Republicans in this election cycle can't run on the economy, what with an unpopular war started by the most unpopular president ever that has sent fuel prices ballooning, furthering inflation sparked by his ill-conceived tariffs. Many of them are therefore running on culture war issues, number one among them trans-bashing.
(Alabama's Tommy Bubbaville has tried to expand the culture war to include airplane pilots who are "furries" in their off hours. I'm not sure where he came up with that one, although he claimed, "You can't make this stuff up." We know it's not something he read somewhere, because he proudly announced that in order to keep from being confused, he doesn't read. Perhaps he vaguely remembers seeing Chewbacca at the controls of one of them flying machines a while back.)
In a perfect world, Democrats would ignore Republican efforts to divert the electorate's attention away from their party's disastrous record. Instead, we live in a world where Republican-slanted media and Elon Musk-funded PACs doggedly try to keep distracting voters toward Republican talking points.
James Talarico, a target of one of Musk's "He's For They/Them Not You/Us" ads, is running to become the first Democratic Senator from Texas since Talarico was four years old. This week Talarico told Fox Noise, "As a former public school teacher, I care a lot about our student athletes. I care a lot about our students. And so I will oppose trans athletes playing in girls' sports if it risks safety or fairness.”
Talarico's decision to throw trans student athletes to the wolves has disappointed his trans supporters who had been attracted to his earlier sympathy for the trans community.
As a state representative, Talarico voted against GOP restrictions barring trans student-athletes from playing on sports teams that align with their gender identity. He said such proposals amounted to a push for the government to "police people's private parts" and would harm "the least of these," a reference to Jesus' remarks in scripture. And he compared the justifications offered for the bans — that trans athletes had a genetic advantage and excluding them would promote safety — to rationales historically used to bar Black athletes from competing in professional sports.
Ohio gubernatorial candidate Dr. Amy Acton announced that she " doesn't support boys playing in girls' sports," and Representative Marcy Kapture voted for a Republican bill to require schools to notify parents of a student's request to change their gender, pronouns, or preferred name, and to deny federal funding to schools that "teach or advance concepts related to gender identity."
Rob Sand, the Democratic candidate for governor in Iowa, has also come out against transgender athletes participating in school sports, although he also promises to veto any “stupid culture-war-Trump bill”
Iowa's Republican legislature has no intention of rescinding its 2022 law criminalizing transgender athletes, so it's not an issue likely to face the state's next governor. At a campaign stop in September, Sand echoed Talarico's faith-based stand on transgender rights in general:
“Now, I’ve been clear … the civil rights repeal for transgender people was wrong,” Sand said. “It was wrong. You should not be fired from your job in the state of Iowa for being different. You should not be evicted from your apartment in the state of Iowa for being different.
“This to me is a question of faith. My faith is all about the outcast, it’s all about the people who are pushed aside, who are not favored. And I think that we have to be making Iowa a place where state government is as welcoming as Iowans are.”
When pressed at the same event to justify his position on transgender athletes, Sand sidestepped the question.
“This is a conversation I’m interested in having,” he said instead. “I’ve met with One Iowa, I’ve talked to a lot of other trans advocates, and I’m listening to them. I’m open-minded about it. I don’t have anything different to say than what I’ve said before. But again, hearing from you is important, and I don’t think that we recognize how important it is that we just talk to each other. Right?
“Everybody is welcome here. Everybody is welcome at this event, everybody should feel welcome in the state of Iowa. I might not offer you full agreement with everything you believe … I’m doing my best to do what I think is the right thing to do, but I also want to make sure that it’s doing the right thing. Which is why I’m interested in listening to people about that, and I’m going to continue to listen to people.”
As Sand moved on to the next questioner, someone in the back of the crowd called out, “Coward!” Sand heard the voice, but apparently misheard the word, thinking it was “louder.”
These are close races, and Democrats can't really afford to turn off the 1% of voters who are trans (even if the percentage of voters who are trans student athletes is much smaller). Many of us in the cisgender 99% realize that when Republicans get tired of demonizing transgender persons, they will come after some other minority — gays, lesbians, bisexuals, Roma, Latinos (oops, sorry, we're already there), Moslems (ibid.), atheists, Quakers, Unitarians, countertenors, low-T southpaws, vegan paraplegics, type AB– librarians...
And of course, furries.
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