the devaluing of women's athletics.
Also? If kids' and teens' sports culture was more about teamwork and individual skill building and having a good time than about winning a competition...
At what point are democrats going to norice that no-one wants diet conservative including conservatives.
They don't seem to care and then they don't understand why Dems keep losing elections. Nobody is going to vote for anti Trans Dem candidates.
I care deeply. As the proud and blessed mother of a remarkable, truly wonderful trans person I am so aggrieved with the fact that some DEM candidates are not on board with the full protections for all human rights- trans rights are human rights!!!
I am also old enough to remember that as a cis gender female I couldn’t even get a credit card 💳 or apply for a loan at a bank without a male relative’s permission and signature. I know the agonizing history of securing a woman’s right to vote in this nation- a reality this racist, supremacist, white nationalist regime wants to destroy.
None of our human and civil rights have been changed by not voting.
Those rights were fought for by every avenue available and for sustained presence over decades.
Do not stop exercising your right to cast your vote. 🗳️ Not voting is a choice that will not get the desired outcome.
The Democratic Party continues its leadership with the “When they go right we go right!” policy.
Gah.
And by continuing to repeat the same failed reactionary and rearview facing strategies, they continue to lose. This is why polling has been so fubared since 2016. Dems keep magical thinking-wishing-hoping anti-MAGA sentiment is congruent and synonymous with Dem voter motivation. It ISN'T, it HASN'T been, and in ten years the two data points have only moved FURTHER apart. The Dem data scientists are either bollixed or no one is listening to them.
Then our work is to be organized, committed and consistent in getting the attention of DEM Leaders and DEM candidates.
Our mission is to make sure they know we are here, and we are aware of their attitudes and beliefs about transgender people. We are committed to ensuring human dignity and rights for all human beings.
Erin is on the forefront of this effort as she keeps us updated and informed.
♥️THANK YOU 🙏 ERIN. I DONT KNOW WHERE I WOULD BE WITHOUT YOUR VITAL REPORTING!! ♥️💯💯💯💯
Our task is to not be distracted from our mission and efforts to secure the acknowledgment, inclusion, dignity, and full human rights of every human being, regardless of race/gender identity/sexual orientation/religion/ethnicity/disability/ or economic status.
This fundamental fight is for all of us. EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING.
Right now, there is no third political party that has enough power or influence to make an impact against the two parties that dominate this nation, at this point in time.
Anything that divides votes 🗳️ away from the lesser of two evils only serves to keep this current administration in power.
This administration has built concentration camps. They’re detaining, deporting and killing people -both citizens and immigrants- with no consequences.
If I compare that to the very real injustice of keeping trans people from sports participation it seems like the first thing we need to do is to make sure trans people aren’t sent to those concentration camps.
If you know the history of the third reich - you have a clear example of how dangerous this current regime is to our existence- our very life and breath.
They will take our lives. Kill us without blinking. Step over our dead bodies and keep killing.
If we’re dead, it’s game over.
We have to stay alive to fight for our rights.
Goal #1 is to stop the unchecked slaughter, violence & destruction of this federal regime.
If there is ANY OTHER clear way forward please tell me what that is, because try as I might, I can’t see one.
🗳️VOTE THEM OUT. 🗳️
People just DIDN'T VOTE. *Headdesk*
It never even WORKS. It's ridiculous. It's a terrible stratagy.
Exactly.
This is a bot, programmed in UK so it uses “no-one”. Troll harder, Russia.
Touch grass. Lots of people use no-one. And who the heck do you think they're trolling? It's true, nobody is looking for Republican Light: not liberals or conservatives. Everytime someone actually liberal appears, Democrats bury them and then complain that nobody wants to vote for their crappy candidates.
Like this is so anti-inmogrant and anti-world and American-centric it is WILD. The fact you thought “Russian bot with awful typing and a perfectly reasonable history that isn't saying anything conteovercial” before “ex british immigrant” is WILD and speaks*so badly* of your characer.
Seriously it isn't a witch hunt and this is very hostile and foolish
What rhe fuck is wrong with you. I;m an immigrant dumnass.
Did you know there are DOZENS of people from the UK who are now American? You can’t even count all of us if you take your shoes off.
They all talk about common-sense. Yet, none of them seem to listen to it. Common-sense would lead them to do more research on this topic rather than pick up easily packaged slogans of hatred. Instead, they are taking a shortcut, confusing their laziness and hatred for common-sense. And this will come with a heavy price that will cost them their election and most importantly the trust of the people.
I guess common sense isn't so common, is it?
Increasingly, when I hear people invoke common sense, I hear them invoking the peak of Mt. Stupid: Unwilling to learn more about the details and complexities of an issue, they are so satisfied with their position that they see any new information or data as so incompatible with their reality that they would rather reject it outright.
It's amazing how many atrocities have rested on the "common sense" of ill informed people.
MAGA has redefined common sense. It is frightening though that Democrats are taking up the mantle of “common sense” as a way to justify a choice to turn their backs on us. Trump has truly succeeded in shifting the Overton Window.
They really have, and this is, in my opinion, a greater threat than almost anything else about the Trump administration. We have fallen so far since 2024 already. If we emerge in 2029 with a Democratic president and congress, what will it matter if the border is to remain sealed, trans rights are to remain off the table, and DEI/affirmative action dead and buried? So we'll have more competent managers of the decline of our empire? Cool.
Yes, I worry about this shift as well. This hatred is becoming way too common among mainstream.
This is the sort of thing that people who write about authoritarian governments and the development of concentration camps warn about—and are currently warning about. Maybe they’ve been warning for so long that people aren’t hearing it, but I think it’s more that people are too invested in their own virtue that they are unable to see what they’re participating in (or ignoring.) Dems are really good at that.
Yes!!! 🙌
Anti-trans Dems lack the common sense of scientists, belief in the primacy of the scientific method and any meaningful understanding of, and commitment to equality under the law. You and I know they face early extinction in a blue USA.
I worry that it won’t be soon enough—that they’ll enable too much before people realize what they’ve done.
I agree ☝️
At one time it was “common sense” the sun revolved around the earth.
I notice he’s willing to play politics with immigration justice, too, illustrating clearly what happens when you try to appeal to “centrism” with fascism.
Once we start eliminating civil rights, we don’t stop, because the right needs scapegoats—having no other way of appealing to voters.
It’s so slimy.
It always goes hand-in-hand, doesn't it? The Democrats quickest to abandon trans rights abandoned immigration in tandem or even beforehand.
What I would give for a politician to have the courage to say "you might disagree with me, but I believe strongly in these principles, and I think you should too, and here's why..." Instead, it's just complete cultural and ideological surrender to the fascists, at all times. Not even an effort to counter the propaganda.
And those politicians who do stand on principle are getting rewarded for it by voters, too, while those offering fascism lite are not.
There IS no middle ground with bullies. “Moderate” Democrats are running for votes that don’t exist.
Those moderate democrats are counting on "vote blue no matter who" to carry them while they auction off our rights to big hate for pac money. It's hot garbage facilitated by first past the post and district based counting. A lot of people are saying they're ignorant of how many votes they're losing, but I see it as callous self interest. They know better.
A Democratic Party that thinks my existence is negotiable is also a Democratic Party that thinks my vote is expendable. Good luck in November! Can't wait to be endlessly harassed by blue-no-matter-who types who think I should vote to have my rights taken away because orange man bad.
Well said. I’ve been an Independent my entire voting life and this is a big reason why. I haven’t voted for a Republican for any office in over a decade but the number of offices where I don’t vote for anyone seems destined to climb.
Predictable. They keep running to the right. Stand for something, you cowards.
The only Democrat I can think of that is actually a governor of a red state supports trans rights, so it is a little odd to claim support for trans rights is the reason Democrats have issues getting elected in red states.
Who is that? Give them credit!
Andy Beshear, the governor of Kentucky
https://time.com/article/2026/04/22/andy-beshear-2028-transgender/
KY here - Beshear supported the trans community during his election despite some really harsh and UGLY ads condemning his support.
Just another example of how even the Dems are unreliable allies. They act like transgender girls and women in high school and collegiate sports is common. Even Charlie Baker the NCAA president in 2024 testified under oath in congress that out of 500,000+ NCAA student athletes, there were less than 10 who are transgender. How do these people think this is a sustainable winning strategy? The reason you don't here anything about transgender men in sports is because the real intention of the right is to totally get rid of women's sports period so they can institute their "trad wife" agenda.
I have no doubt this is the agenda. That means getting rid of all the progress I've seen in my lifetime, as slow and halting as it has been. Want to know what no girls'/women's sports looks like? In 1970, when I graduated from high school, there was one girl who was involved in any sort of sport. One. She was a tennis player. She learned to play tennis because her older brother had played. She was the first girl in my district in the San Francisco Bay Area to get an athletic scholarship to college. The only other sport-adjacent activity available to girls at the time was cheereleading, and that exclusively involved girls who were dancers. I don't give a rap about sports, but I think that such activities for girls and women should not only be available to all girls and women, but should get the same financial, scholarship, etc levels of support that boys' and men's do. So long as this society segregates sport by gender (which I think is a silly way to go about it), that's only fair. They want to go back to 1970--if not, before. Back to the times when girls were told you shouldn't run or swim or whatever, because otherwise it'd make your uterus fall out. Seriously. That's what the 5-minute film we saw in "sex-ed" said. Trans or otherwise queer people didn't exist, which is also what they want.
Contrast this to James Talarico — a Democrat who fills stadiums to overflowing across Texas — consistently highlighting the ugliness, misguided political calculation, and just plain stupidity of demonizing trans people.
Well, I just penned off a few fucking livid emails, including especially to the DNC, asking why I should continue being a loyal Democrat and why I should join a GOTV phone banking effort for Democrats Abroad. After the decades of sacrifice I've made to this party, I told them I DEMAND an answer - that at this point, I am OWED it.
I'm serious: News of this little shit weasel really hit me pretty hard this morning. It's a lot to unpack. Perhaps the most difficult thing is the realization that this is Third Way official policy. FUCK THEM! The DNC should not give their name or endorsement to candidates who cannot support the most basic of Constitutional rights for all Americans, regardless of who they are.
Feeling sorry for trans folks in Iowa, who face an impossible choice this November.
And Ohio. We’re screwed here too.
I’m beginning to wonder if Iowa has something in the water—or perhaps the Republican Party is secretly pumping talking points through the air vents.
Democratic candidates running for office in Iowa seem to have received the same memo: “Whatever you do, make sure everyone knows you’re against boys playing girls’ sports.” Apparently, independent thinking has been suspended until further notice.
Iowa has already piled up anti-trans legislation, and now Democrats seem determined to prove they can repeat Republican talking points with a straight face. Why bother having evidence, nuance, or an actual policy platform when you can just recycle the same fear-based rhetoric?
It’s almost impressive. Republicans spent years turning transgender people into a political punching bag, and now some Democrats appear to be saying, “Wait—save some of that bigotry for us!”
Here’s a radical idea: Democrats could actually stand for something. They could defend civil rights, listen to scientists and medical experts, and refuse to demonize an already vulnerable minority just because Republicans discovered that fear makes a great campaign slogan.
If this is the Iowa Democratic playbook, somebody needs to throw it in the trash and write a new one.
Because Democrats don’t win by becoming Republicans with slightly better manners.
I am always at loss when it comes to a candidate that is lacking common sense. Do I spend time or energy to email or call? Or do I contact other Democrats in his district to confront him. I like to take action but wonder if it is time well spent with this candidate.
GROW A GODDAM SPINE YOU COWARDS!! Voting to protect trans rights, along with all other LGBTQ+ rights is going to WIN you votes, while doing THIS will LOSE you votes. FFS!!!
Beyond disappointing -- another cowardly Democrat, as his constituent pointed out. Incredibly grateful for what you and S.Baum do here, Erin, and Ms. Zephyr has done in Montana, bringing light, intelligence, kindness to this discussion -- of basic human rights. Agree with Jaimie Hileman-- will NEVER vote for a Dem who stakes out this position. Not possible -- will not betray my loved ones.
He's so close to saying the quiet part out loud that underlies all trans sports panic: "sports skill is entirely about muscle size, and girls and women are fragile and weak compared to boys and men." Both wrong ideas that have contributed to the devaluing of women's athletics.
Also? If kids' and teens' sports culture was more about teamwork and individual skill building and having a good time than about winning a competition...
Insensitive bigots. Or spineless politicians thinking they have to bow to insensitive bigots. They can't even understand these are hate crimes.