Opinions
Virginia Gov. Youngkin — a lesson for Democrats
A well-run campaign gives way to far-right reality
Glenn Youngkin’s campaign, election, and actions in his first weeks in office hold lessons Democrats must learn if they are to win in 2022.
Democrats must recognize Youngkin’s great campaign and how he walked the tightrope between being a total Trumper and a new face, a more moderate Republican. But also see the whole picture. The fact only one Democrat in 40 years won the Virginia governorship when a Democrat was in the White House. Then there was President Biden’s low approval ratings, Congress’s inability to act, and finally McAuliffe’s terrible campaign. Despite all that McAuliffe lost by only 71,000 votes out of nearly 3,300,000 cast. Most observers believe if he hadn’t made that mistake in the debate suggesting parents shouldn’t have a say in their children’s education, he would have won.
Voters stuck with the same party for all three statewide offices. Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears and Attorney General Jason Miyares won their races by only slightly lower margins than Youngkin. It was clear from exit polling independent voters made the difference. CNN reported “Republican and Democratic voters overwhelmingly supported their parties’ candidates in the gubernatorial race between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin, according to the results of CNN’s Virginia exit poll, with independents breaking in favor of Youngkin.”
Now voters are realizing all three Republicans are more right wing than the campaign Youngkin ran indicated. Whether it is the anti-mask mandate in schools Youngkin is trying to push through with an Executive Order or taking Virginia out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Compact. With regard to the compact he told a business group “he will use executive action to pull Virginia out of a regional greenhouse gas compact, a plan that Democrats said would cost the state hundreds of millions a year in flooding and energy-assistance funding. The typical residential customer would save $4.37 a month on electric bills, or $52.44 per year, if Virginia pulled out.” Youngkin, like other Republicans, doesn’t think efforts to fight climate change are worth it.
Then, instead of a Virginia attorney general who supports Roe v. Wade there is Miyares who said, “Virginia would no longer be part of a friend-of-the-court brief before the Supreme Court against Mississippi’s restrictive ban on abortion after 15 weeks.” Instead “urges Supreme Court to overturn Roe.” Then Sears, when asked about withholding funds from school districts that follow Virginia law but not the governor’s executive orders said, “Well, you know, there are certain combinations of money that we send to the state, to the local school boards and he can withhold some of that, and he could possibly, if the law allows, even give the parents the ability to decide what schools their children should attend.”
Finally the governor’s most recent move, announcing a state email address targeted at teachers urging parents to report “any instances where they feel that their fundamental rights are being violated, where their children are not being respected, where there are inherently divisive practices in their schools.” Some have accurately called it a Big Brother snitch line.
These statements and actions have given voters a lot to think about. Many are clearly disappointed. They fell for the smiling Youngkin without knowing the apparent hypocrite who sent his children to private schools in D.C., National Cathedral and St. Albans, both with mandatory mask policies. According to a Post columnist, “Among the other things National Cathedral has done: made time in the school schedule for ‘critical conversations around topics of race, anti-racism, social justice, and inclusion;’ added courses such as ‘Black Lives in Literature’ and ‘Courageous Dialogues.’ Included in the school’s summer reading list books such as Robin DiAngelo’s ‘White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People To Talk About Racism.’ St. Albans has undertaken similar anti-racism initiatives. Among the books promoted on the school’s website are ‘White Fragility,’ ‘Critical Race Theory: An Introduction,’ Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s ‘Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy and the Rise of Jim Crow,’ and Ibram X. Kendi’s ‘Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.’
Every Democrat running in 2022 must make sure to fully explain to voters who they are and who the Republican candidate in their District is. They must compel Republicans to make clear their positions on these and a host of other issues before the voting begins.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.
Opinions
Navigating the holidays while estranged from ultra-religious, abusive parents
I never regretted decision to separate myself from my family
It will be the fifth Christmas season I will have as a person who is estranged from their ultra-religious and abusive parents.
I have never seriously regretted my decision to estrange my family, despite it sometimes felt tough. Well, I regret not seeing my little brother, but all communication with him was controlled by my parents, and without them I was estranged from him as well. Hope he will find me one day, but I didn’t mourn not having my parents near me, more like I’m mourning a perfect family I dreamed about and never actually had.
The holiday season could bring an additional toughness for people like me, especially now, when more and more families are broken apart by a political turmoil that shattered and polarized American society after the election. Donald Trump winning the 2024 presidential election is more than just a regular political event; it is a social phenomenon that shows a lot of American trends.
Gen Z and Millennial adults are less likely to become Republicans and Trump supporters than their parents and grandparents who are Baby Boomers, Gen X, or members of the Silent Generation. Of course, it is not universal, because Trump somehow managed to win the hearts of alienated young men, while some Boomers turned left in this election. Not all LGBT people are Democrats, but the vast majority of them are.
This year the LGBT electorate moved away from Trump even more dramatically than in the previous election. Many young LGBT people felt like they were betrayed by the older generation and their cis-hetero peers; LGBT youth felt scared, angry, and helpless. Despite the fact that the majority of LGBT people are leftists and liberals who generally do not support free arms trading, after Trump’s victory, more and more LGBT people — and cis/hetero women — bought guns and are learning how to defend themselves. Folks do not feel safe near Trumpists!
You may see what tension exists in the society if LGBT people need to take such a radical step as arming themselves or cutting family ties. And during the holidays, when our culture pushes families to meet together and makes you believe that there is something deeply wrong with you if you do not want to spend the festive season with your loved ones, this tension could move from streets to houses and could lead to serious problems.
It is particularly tough when we are speaking about conservative religious families that do not accept their queer children and siblings. Despite the fact that Christmas has had less religious and more cultural meaning in recent decades, it is still a deeply religious holiday, and so that day all the religious-based, bigoted, homophobic, transphobic, and biphobic conversations with well-meaning relatives who “just wanted to save your soul” will be more likely to accrue. It is especially true for white families. Despite the majority of Black religious people supporting Harris, MAGA supporters are often the white Christian religious people. According to a pre-election Pew Research Center survey, 61 percent of white Protestants were planning to support Trump during the last election, and among them 82 percent were white Evangelicals. NBC News showed a similar statistic, with 72 percent of white Protestants, including 82 percent of white Evangelicals, being Trump supporters.
Some of them even saw Trump as a savior with a divine mission.
I personally knew how it felt because my toxic father was trying to justify Russian military aggression as a divine mission and promoted Trumpism during our holidays dinners, and it was almost impossible to argue with a person who justified political violence by supernatural means. In this case being an enemy of a political figure made you into the enemy of God. Religious zealotry and political bigotry are hard to bear even when they are not intersected, but together they may bring something that was planning to be a perfect family reunion with vibes of the “Home Alone” ending scene turned into a nightmare that will leave you broken and completely traumatized.
You may dread the Christmas season like other folks dread complicated medical operations, or have a strong but fading hope that the Christmas miracle will occur, and the family will accept you for who you are. Unfortunately, it is not very likely to happen, and there are always chances that home could be the most dangerous place.
I wouldn’t advise someone to estrange their family because of political or religious beliefs, and I know a lot of cases when people had a good relationship with someone who has completely different beliefs as you are. The fact that someone is voting for Trump or visiting a homophobic conservative church does not automatically make a person dangerous, but if this person is trying to push their views on you and change who you are, it is a big red flag. Unfortunately, in our society we used to forgive parents for things we would never forgive any other human beings. I had a pretty traumatic experience with it, and I spent years in therapy because of it.
If you are a well-meaning friend of an LGBT person who had family problems, the only good thing you may do is to let the person make their own decisions and not press on them. Sometimes the home — and the church — is the least safe place in the world, and you may never know what is going on behind closed doors.
Ayman Eckford is a freelance journalist, and an autistic ADHDer transgender person who understands that they are trans* since they were 3-years-old.
Opinions
Will RFK Jr.’s ideas cause illness and death?
A danger to the children of the nation, and the world, if confirmed
We are looking at having our ideas of good healthcare turned upside down. This will happen if RFK Jr., whose ideas on healthcare have been widely discredited, is confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Kennedy thinks vaccines hurt people. He believes a measles epidemic in our country is better than children getting a measles vaccine. Brian Deer writes in the New York Times, during a measles outbreak in Samoa, “Kennedy sent the prime minister of Samoa a four-page letter. In it, he suggested the measles vaccine itself may have caused the outbreak.” He wrote in his role as the chairman of Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group. “By the time a door-to-door vaccination campaign brought the calamity to a close, more than 80 children had died.” Imagine him writing that letter as U.S. Secretary of HHS.
Kennedy supports the discredited theory that childhood vaccines cause autism. In 2023, he even said the polio vaccine, which has basically eradicated polio, “did more harm than good.” The Times wrote, “Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, has also spent years working abroad to undermine policies that have been pillars of global health policy for a half-century, records show.”
Today most people don’t even know what diphtheria is, outside of the historical context. If they do it’s most likely because they have scrutinized a childhood immunization schedule and know it’s the “D” in the DTaP vaccine. “Vaccine breakthroughs over the past two centuries have cumulatively made the modern world a far more hospitable place to be born. For most of human history, half of all children died before reaching age 15; that number is down to just 4 percent worldwide, and far lower in developed countries, with vaccines one of the major drivers of improved life expectancy.” So, one has to question how someone like RFK Jr., with his warped view of vaccines for children, will impact their lives. How many will become ill, or die, because of him?
It’s not just children’s vaccines we have to question Kennedy on. What will he do if we have another pandemic, and there surely will be one. Will he agree the government should support research to develop a vaccine, or will he oppose funding? Will he support the World Health Organization, or will we see the United States withdraw from it? What about the continued research at NIH, which supports development of a vaccine to end HIV/AIDS? What does he now believe is the cause of AIDS? Will he end the studies at NIH to aid in the search for a vaccine to end prostate cancer? Or will he determine it is better to let millions die, rather than develop these vaccines.
We have to ask whether he will stop Medicare and Medicaid from covering the cost of vaccines for those who want them, and can’t otherwise afford them. Will he work to stop mandates to have children vaccinated before they enter school? These are just some of the questions the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and the Senate Finance Committee, which typically hold the confirmation hearings for Secretary of Health and Human services nominees, should be asking RFK Jr. They must grill him on where he gets his medical information, and what research he bases his positions on, with regard to all these issues. Add issues like his position on removing fluoride from the water, and allowing raw milk to be sold. Let’s be clear: Our children’s lives are literally at stake here.
It might be interesting to ask him whether he asked Trump if his children were vaccinated, and if Ivanka and Jared have had their children vaccinated. I have yet to hear any media person ask Trump about this, or ask Ivanka and Jared their thoughts on RFK Jr. The committees must ask whether he believes vaccines should be available for children whose parents want them, and whether he will mandate insurance pay for them?
Yes, RFK Jr. has some positions I agree with. He wants to get dyes out of our foods as California Gov. Gavin Newsom is doing in his state. RFK Jr. has promoted healthier diets for children, more fruits and vegetables, something Michelle Obama has been doing for years. But we must recognize doing these things will be worthless if we let children get ill, or die, by not vaccinating them. RFK Jr. is an embarrassment to his own family with his unsubstantiated claims on a host of issues, and he will be a danger to the children of the nation, and the world, if confirmed.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.
Opinions
Protecting trans rights is a moral duty, not a liability
Incoming administration seeks to define us out of existence
Nov. 20 marked Transgender Day of Remembrance — an international day of mourning where the trans community and its allies come together to honor and mourn those lost to violence, hate crimes, and suicide. Much of this violence is fueled by discriminatory policies and deep-seated hatred against transgender people.
Yet, just two days before TDOR, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) introduced HR1579, a transphobic resolution aimed at prohibiting “members, officers, and employees of the House from using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.” The resolution’s definition of “single-sex facilities” goes beyond restrooms to include changing rooms and locker rooms within the Capitol or House Office buildings.
This resolution is a blatant attempt to ban Rep.-Elect Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the first openly transgender congresswoman, from using women’s bathrooms and locker rooms in Congress. Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) claimed that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) expressed support for the resolution behind closed doors, stating, “He committed to me, there in the conference, that Sarah McBride will not be using our restrooms.” In an interview, Rep. Mike Johnson doubled down: “For anyone who doesn’t know my established record on this issue, let me be unequivocally clear: a man is a man, and a woman is a woman, and a man cannot become a woman.”
Both Greene and Mace repeatedly misgendered McBride on social media and in comments to reporters. On Transgender Day of Remembrance itself, Speaker Johnson declared McBride would be treated as a man under House rules, forcing her to use men’s restrooms or gender-neutral facilities.
Mace claimed her actions were about “safety,” even suggesting McBride could pose a threat of sexual assault. However, during an appearance on Greg Kelly Reports, Mace went full mask off, calling it “offensive” that McBride could consider herself her equal.
This decision and language is more than offensive — it is outright discriminatory. McBride will have no other choice but to walk to her office every time she needs to use the restroom, unable to access the common bathrooms like her colleagues. Additionally, the resolution jeopardizes the safety of hundreds of transgender staffers, all of whom lack McBride’s visibility or privilege. Trans staffers have long used restrooms matching their gender identity without issue, but this policy opens the door to increased harassment and exclusion, with reports of such incidents already surfacing.
McBride issued a statement saying that while she “disagrees” with the rules, she will comply. Unsurprisingly, McBride’s compliance was not the end of the conversation. Mace introduced a bill to ban transgender people from using bathrooms matching their gender identity in federally owned spaces, from national parks to major airports. Mace declared on social media, “This fight isn’t over just yet. We want to ban men from women’s spaces in EVERY federal building, school, public bathroom, everywhere.”
Adding to this, Congress’s gendered dress code could also be weaponized to further degrade and bully McBride, targeting her presentation or honorifics. This was never about bathrooms, safety, or fairness—it has always been about control and erasing transgender people from public life.
Despite these attacks, multiple studies have found no evidence supporting claims that transgender people pose safety threats in bathrooms. Yet transphobic rhetoric dominated the 2024 election, with anti-trans ads like “Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you,”, signs targeting McBride at polling places in Delaware, and violent vitriol aimed at dehumanizing transgender Americans.
This tidal wave of hate culminates in the upcoming Supreme Court case, U.S. v. Skrmetti, a case that will determine whether bans on gender-affirming care for youth are unconstitutional. The stakes are high: 27 states already ban gender-affirming care, and 26 have implemented restrictions on trans youth in sports. With Donald Trump’s return to the White House and a Republican-controlled government, the situation doesn’t look great.
In the Delaware State Senate, Sarah McBride championed policies like paid family leave. The idea that she’s a danger to others is laughable. The real danger to others lies in the multiple Republican cabinet nominations with histories of sexual assault and abuse.
If a respected lawmaker who happens to be transgender is considered a threat, where does that leave the rest of the trans community?
In the wake of Kamala Harris’s election loss, trans people have been used as scapegoats, with moderate Democrats and political pundits alike calling them political liabilities. For the past few weeks, we’ve seen op-eds in the New York Times and Washington Post claiming that trans rights have gone too far and are political bombs.
How dare they? In the face of violent transphobia in our nation’s Capitol, now is the time to strengthen support for our transgender siblings. The moment the public and political establishment abandon transgender Americans, is the moment we’ve entered the last steps of the waltz into fascism.
The mere presence of a transgender woman in power asking to be treated as an equal has sent the GOP into a media frenzy. Mace has been running to Fox News and Newsmax to attack her future co-worker. She’s been obsessively posting on X (formerly Twitter) about Sarah McBride and “men in women’s spaces.”
Mike Johnson’s seeming endorsement of a “separate but equal” framework also evokes painful memories of segregationists during the Civil Rights Movement. This behavior is not only unacceptable but shines a light on the long history of white far-right politicians from the South fighting for their “right” to discriminate.
This isn’t a culture war thing; this is a fight for our very right to exist. Transgender Americans are facing a crisis. The incoming administration seeks to define us out of existence: they want us to detransition, to hide, to live in fear. They want us to remain in the closet.
For many, the closet is deadly. Trans people already die by suicide at higher rates, denying us the right to exist will only skyrocket the mental health crisis in America. Since Nov. 5 alone, the Trevor Project, a crisis organization for LGBTQ youth, reported a heartbreaking 700% increase in calls. People are dying now, and now is the time to protect trans people.
Defending McBride is the easiest way to signal support for trans people. This is about more than supporting one congresswoman — it’s about standing for the safety, dignity, and respect of every transgender American. We need leaders who will defend us in the face of the fascistic far-right.
As trans people, we recognize the emergency facing our community and are screaming our lungs out to a party that is considering abandoning us. It’s been said again and again but we need each other now more than ever.
LGBTQ voters pay attention to which representatives support and fight for their right to exist. According to the 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey’s Civic Engagement data, 82% of eligible transgender individuals are registered to vote. In the 2020 presidential election, 75% of eligible respondents reported voting, compared to 67% of the general U.S. population. Furthermore, initial exit polls showed that LGBTQIA+ voters overwhelmingly supported Kamala Harris.
The Democratic Party is at a crossroads: Will they fight for equality or allow the GOP’s attacks to stain their legacy and lose a vital and engaged voting bloc?
The truth is stark: transgender Americans deserve to exist without fear. This fight is about more than politics — it’s about life and death. In the reality we woke up to on Nov. 6, trans people and LGBTQ rights in general are on the chopping block.
Democrats have the chance to make history by standing on the right side of it. The fight for trans liberation is far from over, but this moment demands strong, progressive leadership. The future of the party — and our country—depends on it.
Vienna Cavazos (they/them) is the Diversity Lead and LGBTQIA+ Public Policy Specialist at Bulletproof Pride.
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