Connect with us

Opinions

Apathy helps the Know-Nothing Party

Let’s get real: only one party imperils the country

Published

on

know-nothing party, American, gay news, Washington Blade

(Photo by Jnn13; courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Political parties change over time. Republicans, for instance, have become the Know-Nothing Party, in which traditional conservatives who display insufficient nativist rage or fail to chase after 45’s every juvenile whim are treated as weaklings unfit to govern. Democrats, on the other hand, have grown in sixty years from the home of the segregationist South into a party of inclusion.

To minimize the parties’ differences is to miss by a mile what is happening. The comparison between last year’s political insurgents Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders does not withstand scrutiny. More important, progressive proposals, whatever one thinks of them, are mild compared to the broad array of aggressive harms already begun by the Trumpists. Finally, the far left wields much less influence than the far right.

Trump won the nomination and the general election. He tapped white nationalist rage. His main goal was erasing everything Barack Obama touched, regardless of merit. Trump is disinclined to study issues or heed experts. He has a baseless confidence in his own brilliance. His proposals are all over the map, and he has revealed his promises to be worthless.

Sanders made an impressive run, but lost the nomination. He tapped working class frustration, but did not build a campaign on racism. He pushed a socialist program, which is a coherent economic vision whether or not one thinks it workable or sufficiently popular. Single Payer is based not on resentment but a desire for universal healthcare. Sanders did rage against big bankers and corporate greed, but his complaints were better founded even if his remedies were unconvincing and their path to enactment not evident.

The Trumpists support voter suppression, environmental degradation, crippling public education, selling off national monuments, ramping up military spending while knee-capping diplomacy, ending women’s reproductive choice, taking healthcare from millions out of spite, attacking immigrant families, and giving a tax windfall to corporations at everyone else’s expense while lying about it. There is no similar vicious catalog to lay at progressives’ feet.

Only a prior determination to see no difference between left and right could lead to that conclusion. The far right’s influence is all too apparent. I myself have criticized the totalitarian tendencies of some on the far left, but they are largely impotent. Barring or shouting down disagreeable speakers on college campuses and demanding the exclusion of police and businesses from Pride celebrations are obnoxious, but amount to a renunciation of effective public engagement. Those zealots are like retiring conservative Senators Corker and Flake, delivering rebukes as they confirm their marginalization.

If leftist radicals controlled the Democratic Party, Tom Perez could not have purged progressive dissenters from the DNC. Deflecting attention from the mounting evidence of the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia, congressional Republicans have launched another raft of investigations into debunked Hillary Clinton conspiracies. Sean Hannity’s and Sebastian Gorka’s hysterical braying is not evidence, and will not sway special counsel Robert Mueller.

Opinion polls can reveal public disaffection, but cannot offer solutions. Of the two major parties, one is not treasonous. It is not trying to rule by stoking intolerance and division. Its recent presidents have presided over deficit reductions. Its legislators are far more supportive of reproductive choice, diplomacy, environmental protection, and a social safety net. It is the Democratic Party, which offers the only hope of thwarting the Republicans, whose fervor boosts their electoral prospects. Alternatively, Democratic infighting offers the best chance for entrenching Trumpist autocracy.

The LGBT movement has made great strides. The polls are on our side. But that is true of many things the Republicans are attacking. Protections for women, racial minorities, and LGBT people, won mostly by Democrats, are under renewed attack.

I understand frustration with politics. My own activism has largely involved nonpartisan advocacy. But swallowing the lie of “not a dime’s worth of difference,” while fanatics on one side blow everything up, is as likely to end well as knocking down your house and expecting the Taj Mahal to spring up in its place.

The House and Senate leadership in 2019 will not be Greens or Independents. If you vote that way or sit it out in 2018, you are effectively voting Republican. Please think better of it.

Postscript on Oct. 30 following Mueller’s charges against Paul Manafort and Rick Gates: We have a long fight ahead. Even if Trump is forced from office, his successor could be worse. Democrats must start winning elections. The right-wing lies and deflections will only escalate. Leftist purity will not defeat them. Diversity and inclusion are empty slogans without room for diversity of opinion. Progressive concerns will gain more traction in Democratic legislatures.

Postscript, predator edition: Kevin Spacey finally came out, albeit grotesquely. Homosexuality and pedophilia are very different things, which should not need pointing out after our long struggle against a blood libel. Anthony Rapp, to whom Spacey has apologized for an unwanted advance he claims he was too drunk to remember (which occurred when Rapp was 14), plays a scientist on Star Trek Discovery. His character, along with the ship’s doctor played by Wilson Cruz, is part of the first gay couple in the franchise’s history. It is an affirming portrayal, matter-of-factly integrated into the story line, lightyears from the miserable excuses of Mr. Spacey.

 

Richard J. Rosendall is a writer and activist. He can be reached at [email protected].

Copyright © 2017 by Richard J. Rosendall. All rights reserved.

Advertisement
FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM
SIGN UP FOR E-BLAST

Opinions

TRAITOR: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has blood on his hands

Nation’s highest-ranking gay public official is a MAGA sell out

Published

on

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

It’s an odd dichotomy: President Trump appoints the highest-ranking openly gay government official in history in Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, yet he launches cruel attacks on transgender Americans. 

Make no mistake: Those attacks are claiming lives. Trans people are killing themselves. I know of one trans person who died by suicide on Election Night, overwhelmed by fear of the incoming administration. Trump’s attacks have driven trans Americans and their families to flee the country and move to Canada, as the Blade has reported. 

None of this is hypothetical or melodramatic. It’s real life and happening everywhere. 

And so when Bessent was confirmed as Treasury Secretary, I wrote an op-ed urging him to educate Trump about the plight of trans Americans and the destructiveness of the attacks on the community. I waited 90 days for some sign that Bessent has a heart or at least a modicum of decency but sadly, I must report that he does not. 

The attacks on the LGBTQ community under Trump keep coming. Last week’s news that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is planning to retire the national 988 crisis lifeline for LGBTQ youth on Oct. 1 is just the latest evidence that this administration doesn’t just dislike us — they want us dead.

“Ending the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline’s LGBTQ+ youth specialized services will not just strip away access from millions of LGBTQ+ kids and teens — it will put their lives at risk,” Trevor Project CEO Jaymes Black said in a statement.

The service for LGBTQ youth has received 1.3 million calls, texts, or chats since its debut, with an average of 2,100 contacts per day in February.

Make no mistake: cutting this service will kill young LGBTQ people.

Just a couple of weeks earlier, Trump’s administration announced the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy would be gutted. 

“In a matter of just a couple days, we are losing our nation’s ability to prevent HIV,” said HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute Executive Director Carl Schmid.

And prior to that, Trump issued a series of executive orders targeting the trans community — restricting access to affirming healthcare, banning trans service members from the military, barring trans women and girls from playing sports, eliminating the “X” gender marker on passports, and barring students assigned male at birth from using women’s restrooms.  

Let’s be very clear: When you deny someone the ability to use the bathroom, you deny their humanity.

So back to Scott Bessent, the billionaire hedge fund manager now running our economy into the ground. As many Trump protesters have noted: silence is complicity. And Bessent has been silent on all of these horrific attacks on trans Americans and their basic humanity. He is spineless and a traitor to the LGBTQ community. 

Bessent runs the U.S. Treasury and reportedly has Trump’s ear on all matters related to the economy. He could easily push Trump in a better, more compassionate direction, yet there is no evidence he has done that. 

“The LGBTQ+ community is counting on openly LGBTQ+ nominees like Scott Bessent to step up for the community,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson after the inauguration. Sadly, it’s become clear we cannot count on Bessent. As I wrote in January, Trump likes his queer people gay, white, cis, rich, and obedient. 

Bessent has ignored the Blade’s interview requests. (And after this is published, I have no illusions he will change his mind.) The mainstream media, increasingly cowed by Trump, have failed to ask Bessent even the most basic questions about his views on trans equality and Trump’s attacks. 

As a member of the LGBTQ community, Bessent has a responsibility to at least speak up on behalf of trans people who are suffering. But Republicans today have lost their spines. They genuflect before their Dear Leader, line their own pockets, and leave the rest of us to deal with the consequences. 

The crisis is real. People are dying. Trans people especially are suffering. The rest of us must do what we can to mitigate that suffering and to speak out in defense of our trans friends. 


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

Continue Reading

Opinions

Congressional Equality Caucus should participate in WorldPride

Make bold statement about our commitment to LGBTQ rights

Published

on

(Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

The Trump administration, by its actions, has already hurt WorldPride. By attacking trans people, they have gotten many nations to suggest to trans citizens they not come to the United States. Canada’s queer group has said it is advising its people not to come. It is sad in so many ways. But despite what the felon in the White House is doing, WorldPride will be a success. It can be a time to not only have fun, but to make a point to the administration and the world. What was the old saying, “We’re here, we’re queer, and we’re not going anywhere, so get used to it.”  The LGBTQ community in the United States has made great strides since Stonewall in 1969, and there is no way we are going back into the closet. 

One way we can make a strong statement is if every member of the Congressional Equality Caucus would come out and join hands with constituents from their state, who are coming to D.C. for WorldPride. Together, they can take a stand for equality. Together, they can make a statement about our country to the world; that the United States values and supports its LGBTQ community. 

This year from May 17-June, we are anticipating huge crowds in Washington, D.C. for WorldPride. Let us together make sure they are all safe and that they have an exciting and fun time while here. But at the same time we should use this gathering to speak out, for our community here, and the LGBTQ community around the world. 

We must show the felon in the White House, and his MAGA acolytes in Congress, and around the nation, all those who would keep us down, we can, and will, stand up for ourselves. We are only willing to move one way, and that is forward toward full equality. Many years ago, during the early fight for recognition of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, there was an event staged by the group ACT UP, called ‘hands around the White House.’ It is time to stage something like that again. 

With all the attacks on the trans community, and as threats to the entire LGBTQ community continue, we need to stand together, and stay strong. We need to join with everyone else who is fighting back against the felon, and his Nazi sympathizing co-president, in the White House. To join in the demonstrations, fight back, and not fall for the distractions meant to take us from our goals. Those goals must include defeating every Republican in elections in 2025, and taking back Congress in 2026. I say every Republican, only because today there is no longer a rational Republican Party. That party has become a MAGA Party, or ‘Cult of Trump.’ That is sad, but it’s true. It is not up to Democrats, or independents, to change the Republican Party; it is up to us to ensure their defeat until they change themselves. 

Until then we must work hard to elect Democrats across the nation. From school board, to county council, from statehouse to Congress. For the LGBTQ community that is the only way we will move forward on equality. It is the only way we can defeat those who want to ban books about our lives, and try to force us back in the closet. We must say a resounding NO to that. 

We must vote for Democrats because history shows us, any other vote, a vote for a third party, helps Republicans win. The reality, like it or not, is today there are only two parties that can win a general election. Yes, in a few rare districts, a third party has won. But this is rare and let’s not take the chance of that happening if there isn’t a history in your state, or district, or community, where it happened in the past. Be smart! While you may not like everything the Democratic Party stands for, it has proven, its members stand for the rights of the LGBTQ community. The incredible progress since Stonewall has been because the Democratic Party has worked with the activists in our midst, to make that progress. Let’s not give up now and move backwards with the MAGA Party. Together, let’s retake our government, and continue to move forward until we have full equality. That must be the goal we join hands for, and pledge to work toward. 


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

Continue Reading

Opinions

How I changed my documents

Process in Md. cost around $300

Published

on

identification, gay news, Washington Blade
(Bigstock photo)

With legislation making it more difficult for transgender and gender non-conforming people to change their passports and other documents, it is now a race against the clock to change as many of them as possible. 

Trans Maryland and Advocates for Trans Equality are among the groups that offer workshops and online resources.

Here’s how I did it in Maryland:

A letter from your primary care provider

The first thing you’ll need to get any of this rolling is a document from your primary care provider that shows proof of hormone therapy, gender incongruence, or both. In my experience, this is important to have prior to getting anything started because some states require some sort of proof in order to certify the change.

Some courts may need a therapist’s letter as well, but it depends on what state you live in. With this document, you’ll be able to bring it to the respective offices and it will give a valid reason for you to get your desired gender marker.

A court order

The next thing you will need is a court order that recognizes your gender identity. It is a precaution just to avoid any wasted time or confusion at any offices going forward. You will go to the circuit court website for what state/county you reside in and find a document that is a petition to change your gender. Here is an example from Maryland. 

You will print that document and fill out the petition for your respective titles with or without a name change and take it to the Circuit Court. Some courts may require the appointment. There, you will present the petition and letter and pay a fee — Maryland’s fee is $165, however there are fee waivers for those that apply. After, you will wait some weeks for the court order to show up.

Social Security card

Unfortunately, as of January 2025, the Social Security Administration has ceased any gender changes in their system. As with the fight for passports reflecting the holder’s proper gender identity, the Human Rights Campaign and the American Civil Liberties Union may bring a case to regain access in the future.

Identity card/driver’s license

After getting your primary care letter and court order, make a standard appointment for Identification Services at the local DMV and bring the paperwork. Though the Maryland Court’s website says there is no need to get a court order to change any documents, the clerk at the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration (Maryland’s DMV) stressed that I needed the updated Social Security card changed in order to get an updated ID.

I was able to get it changed prior to the Trump-Vance administration, however given the current circumstances, if there is any pushback from any clerk or official who say they require a Social Security card, very adamantly cite the official gov website if applicable, and use the court order, despite the fact you should not need one to get your ID updated.

Birth certificate

Should all have gone well with the ID, the last document to amend is the birth certificate. 

Unfortunately, this may be the most difficult document that you are able to amend because it must be done within your home state and some states, such as Oklahoma, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas, have already banned altering birth certificates. 

In D.C., where I changed my own, there have been no known issues or legislation passed for changing the name and gender marker on the document. You will search your state government websites for the vital records department, find a Gender Designation Application and fill out the necessary information. The D.C. application is here:

On D.C.’s application, you must sign the document in front of a notary in order for it to be valid. Several mail offices, such as UPS, offer notary services for relatively cheap. Upon getting the application notarized, you can bring all documents you have already updated along with the court order and primary care letter to an appointment at the vital records office. All the previous work done should make this fairly easy if you are in a state that hasn’t made heavy strides to halt the process. 

All in all, with about a month of your time, about $300, and a state that supports your right to self-actualization, you should still be able to change most of your documents.

Continue Reading
Advertisement World Pride Guide
Advertisement
Advertisement

Sign Up for Weekly E-Blast

Follow Us @washblade

Advertisement

Popular