Rep Sarah McBride (D-DE-AL) center, Rep Julie Johnson (D-TX-32) and the true leader of the Democratic Party
Sarah McBride is in a tough spot. As the first openly transgender Member of Congress, she’s shit upon on the daily by the likes of Nancy Mace. She also angered the trans community by making some (what I thought were) reasonable statements about how the politics of trans acceptance were going to play out in an interview with Ezra Klein.
I’ll share my prejudice about the way the trans community does politics, and I say this as someone who knows some actual trans and non-binary folks (via my kid) who have been at different parties and celebrations at my house. In my opinion, the trans community tends to be really hard on allies. One example is the glitter bombing of Dan Savage, who I’ll grant wasn’t a perfect ally, but he’s a gay sex columnist in Seattle who was on the same side, if imperfectly. When McBride started in Congress and was essentially denied a bathroom, she chose not to make an issue of it, and she was criticized for that by some in the trans community.
Now she’s decided to pick a fight and it’s about two pieces of anti-trans legislation in Congress. You can see the video of her statement here. Key part:
So, we are two legislative days away from the Affordable Care Act tax credits expiring, when millions of people will see their healthcare premiums skyrocket, And GOP leadership, with that deadline fast approaching, has decided to schedule two votes on anti-trans bills and precisely zero votes on extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits,” started McBride, before turning to Republican obsession on transgender people.
“They would rather have us focus in and debate a misunderstood and vulnerable one percent of the population instead of focusing in on the fact that they are raiding everyone’s healthcare in order to pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest one percent. All Republican politicians care about is making the rich richer and attacking trans people. They are obsessed with trans people. I actually think they think more about trans people than trans people think about trans people. They are consumed with this and they are extreme on it.
That’s a pretty good statement, and it taps into the same powerful vein of political criticism as Tim Walz’ “weird” rhetoric, which was obviously cancelled by the brain geniuses who ran the Harris campaign into the ground.
By the way, the Erin in the Morning newsletter is written by trans journalist Erin Reed, who is married to trans Montana legislator Zooey Zephyr, and Reed has also been critical of McBride in the past.
Anyway, the fact that McBride was accompanied by only two members of her party should give those criticizing her a clue about the really tough position she’s in. Leadership is shitpants scared of the trans issue. They want to run away from it, or completely capitulate to Republicans and adopt their talking points. I think it was a commenter here, or maybe someone on BlueSky, that pointed out that the primitive, basic politics of the Democrats’ position on trans folks is simple: if you can’t stick up for one part of your base, why would anyone believe that you can stick up for any other part of your base?
Trans rights is yet another issue where Democrats are going to be stuck with a Fox News caricature of our position if we choose to remain silent. It’s fucking stupid to be silent, but silence is a happy place for leadership. Instead, they should be ready with a quick statement similar to McBride’s on the weirdness of the Republicans’ trans obsession, and then pivot to the attack.
And fuck Gavin Newsom.
