Stephen Bates

Over the past few months, I’ve had folks—most often complete strangers—reach out and ask me some version of the following question: “This Democratic candidate took an anti-trans position. Should I still vote for them?” Folks, I acknowledge that you want to be thoughtful about all this. I appreciate that you want to get a trans person’s opinion. I understand that y’all take allyship seriously, and I’m grateful for that. I truly am. Fortunately for all of us, the moral and ethical calculus here are very simple. An election cycle is split into two parts: the primary season and the general election. The primaries are over. A lot of candidates across the political spectrum stepped up, offered their ideas, and pitched the voters. The ballots were cast, and some of those candidates won and most of those candidates lost. We are now in the general election portion of the cycle, and almost every U.S. Senate and U.S. House race offers a straightforward choice: there is a Republican and there is a Democrat. One of those two candidates will win, and ONLY one of those two will win. There is no third potential outcome. On the Republican side, you have a political party led by a sociopathic pedophile who has dismantled critical federal agencies, gutted health care for tens of millions of American working class families, engaged in widespread corruption that would make Richard Nixon blush with secondhand embarrassment, hobbled our economy with deeply asinine and self-serving financial incompetence, alienated all of our longstanding diplomatic relationships with other countries, involved us in an array of irresponsible and dangerous and unnecessary military actions, lost a stupid and pointless war with the theocratic, human rights quagmire that is the Iranian government, made it clear he’s oblivious to the consequences of data centers and other unaccountable bullshit carried out by AI companies, raised our gas prices, raised our food prices, raised our housing costs, raised our childcare costs, raised our health care costs, and continues to cover-up his role in a massive child sex trafficking operation by keeping millions of files hidden from the public. On the Democratic side, you have a party led by national leaders who are somewhat uninspiring but nevertheless deeply committed to stopping all the above and building a brighter future for working class families in our country. On the Republican side, you have an entire political party being held hostage—some of them more than likely through blackmail—to the fleeting whims and temper tantrums and probable dementia of the aforementioned sociopathic pedophile. On the Democratic side, you have a party that is often at each other’s throats but also the furthest thing from a cult, which, ironically, is a sign of very good health and embodying enduring faith in the democratic (small d) process. You ask me for my thoughts on anti-trans ads or comments put out by Democratic candidates and whether you should still vote for them against Republicans? Yes. Of course you should vote for them. Not only should you vote for them but you should get your family and your friends and your neighbors and your colleagues and your mailman and the door-to-door salesperson currently waiting patiently on your front porch to vote for them. For example, I am not a fan of Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. I do not like her. I think she’s very cynical. Among other things, she has taken unnecessary votes that harmed trans service members and veterans and our families in order to pander to moderates. Guess what? Her Republican opponent is 10x worse for trans rights. If I lived in her congressional district—WA-03—I would vote for her without hesitation and get everyone I know to vote for her, too. Because I’m not an idiot. Or take James Talarico, who is running for the U.S. Senate in my beloved home state of Texas. In an interview with Fox News, he stated his conditional opposition to trans youth in sports and pandered to anti-trans social conservatives about opposing already non-existent surgeries for trans youth. Guess what? His Republican opponent, Ken Paxton, is easily 100x worse for the trans community. Paxton is an anti-trans exterminationist. He does not want the trans community to exist. He would gladly support criminalizing the existence of trans people. He has spent the past four years using his position in the state government to harass and terrorize the parents of trans youth. Not only am I supporting James Talarico, but if God opened up the clouds above and offered me a deal of exchanging my left arm for the guarantee of Mr. Talarico beating Paxton, I would agree to the deal in a heartbeat. This is not a complicated decision. I feel the exact same way about Dr. Annie Andrews, who has spent her career serving working class families in South Carolina and is now tantalizingly close to flipping that U.S. Senate seat currently held by Darline Graham, sister of the late Lindsey Graham. Do I care that Dr. Andrews put out an ad opposing trans youth in sports and already non-existent surgeries for trans youth? No, I do not care. I do not give a shit. Because Darline Graham has made anti-trans extermination her entire political brand and seems to spend every waking moment obsessed with how to make the lives of trans people miserable, not the least due in part to her lack of any policy ideas to help working class families in South Carolina and needing a scapegoat to conceal her own strident mediocrity. You’re goddamn right I support Dr. Andrews for that U.S. Senate seat. I would gladly vote for her if I lived there, and I’d be canvassing every day in support of her, too. This is not complicated. Pick any U.S. Senate race and U.S. House race, and my opinion is gonna be the same every damn time. Because the primaries are over, this is the general election, and there are only two choices: either an imperfect Democrat with whom I disagree on a handful of issues or a Republican currently subscribed to a death cult that wants people like me to cease existing entirely. Some of y’all will bring up that there are trans people who disagree with me. I’m sure there are. That’s their prerogative. They have a constitutional right to express their opinion that certain Democratic candidates should be boycotted. We do, after all, for the moment, live in a free country. But they’re wrong. They’re dead wrong. They could not be more wrong. Their curious sense of aimless and flailing political strategy honestly makes me wonder if they have a shred of survival instinct in their bones. Again: this is not complicated. If you care about the future of trans equality in this country, you will march your happy ass to your polling location and fill in the bubble next to every name on that ballot with a (D) next to the name. Then you will make sure your family and friends and neighbors and colleagues and mailman and door-to-door salesperson still waiting on the front porch have all done the same. The past two years are all the proof you need that sitting out an election because the better candidate happens to not be perfectly to your liking is completely stupid and self-destructive. On Election Night, I am going to celebrate Democrats taking back Congress and saving democracy from the anti-trans fascists of the GOP. I will sleep-in the next morning. Then, I will wake up and get to work being an insufferable pain-in-the-ass on the importance of trans equality for the Democrats who were just elected. God love democracy. Do not complicate an easy decision. Go vote for Democrats.