Commentary
The war in Gaza impacts all of us and democracy too
ICJ case accuses Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in enclave.
BY JULIE DORF | As a leader in the LGBTQI+ movement and co-chair of the U.S.-based foreign policy organization the Council for Global Equality (CGE), I am calling on my colleagues in the progressive foreign policy community to urgently discuss alternative policy solutions to our government’s support of the deadly war in Gaza and collectively begin demanding solutions that respect the dignity, rights and security for all.
The Council for Global Equality (CGE) works at the intersection of international human rights, U.S. foreign policy and LGBTQI+ communities. We primarily focus on influencing the U.S. government’s policies, programs and foreign assistance to do more good in the world, recognizing that our democracy typically only does the right thing when its citizens demand it — whether through elections or ongoing civic engagement by organizations such as ours. We also recognize that, deservedly or not, the United States wields outsized power in the world; as responsible citizens of this mighty country, it is therefore incumbent on us to actively engage and try to direct its power towards good. Our organizational principles include key tenets such as “freedoms abroad and freedoms at home are linked,” “democracy can only be rooted in secular, inclusive values,” “equal treatment is at the heart of human rights” and “one population’s rights cannot transcend those of another.” The full statement of principles is on our website.
When Hamas launched its terrifying attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, followed by Israel’s revengeful response in Gaza, I thought at first that this was not a CGE issue. As a progressive Jew, I was mostly consumed by my own relationship with the ongoing occupation and I feared for my friends in the region. I was horrified and heartsick, glued to Al Jazeera and other news sources. But I was not at all surprised by the attack, except perhaps that it had taken this long for a major uprising by Palestinians. I reached out to activists, friends and family in Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Egypt. I felt no contradiction being equally upset by the loss of lives on all sides and holding multiple truths at once. Yes, Hamas is a terrorist organization that brutally murdered my people. Yes, Israel has been occupying, persecuting, and actively undermining a Palestinian state for its entire existence. And yes, the government of the United States and its Jewish community have both been enabling this horrible injustice for as long as I can remember. This crisis was just more of the same but on a much, much more painful scale.
My position on Palestine and Israel
I grew up in a staunchly Zionist environment, visited the region multiple times (Israel and the West Bank and Gaza,) and evolved through my human rights career into a proud Jewish anti-Zionist. I believe in the land of Israel being a vital, safe and sacred homeland for Jews and Muslims, as well as for Christians, Druze, Armenians, Samaritans and others.
I do not, however, believe in a Jewish supremacist state, which is the way that Israel’s current policies have been constructed, believing that only by having a majority of Jews in the country of Israel can it be a secure Jewish “homeland.” I believe it can and must be a secure homeland for different religions simultaneously. Indeed, if you’ve ever visited Jerusalem, you know it already is a homeland for Jews, Christians, Muslims and Armenians (albeit not safe.) Yes, Netanyahu is perhaps the most far-right authoritarian leader we’ve seen in Israel. But long-time policies from urban development, road construction and water to the separation wall and vast numbers of political prisoners, and other Israeli government policies have been constructed to maintain the supreme rights of Jews over Palestinians. These policies that are intended to maintain inequality by ethnicity are simply inherently incompatible with a genuine democracy. At this moment in the world, when democracy needs to be actively defended in so many countries, an exception clause for Israel is both indefensible and counterproductive.
My political positions on Israel and Palestine have stirred up great pain and conflict in my family and community. But I have been committed to talking to my own people — in this case, American Jews — about these issues because that is where I can have the most influence to make change, however small that may be. Many progressive Jews — and particularly younger generations — share my beliefs but are afraid of being ostracized from their Jewish communities or families or being labeled a “self-hating Jew.” I know that I am a proud Jew.
Antisemitism and anti-Zionism
I am also no stranger to antisemitism — even working in the LGBTQI+ global movement, I have experienced my share of antisemitism. It mostly takes the form of microaggressions, such as comments about “your banker friends in New York” or “I won’t succumb to your Jewish guilt moves.” Then there was the moment when a presenter at a queer conference on closing civic space in Poland used a political cartoon from a local newspaper that had a picture of an Orthodox Jew with a huge nose, wearing a Star of David that said “NGO” on it — but didn’t recognize that NGO was overlaid on a profoundly antisemitic image. Or the time when someone posted a conspiracy theory full of lies that “co-religionist George Soros” was somehow connected West Bank settlement building on a large global queer listserv, and the moderator of the list told me that my concerns were unfounded and that “the post was not antisemitic.” And I’ll definitely never forget when an activist in Malaysia who had never met a Jew before asked to feel my head for my horns. At least they asked for consent!
Today’s genuine rise in antisemitism around the world is more overt and scary. I’m used to armed security guards at the entrances to Jewish institutions such as our schools, museums and synagogues to guard against the occasional violent act of antisemites. But this increased level of hate speech, online antisemitism, Nazis in public and murder threats are understandably terrifying my community. This is precisely why the distinction between this very real rise in antisemitic violence and anti-Zionist expression is critical to distinguish.
It is dangerous for Jews and others to conflate antisemitism with anti-Zionism because that conflation misdirects attention from genuine antisemitic violent threats and increases polarization in a year when our unity to protect democracy is more important than ever. Further, it is terrible for the freedom of thought and speech, undermining legitimate calls for justice for Palestinians and silencing people from expressing their true thoughts and reactions. All these things are harming U.S. foreign policy and making U.S. citizens less safe.
We can agree to disagree about the connotations of “from the river to the sea” or the word “intifada,” but it is not inherently antisemitic to wish for equality in that location or to desire a one-state solution to the conflict between the state of Israel and the stateless citizens of Palestine or to wish to organize peaceful resistance to oppression (such as the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.) This is legitimate political discourse, essential to finding a peaceful solution to this ongoing conflict, whether that be a one-state, two-state, confederated or some other solution we haven’t yet imagined.
Further complicating matters, progressives tend to minimize antisemitism because of Ashkenazi white skin privilege and class privilege, whether real or imagined. Yet Eastern European Jews weren’t considered “white” for many decades, Sephardic Jews are still not considered “white,” and there is increasing visibility of Jews of color. Regardless of the color of our skin, we’ve not been part of any dominant culture for most of our existence as a people — until the creation of the Israeli state. But in the current leftist paradigm of “settler colonialism” as it applies to the State of Israel (which is, in fact, what the early founders of Israel called themselves), often the role of historical and current antisemitism is either dismissed or ignored. This is problematic and limits solidarity. It adds to the lopsided empathy that occurs in both directions and limits civil discourse and healing.
There is no doubt that antisemitism over time, and particularly the Holocaust, played a critical role in the creation of the state of Israel, as well as in the historical trauma and epigenetic fears that live inside so many of us Jews. That trauma was further inflamed by Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, just as the trauma of the Nakba was reignited for Gazans when Israel’s counter-attacks began and 90 percent of Gazans were forced to leave their homes, regularly going without food. It might seem obvious that this sense of collective victimhood does not give license to victimize others, but it certainly creates a major blind spot in Jewish identity. It is overdue for Jews around the world — and especially in Israel — to update our story and live up to our stated values as a people committed to “Tikkun Olam,” or to repair the world. As painful as it is, we must take a hard look at the missteps in the history of Israel and rectify them urgently. We must face the current crisis and rise in antisemitism with the clarity that anti-Zionism is not synonymous with antisemitism. We must also be able to sit with the discomfort or sense of threat from anti-Zionist arguments or even chants, or genuine discourse about a different role for the U.S. vis-à-vis Israel, rather than reflexively labeling all of that antisemitic.
Legitimacy in global movements
So, when activists in the Middle East began asking queer groups to show up in solidarity with Palestine and, in particular, to join the calls for a ceasefire, I had no problem as a co-chair of CGE to craft a statement on behalf of our organization. It was not only consistent with our stated principles, but it was also a question of legitimacy for us in our global movement. What so many Americans do not quite understand is that much of the world considers Israel a pariah state; as such, the “special relationship” the United States maintains with a country considered akin to apartheid South Africa is very hard to explain or defend. Yet here in the United States, we get a totally different perspective, highly influenced by the commercial media, by mainstream Jewish community institutions (many of which are quite out of step with their own constituents, particularly younger people) and also by the strong forces of the intensely Zionist Christian right (Did you know that Christians United for Israel has more members than AIPAC?) And perhaps, as Peter Beinart posits, as Americans, we identify unconsciously with Israelis because we, too, do not wish to rectify our past treatment of Native Americans in our own founding of our country. This creates a grossly asymmetrical empathy for the “Israeli side” (which, by the way, is hardly monolithic) for many in the United States.
Yet, for many of us in the fields of international human rights, global development, or foreign policy, we engage regularly with colleagues outside of the United States who have a more balanced concern for the Palestinians. Indeed, we cannot do our work very effectively without such solidarity and trusted relationships. Consequently, it is very difficult to sustain an organizational position that justifies the levels of U.S. aid to Israel (over $3B annually,) particularly the extra $14.5B in military aid for their war on Gaza, some of it circumventing required congressional notifications, which everyone knows by now has overwhelmingly killed civilians and children and over 20,000 people. Then to see that with the U.S. government’s enormous investment, the Israeli military and intelligence could be so arrogantly incompetent, caught without any plan or reasonable response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, makes that incredibly large investment even more questionable. And yet, most D.C. organizations still simply shy away from this issue.
Pinkwashing and impact on the LGBTQI+ movement
For the global LGBTQI+ movement, “pinkwashing” has further enraged many in queer communities across the globe. Pinkwashing is the promotion by the Israeli government (or any other government) of its pro-LGBTQI+ policies to intentionally distract from its human rights abuses against Palestinians (or other horrific rights abuses.) In truth, all the rights that have been disingenuously touted by the Israeli government to show a contrast to surrounding Arab states in the region were hard-fought and won by the country’s LGBTQI+ community itself through the courts, not simply handed to the community by the State of Israel. This has been a key part of the intentional campaign by the Israeli government to maintain an image that the country is more similar to Western democracies and, therefore, more deserving of their support.
But in many ways, it has backfired when it comes to LGBTQI+ communities and certainly alienated Israeli LGBTQI+ civil society from the global movement, and in particular from other LGBTQI+ organizations in the region. It is considered so taboo to be connected to Israel that no other Middle East or North Africa (MENA) representatives would show up to a queer MENA event if Israeli civil society were even invited. (And, yes, there are LGBTQI+ groups large and small in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Tunisia, Morocco, etc.) Israel’s pinkwashing also helped spawn stronger queer support for Palestinians and for the BDS movement. A clear example of this pinkwashing continues now during the war, when the State of Israel’s official X (formerly Twitter) account showed an IDF soldier unfurling a rainbow flag in front of a tank in Gaza and another one, claiming to be “in the name of love,” in front of a destroyed village. For many of us, this was beyond offensive, it was stomach-churning.
For all of these reasons, CGE issued our statement calling for a ceasefire in late October. Most of our organizational members were very pleased with its release, except for the ADL, which chose to end its membership in CGE over our differences on this issue. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, both long-standing CGE members, have strongly criticized this war, documenting war crimes and other human rights violations, both by the Israeli state against Palestinian civilians and by Hamas against Israeli citizens. But other than those large human rights organizations, the most vocal members of the foreign policy community in Washington have been the large humanitarian assistance providers, which have passionately argued for a ceasefire. The visible resistance by Jewish Voice for Peace and other progressive Jewish organizations, together with Palestinian rights organizations, have been the primary other civil society entities articulating a different vision for U.S. policy on Israel and Palestine. Between the street protests, potentially losing the next generation’s vote, and the upset from federal employees themselves, this does seem to be getting the Biden-Harris administration’s attention, forcing very small shifts toward using its leverage to reign in Israel’s military violence.
Where is the US foreign policy community?
So, where is the rest of the Washington foreign policy community? Clearly, others must have similar concerns for their credibility with partners around the world during this crisis and feel uneasy every day as the news appears. How can we not do better than this to hold our government accountable to our values of equality and justice? Where are the media watchdog organizations and why are they not challenging such asymmetrical coverage of the war? I understand that people are scared to “take a side,” to offend someone, to lose big donors and to lose legitimacy in the eyes of our U.S. government allies. God forbid we get canceled by saying the wrong thing or making a mistake.
But we must do better than that; we must have the courage to advocate for a more balanced U.S. policy on Israel and Palestine and to call on the Biden administration to be a more honest broker in the conflict. If foreign policymakers believe that the United States needs to be Israel’s best friend, to be a trusted nation they will listen to, then we certainly have paid our dues by now. We must leverage decades of expensive investments more strategically and effectively.
It is time for the progressive foreign policy community in the United States, together with principled Jewish organizations, Palestinian leaders and others sincerely invested in peace to come together to articulate a better way forward for U.S. foreign policy. We must demand conditions on U.S. aid, not just on ending illegal settlement building in the West Bank, but on actually dismantling settlements if the U.S.-stated policy goal of helping to create a Palestinian state is sincere. We must condition military aid appropriately to avoid its use in war crimes. We must demand and help secure the release of Palestinian leaders in Israeli prisons who could become the more legitimate, moderate leaders of the next iteration of the Palestinian Authority. This would undermine the Hamas movement far more effectively than the current military campaign is doing by offering better leadership options. We must demand the release of the Israeli hostages in Gaza and the Palestinian political prisoners in Israel. And we must end the immense blank check support of billions of taxpayer dollars to Israel by requiring a genuine restart of peace negotiations. These are just some of the policies that we should be advocating for – the point is that we need to have those debates as a matter of urgency within our own foreign policy communities in Washington.
As an LGBTQI+ U.S. foreign policy organization, we should be a part of those discussions, not just because queer Palestinians and queer Israelis are impacted, and not just because it’s urgently critical for the safety of all Palestinians and Israelis, but because, indeed, we are all impacted. Americans will be safer. Jews will be safer. Democracy might even be safer.
Julie Dorf is the co-chair of the Council for Global Equality.
Commentary
Nancy Pelosi: an LGBTQ appreciation of the retiring House speaker emerita
Long-time San Francisco congresswoman announced retirement on Thursday
It was not unexpected. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, 85, is retiring after serving 39 years in Congress. Her announcement video, released Thursday, is an ode to her beloved San Francisco, brimming with images of people, landmarks, and the proud liberal story that quickened her heart and stiffened her spine as she fought for progress in making America a more perfect union.
“My message to the city I love is this: San Francisco, know your power,” Pelosi said. “We have always led the way, and now we must continue to do so by remaining full participants in our democracy and fighting for the American ideals we hold dear.”
Pelosi’s legacy as the country’s powerful first and, so far, only female House speaker — serving twice in that role, 2007-2011 and 2019-2023 — is replete with examples of how she smartly and bravely stood up to bullies, including Republican President Donald Trump and his violence-prone cult followers who demonize her, and sought her out during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol as she led the certification of Joe Biden as president. Roughly three years later, her husband Paul was seriously attacked in their San Francisco home by an intruder intent on kidnapping her.
As House speaker, Pelosi presided over Trump’s two impeachment votes in his first term. And while she might not reach those heights again while she serves until January 2027, she was a visible force in passing California’s Proposition 50, working behind the scenes, helping Gov. Gavin Newsom raise money and construct the state’s reapportionment initiative in response to Trump’s attempts to rig the 2026 midterms.
Prop 50 — the only thing on the ballot in this special election — won handily with almost 64 percent of the vote to 36 percent percent. Los Angeles County voted “Yes” 73 percent to 27 percent.
“Some people go off and they talk about the way the world should be, but they don’t do anything to damn manifest it,” Newsom said on election night, per the New York Times. “Nancy Pelosi doesn’t go out to try to make points. She makes a difference.”
Two of her most memorable achievements as Speaker were her deft political strategy, vote counting and arm-twisting to pass extremely difficult legislation such as the new Obama administration’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act after President George W. Bush’s “too big to fail” Great Recession and the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) — after which she proclaimed that “being a woman is no longer a pre-existing condition.”
During her decades in Congress and before, Pelosi has been a towering hero. “She’s just always been there,” longtime AIDS and gay activist Cleve Jones, who at first didn’t take her seriously, told the New York Times. “She’s more than an ally. She’s family.”
In May 2018, I interviewed Nancy Pelosi, then the House Minority Leader, in advance of the important midterm elections — the success of which resulted in her historic election as Speaker for a second time.
With Trump and Project 2025 erasing our rights and our history with their version of Christianity and with the new AIDS Monument opening on Nov. 16 in West Hollywood, I think Nancy Pelosi illustrates how one can be religious, progressive, and decent, such as her expression of gratitude to President George W. Bush for his PEPFAR AIDS program.
Nancy Pelosi: The famous Leader you may not know (Excerpts)
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is the embodiment of the feminist adage “the personal is political.” She celebrated part of her 78th birthday at an LGBTQ equality weekend in Palm Springs, which she declared a “fabulous” fundraiser for the Democratic effort to “take away” the House from the Republicans in the November midterm elections.
Pelosi is so confident of victory, she told the Los Angeles Blade that out Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) will be the next chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee come January 2019.
“‘We will win. I will run for speaker. I feel confident about it. And my members do, too,” the Boston Globe reported May 1 on Pelosi’s meeting with the Globe’s editorial staff. “It’s important that it not be five white guys at the table, no offense,” referring to Trump’s meeting with the top two leaders from the House and Senate. “I have no intention of walking away from that table.”…
Many of the darts thrown at Pelosi over the years have been acid-tipped with LGBTQ-hatred. “One of the things the Republicans like to do around the country is to represent me as a LGBTQ-first-and-foremost supporter. I represent San Francisco, which they caricaturize as being a gay haven and capitol. And that’s something we’re very proud of,” Pelosi [said]. “But the fact is, the country is going to leave them behind because people have a different level of respect because of the work the LGBTQ community has done in many areas to end discrimination and in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
Pelosi says HIV/AIDS and passage of the Equality Act are top priorities.
“The Equality Act is something that really should be appreciated in a very special way because it really is transformative,” Pelosi says. “It just changes everything. It says whether it’s credit or housing or job discrimination, or you name it — you can no longer discriminate. Well, you shouldn’t discriminate to begin with. But it makes it a part of the Civil Rights Act to protect [LGBTQ] people.”…
To be sure, enshrining discrimination into law seems to be a subtextual plan of the Trump-Pence administration, with more information leaking out about Pence’s behind-the-scenes machinations involving the ban on transgender service members serving openly in the military …
Pelosi’s focus is on winning the House. “We are going to be focusing on the economy in our debate,” she says … “What we have to do is focus on the economic insecurity of American families and people. It’s about their apprehensions and their aspirations. And that’s what we need to be talking about … ”
Pelosi also shares the concern of then-U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, her appointee to the House Intelligence Committee, about the “dismantling of our democratic institutions that President Trump is so set upon, whether it is dismantling and discrediting the press, which I think is the greatest guardian of our freedom — freedom of press, dismantling of our Justice Department and law enforcement, in terms of the FBI, ignoring the system of checks and balances that exists in our Constitution, which is the strength of our country.”…
“The president is anti-governance. He doesn’t really believe in the role of government in improving people’s situations,” Pelosi says. “So it’s a comprehensive approach to dismantling democratic institutions … One of the reasons people should be very concerned is because the president is doing nothing to protect our electoral system, our democracy.”…
While young people at the #ResistMarch in West Hollywood last year were stirred up by Leader Pelosi’s rhetoric, it was clear they knew she was important — but not really who she was and why she was so passionate about LGBTQ equality.
Some of it is centered in Pelosi’s Catholicism, which is not the set of beliefs the Catholic Church espoused during Prop 8 and other political-religious battles.
“As a Catholic, I was raised to respect every person. We’re all God’s children. In my family, there was never any question about that,” she says. “In Baltimore, we did have a growing LGBT community — we didn’t call it that then, but it was part of our lives, and it was not any question that we would be any more respectful of one person than another. It wasn’t even an issue with me, and I didn’t ever even describe it or associate it with Catholicism because Catholicism taught me something different. It didn’t teach me discrimination. It taught me respect. And so it prepared me very well, my Catholicism, for being a representative in San Francisco.”
During the 1980s, with the unchecked rise of AIDS, the Vatican came under intense criticism for sticking to its absolute prohibition against using condoms, coupled with Pope John Paul II calling homosexuality “intrinsically evil.”
Pelosi seems momentarily speechless. “I think the church’s position that people could not use condoms — it’s so hypocritical, I can’t even go to that place,” she says. “The church may make a proclamation, but they make a proclamation that people should not be using any contraception or birth control at all — it’s all about having a child. So while people are faithful to their religion, they are certain practicing what they need for the size and timing of their family, according to meeting their responsibility to the free will that God has given all of us.”
Ironically, because San Francisco “took a very big bite of that wormy apple called AIDS,” the church “was more sympathetic to people when they had HIV/AIDS because they needed help then they were to people who weren’t infected. It was the strangest, strangest thing,” Pelosi says.
“It’s a funny thing. The Catholics — and I’m surrounded by Catholics — but the Catholics that I grew up with and I lived with in California were always respectful of the church, of the pope, of our faith, and never thought it was in any way a barrier to us doing what we believed. And sometimes that was diametrically opposed to what their public statements were.”
Not that she thinks the church is immune to criticism. “There’s no question the Catholic Church in California was a participant in Prop 8 in a negative way,” Pelosi says. “We were on the other side of that. But to me, it was their problem. It wasn’t anything that was any moral imperative to me for me to follow the church in enshrining discrimination in the law in California.”
Pelosi also does not concur with churches that pontificate about the “non-negotiable” — being gay, marriage equality, euthanasia, birth control, all generally lumped together. The commonality is the certainty that “all interactions between people are about producing a child. Then you cannot have birth control, family planning, or any of that, and you cannot have homosexual relations,” she says.
“I view that as kind of their problem. It’s not the reality of life, and it’s not about respecting the dignity and worth of every person.”
But, Pelosi adds, “I’m not making any judgments about how each of us honors our free will and our sense of responsibility that goes with it.”
Pelosi is also guided by a moral imperative that young people may not understand today — the deep, personal impact of AIDS.
“Some people criticized me for talking about AIDS on my first day in Congress and I realized that it was not just about getting funding for AIDS research and prevention and care but it was about ending discrimination against people with HIV and AIDS,” adding that California has been a “tremendous resource” throughout the years for intellectual, political and economic response to the disease.
Pelosi responds viscerally when asked about losing friends.
“Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. A little flower girl in my wedding. My dear, dear friends in the community in San Francisco. We were going to two funerals a day. I was visiting people in the hospital all the time, and quite frankly, when I say losing people,” Pelosi says, “I lost friends because I just walked away from them because they were not treating people with HIV and AIDS with respect. They would say to me, ‘I don’t know why you hire that caterer — don’t you know that everybody there has HIV?’ And I’d say, ‘Don’t bother to come to my house anymore if that’s your attitude.’ It just changed my whole view of them.”
Within the span of her life and political career, Pelosi has personally experienced the heartbreak of HIV/AIDS and the political battles to fund and find a cure.
“I’ll never stop missing some of my dearest dear friends from then,” she says. “Of course, we went from funerals to people saying help me make out my will because this is going to end soon, to those very same people looking for a job and then wanting to get married. So everything has improved but I would never have thought 30 years ago when I started all this in Congress that we still wouldn’t have a cure for AIDS. We’ve improved the quality of life, we’ve sustained life. Everything is better but it’s not over, not finished.”
Karen Ocamb is a longtime LGBTQ+ journalist and former news editor for the Los Angeles Blade. This essay is cross-posted from her Substack LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters.
Commentary
A nation voting between fear and hope
Pro-LGBTQ, progressive candidates won across the country
The United States returned to the polls on Nov. 4, and the results revealed much more than another electoral contest. What unfolded in Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Miami, and California was a moral and political X-ray of a nation voting between fear and hope. Voters spoke from uncertainty, but also from a conviction that the country can still be a place of justice, inclusion, and respect.
The victories of Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey — together with the rise of progressive Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City, the Democratic surge in Miami, and the approval of Proposition 50 in California — set the tone for an election that sent a clear message to the Trump administration: fear may mobilize, but it cannot sustain power. Citizens voted with their hearts, tired of hate speech and political spectacle, and hopeful for a government that looks toward people rather than power.
New York became the clearest symbol of this shift.
Mamdani, the son of immigrants, Muslim, and unapologetically progressive, centered his victory speech on dignity and solidarity.
“Tonight we made history,” he declared before a diverse crowd. “New York will remain a city of immigrants: a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant.” But his most powerful message was directed at the city’s most vulnerable residents: “Here, we believe in standing up for those we love, whether you are an immigrant, a member of the trans community, one of the many Black women that Donald Trump has fired from a federal job, a single mom still waiting for the cost of groceries to go down, or anyone else with their back against the wall.”
Those words echoed across the country as a response to years of political regression and legislative attacks on LGBTQ people, and especially on the trans community. Mamdani pledged to expand and protect gender-affirming care, committing public funds to ensure that “every New Yorker has access to the medical treatment they need.” His stance positions New York as a beacon of resistance against the wave of restrictive policies spreading through many states.
The November results carry a profound meaning for those living on the margins of power. For the trans community, these outcomes represent far more than a political breather — they are an affirmation of existence. At a time when official rhetoric has sought to erase identities, deny healthcare, and criminalize bodies, the victory of leaders who champion inclusion rekindles the hope of living without fear. The trans vote, and the broader LGBTQ vote, was not merely civic participation — it was an act of survival and resistance.
The election also spoke to the hearts of immigrant families, people living with HIV or chronic illnesses, racial minorities, and working-class communities struggling to make ends meet. In a nation where so many feel politically invisible, these local victories renew faith in democracy as an instrument of transformation. They remind us that hope is not naïveté — it is the most courageous act of those who choose to keep standing.
Miami, for its part, sent an unexpected message. In a Republican stronghold historically aligned with the Trump administration, the Democratic candidate led the first round and forced a runoff election. In a city defined by its Latinx, Black, immigrant, and LGBTQ diversity, this progressive surge was a break with fear-driven politics and automatic voting patterns. The ballots in South Florida proved that change often begins where few expect it.
For the Trump administration, the message could not be clearer. The country is issuing a warning: human rights are not negotiable. The economy matters, but so does dignity. Voters are demanding real solutions, not slogans; respect, not manipulation; empathy, not imposition.
LGBTQ and trans communities have been the visible face of a resistance that refuses to surrender. Every vote cast was an act of hope in the face of fear; every victory, an answer to symbolic and institutional violence. The words of New York’s new mayor have become a national emblem because they transcend partisanship — they remind the nation that even in darkness, humanity can still be public policy.
The ballots of November spoke with the voices of those long marginalized or erased. They speak through trans people demanding respect, through couples defending their love, through young activists who refuse to be silenced, through believers who fight for an inclusive faith, and through families who still believe in a possible America. In the midst of fear, the nation chose hope. And that hope — imperfect, fragile, yet alive — may be the beginning of a new story: one in which equality is no longer a dream, but a promise fulfilled.
Commentary
Midterms proved respecting trans lives isn’t optional; it’s essential to democracy
Pro-trans candidates won across the country
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.
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