Erin in the Morning on Tuesday reported something worth celebrating: voters decisively rejected candidates who built their campaigns on anti-trans hate. From Virginia to New Jersey to New York City, pro-trans and pro-equality candidates won by wide margins, delivering a stunning rebuke to those — including Democrats — who tried to turn transgender people into a wedge issue. As Erin put it: “conviction, not capitulation, is what wins.”

In recent years, trans people have been caught in a manufactured storm because we make effective political theater. The same playbook that turned immigrants, gay people, and women seeking healthcare into wedge issues has found new life targeting trans people. And like all culture wars, this one’s goal is distraction — keeping voters angry at each other instead of the systems failing them.

I often hear well-meaning people talk about finding “balance” in these debates — that we must weigh competing interests in a pluralistic democracy. And that’s true, to a point. But balance can’t mean deciding whose humanity is negotiable. Power should never come at the expense of another person’s civil or human rights.

That’s why I don’t believe trans concerns need to dominate the discourse — but they must never be abandoned, either. They deserve to be quietly, steadfastly upheld as part of a broader moral and democratic ethic.

If more people understood the human cost of sacrificing trans people for political convenience, they might find better ways. They’d see that being trans — the act of transitioning and living authentically — is not a special interest or a social experiment. It is freedom of expression. It is liberty. It is the pursuit of happiness. And any attack on those rights for trans people signals the erosion of those rights for all Americans.

I wish everyone could see the troves of leaked emails showing exactly how “bathrooms,” “kids,” and “sports” were focus-grouped into political weapons — issues that, for decades, were locally resolved with compassion and common sense, until strategists realized they could divide a nation with them. It’s the stuff of a true-crime podcast. (In fact, TransLash Media’s “The Anti-Trans Hate Machine” has done extraordinary work tracing how these campaigns radicalized even moderate and liberal Americans into adopting the talking points of the extreme right.)

If people truly understood how this machine operates — how far-right strategists deliberately engineered fear and misinformation toward the goal of creating a Christian nationalist state — they might recognize that the threat isn’t trans people at all. It’s the cynical manipulation of our empathy, our faith, and our ideals to maintain a kind of power structure almost nobody in this country actually wants.

Horse-trading human rights has been a feature of American politics since at least the late 19th century, when white Suffragettes sold out Black voters after Reconstruction to secure their own fragile foothold in power — a power that, ironically, never fully materialized. We’ve seen it again and again: from gay rights leaders distancing themselves from trans activists after Stonewall, to civil rights leaders sidelining Bayard Rustin, the gay architect of the March on Washington, out of fear of losing mainstream support. Each time, the doomed logic states that liberation can be negotiated piecemeal, that someone can be left behind now and rescued later. And people wonder why the Left can’t get anything done. 

Surely, diverse, collective power could have negotiated better. As just 0.7 percent of the population, trans people can’t add much weight to any political bargain — and aren’t worth the taxpayer dollars funding hundreds of bills designed to limit our freedoms. But the fact that selling each other out never works for anyone is an existential lesson we must finally learn if we ever hope for real progress. At this point, we have nothing to lose at all by doing it differently. 

Maybe more people than I think already understand that. At least it looks like more are starting to see it — and to vote accordingly. We live in hope.

Still, I won’t lie: it’s been a brutal year. Everything I feared would happen has unfolded faster and worse than I imagined. I didn’t see it coming that trans people would literally be called “domestic extremists,” or that people I once considered heroes — like Gov. Gavin Newsom — would join in scapegoating us.

I’ve had to learn a new skill I never wanted: how to protect my privacy and physical safety while my country considers out loud whether I should be listed as a terrorist for the crimes of existing, for teaching people the etiquette of basic decency toward trans people, and for joining a movement to secure our place in the American Dream.

Once I got over the shock, fear, and most of the anxiety of all that, I had a realization I didn’t expect: I can handle anything now.

It’s a strange kind of empowerment, tempered by bitter sadness and deep disappointment. But “power is the point,” right? If the far right — and the everyday liberals who pre-complied with them by dropping trans rights — have taught me anything, it’s that I am far more powerful than any of the doomed ways they can imagine to stop me or my community.

Because freedom of expression, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness aren’t just founding tenets of this nation — they are the heartbeat of trans people, who have existed across every era and culture and will never cease to do so. You can repress us, legislate against us, or even rename us as threats. But you only reveal, through your attempts, how powerful we really are, because we never perish. 

To my friends who want progress, as we desperately do: stop wasting energy trying to silence us. Embrace us, and harness our power toward achieving the goals that matter to all of us. 

Scott Turner Schofield is an actor, writer, producer, speaker, and trans activist who transitioned 25 years ago and followed their calling to become an advocate.

Many were on pins and needles until the results were in for Tuesday’s elections. They were going to determine if Americans were really paying attention to what the felon in the White House, and his fascist associates, were doing to them and the country. Whether or not they fully understood democracy, and literally, their lives, and those of their families and friends, in some situations, were in danger. The results are now in and show Americans are awake, and concerned enough, to respond to the danger with their votes. 

It is important to recognize Tuesday’s election results, are only the beginning of the end for Trump. It was one thing for millions to come out to demonstrate in “No Kings” rallies, but getting them to the ballot box is sometimes more difficult. 

The big wins in Virginia for Abigail Spanberger as governor, Ghazala Hashmi, as lieutenant governor, and even Jay Jones as attorney general, despite his best efforts to sabotage his own campaign with his outrageous emails, indicate how over MAGA Republicans Virginians are. In addition, it appears Virginians will keep the legislature in Democratic hands. In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill won big in her race for governor. Then the three Supreme Court Democrats won approval to continue in Pennsylvania. Clearly, people are paying attention, and don’t like what they are hearing and seeing, from the felon in the White House, and his fascist leaning administration. 

The win for Proposition 50 in California is great. It’s the response to the outrageous effort in Texas to redistrict and disenfranchise minority voters in an effort to add five Republican congressional districts. Gov. Gavin Newsom and California responded saying, “we will not be bullied.” We will let our voters decide, and they did, approving the plan designed to add five Democratic districts in California. 

All these results portend well for the 2026 mid-term elections. As we begin campaigning for candidates in 2026, we must live by the motto, “Never give up, never give in!” Democrats need to work together, if they are to take back Congress. Listen to DNC Chair Ken Martin, who said there should be a focus on every congressional seat where the incumbent Republican won by less than 15%. Those are winnable. Then of course, every open House seat and finding the five potential winnable Senate seats. Democrats should campaign knowing the American people will respond, if candidates speak to what their voters are concerned about. 

Each race might look different. I have suggested to candidates who asked, they should go to the places where people in their district eat breakfast, and find out what they are talking about. Then, in the evening, head to the bars and find out what customers are talking about. Then walk the supermarket aisles and listen to conversations there. Once they have done that, they will know what issues to campaign on, and again, those issues may be different in each District. 

The main promise I want from every Democratic congressional candidate in 2026 is a commitment to vote for a Democratic Speaker in the House of Representatives, and leader in the Senate. Some question what the Democratic Party stands for today. The Democratic Party platform, and its principles, have been consistent for many years. Democrats stand for equality for women, and the LGBTQ community; for civil rights, and economic equality and opportunity. They stand for affordable healthcare, and strengthening the Affordable Care Act. Democrats believe in choice, and women controlling their own healthcare and their own body. They believe in fair immigration policies, understanding our nation is a nation of immigrants. That doesn’t mean open borders, it means welcoming those who want to come to our country to build a better life for themselves and their families. Democrats believe in facing reality with regard to climate change, and doing something about it. Democrats don’t deny climate change. 

It’s important to recognize most voters are concerned with what are often called ‘kitchen table’ issues. Grocery and gas prices, rent, the cost of education, and child care. They want to know if they work hard, they can live a good life, providing for themselves, and their families. Showing how Democratic candidates will work to make that happen for them, is how Democrats win. Pointing out the lies they were fed by the MAGA felon in the White House, and his fascist cohorts, is also important. Doing all this in clear, direct language is important.

Again, Tuesday’s election results are only the beginning of the end for the felon. But a great beginning for all decent Americans who want to take back their country.

Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.

Here we go again. Every time a deeply flawed public official dies, the mainstream media unleash their pre-written, pre-taped obituaries that gloss over all the terrible things the deceased did in public life.

This week’s example: former Vice President Dick Cheney, who served in the role for eight years during the disastrous George W. Bush presidency. 

Cheney’s record is filled with so much death, destruction, corruption, lying, and scandal that it’s hard to summarize here. Despite that record, which many human rights advocates argued should have landed him in the Hague, the Log Cabin Republicans praised Cheney during his time in office as a proponent of same-sex marriage and of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The truth is a bit more complicated. 

Let’s start with the war crimes.

After the 9/11 terror attacks, the entire world supported the United States. President Bush’s domestic approval rating was above 90 percent as both parties rallied around our president. Bush and Cheney squandered all that good will by invading Iraq — a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and whose dictator Saddam Hussein was despised by al-Qaeda for his secular views. Cheney, Bush, and their fall guy Gen. Colin Powell lied to the United Nations and the American people about so-called “weapons of mass destruction” that Hussein might give to the terrorists. 

So in 2003, we invaded Iraq, killing untold numbers of civilians. Death toll estimates vary widely, but 4,598 U.S. military personnel were killed; 3,650 U.S. contractors were killed; nearly 50,000 Iraqi military and police were killed; and civilian deaths are estimated between 461,000-655,000 according to a 2006 Lancet study and a 2013 PLOS Medicine study. 

In the aftermath of 9/11, Cheney pushed the military to open “black sites” — secret overseas prisons — along with the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where suspects were deprived of due process and instead subjected to torture in the form of waterboarding. Use of such tactics is illegal under the Geneva Conventions, leading some human rights groups to label Cheney a war criminal, though he was never formally charged. 

Back home, Bush and Cheney used the pretense of fighting the “war on terror” to pass the Patriot Act and engage in unprecedented surveillance of U.S. citizens, especially Muslims. 

But that wasn’t the end of their reign of terror. The Bush-Cheney economic policies of tax cuts and de-regulation, along with record spending post 9/11 and the unfunded wars they launched helped produce the Great Recession of 2007-2008. The U.S. economy hadn’t seen anything like it since the Great Depression as millions of jobs were lost, millions more lost their homes, and entire industries sat on the brink of collapse.  

On gay rights issues, Cheney tried to walk a more moderate line but came into conflict with his boss’s craven push to ban gay marriage. Bush’s record on gay issues should be known to any casual reader of the Blade. He pushed for a constitutional ban on our marriages and ran his re-election campaign on the backs of our relationships. That campaign was run by a closeted gay man, Ken Mehlman, who put gay marriage bans on the ballots of 11 swing states to drive out conservative voters. It worked and Bush-Cheney won a second term. Cheney had a lesbian daughter, Mary, which complicated things for the family, especially when arch conservative sister Liz came out against gay marriage and Mary denounced her in a Facebook post. 

In 2009, Cheney said he supports gays being able to marry but that states should be allowed to decide the issue.

“I think, you know, freedom means freedom for everyone,’’ Cheney said in a speech at the National Press Club. “I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish, any kind of arrangement they wish. And I think that’s the way it ought to be handled today, that is, on a state-by-state basis. Different states will make different decisions. But I don’t have any problem with that. I think people ought to get a shot at that,’’ he said. 

In 2010, during the debate over repealing the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law that destroyed the careers and livelihoods of more than 13,000 brave queer service members, Cheney again equivocated.

When ABC News asked Cheney whether he personally supports “Don’t Ask” repeal, he said, “It’s partly a generational question” and he’s “reluctant to second guess the military” because “they’re the ones that have got to make the judgment on how these policies affect the military capability of our units.”

Cheney was not a profile in courage when it came to advocating for gay rights, even though he had a publicly out daughter.

Near the end of his life Cheney did one honorable thing by standing with law enforcement officers at the U.S. Capitol and later denouncing Trump and endorsing Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. But the damage he did to the country continues to unfold. Trump’s authoritarian power grab began with Cheney’s efforts at expanding executive branch powers years earlier. 

Cheney deserves harsh judgement by historians. His many misdeeds — crimes? — outweigh any late-in-life changes of heart. The mainstream media must do better in telling the truth about our public officials in death. 

Kevin Naff is editor of the Washington Blade. Reach him at [email protected].