There is no doubt that when any marginalized person becomes the first of their community to do something notable, they must navigate the difficult terrain of representing the part of themselves that is making headlines along with the rest of the multitudes that they contain. There is no doubt, either, that Congressmember-elect Sarah McBride (D) cares very much for the state of Delaware and believes firmly that serving as a congressmember is one of the best ways to make positive changes for her community. Not the trans community in this case, but the community that begins literally in her neighborhood and beyond.
What does seem to remain up in the air is whether or not having a transgender representative in Congress will help transgender people in their everyday lives, with respect to the issues we face on the basis of being trans. Health care, housing, whether or not our existence will be further policed and politicized, are just a few. Whether politicians will continue to egg on a social climate that makes it increasingly frightening to be a trans person in the world by parroting reactionary, debunked propaganda as winning election strategies is another issue.
McBride has so far been quick to insist that she did not seek out her congressional seat to discuss where she should be using the bathroom. She wants to focus on the needs and desires of Delawareans that affect them every day, like the price of groceries, health care, and housing. In an interview with CBS News she said, "I didn't run for the United States House of Representatives to talk about what bathroom I use. I didn't run to talk about myself. I ran to deliver for Delawareans. And while Republicans in Congress seem focused on bathrooms and trans people, and specifically me, I'm focused on rolling up my sleeves, diving into the details, setting up my office, and beginning the hard work of delivering for Delawareans on the issues that I know keep them up at night.
"And I look forward to working with any colleague who's ready to work and ready to be serious about the issues that matter because at the end of the day, how I'm being treated does not matter. What matters is how the American people are being treated and whether we're actually focused on the issues that matter to them," McBride added.
That would be enough if it were the case that the American people she mentions includes transgender Americans, in Delaware and beyond. Or if the resolution in the House about Capitol Hill bathrooms affected McBride at all. She said herself that she had already planned on staying out of multi-stall women's restrooms, presumably to avoid the controversy that occurred anyway. After all, McBride will have a private bathroom in her office. But other trans staff working on Capitol Hill don't. And if Congressmember Nancy Mace's (D-South Carolina) broader discriminatory federal bill is passed, then trans visitors won't either. The trans youth that roll through on school field trips will fare the worst.
That isn't to say that McBride has made some sort of formal announcement to swear off all trans advocacy, period. Instead, she has just very specifically avoided any promises to the trans community aside from those she is willing to offer all of her constituents. It is still very early days yet — McBride won't be sworn in until January 3 — so her tenure in Congress will speak for itself soon.
During this latest election cycle, most Democrats largely treated trans issues like a poison pill. Republicans have successfully made trans rights into a fringe debate that even many Democrats would cede ground on, when just seven years ago a bathroom ban in North Carolina provoked the likes of then-presidential candidate and now President-elect Donald Trump to famously state in April 2016 that trans people can use whatever bathroom they want. That bill caused the NBA All-Star game in the state to be moved. That does not imply that Trump is now — or has ever been — a champion of trans rights. It is simply hard to ignore the change in temperature from then to now.
Now, Democrats are silent whenever they can get away with it on trans rights, and when they do make comments about it, it's to state some kind of moderate-leaning-conservative position, like presidential candidate Kamala Harris balking at the idea of incarcerated trans people receiving health care during the campaign, or her comments that she would follow the law, including discriminatory state laws like the ones enacted in Texas regarding the rights of transgender people.
But is it perhaps a little selfish for transgender people to expect McBride to use her platform as a congressmember to advocate for trans rights? She didn't choose to be trans after all, she only chose to run for Congress. Can the victory of a transgender congressmember simply be symbolic, bettering the lives of trans people simply by being the case? Can she just be a congressmember from Delaware like any other?
The answers to those questions, for me, lie in the lives of those who came before her, and the lives of those who still fight now for freedom in a nation where even a transgender woman can be a member of Congress. Even before the famous 1969 Stonewall riots, queer people had been finding ways to live as gender outlaws in the eras and places in which they found themselves.
These people, by the numbers, overwhelmingly would never live to see the fruits of their labor. Either because time did not move quickly enough to bring them the world that they deserved, or because they gave their lives entirely to their cause. Or because our government allowed a health crisis — AIDS — to take the lives of our community by the hundreds of thousands in the 1980s and early 1990s. Most of these trans and queer people never lived in a world where dressing how they like, or kissing their lover, wasn't seen as an obscenity to be hidden from polite society. Many of these people were beaten, imprisoned, and nearly all would certainly have been disenfranchised if they could not assimilate. And still, these people fought. No matter the cost, they fought harder battles with much less support. And it is only because of their lives and contributions that a world exists where a trans woman can be a congressmember in the United States of America.
In a nation of trans health care bans, where politicians and political talking heads alike openly profess their desire to drive trans people from society entirely, is it really so gluttonous of us to ask for a promise from someone, anyone, in a position of power to assure us that they are fervently on our side? McBride has promised to fight for Delawareans. Who will fight for us?
Only days after the announcement that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) would ban trans people from single-sex restroom spaces on Capitol Hill, 15 activists were arrested for staging a sit-in at a bathroom in the Cannon House Office Building near Johnson's office. This group included Raquel Willis and Chelsea Manning, two people who have been putting their lives on the line for transgender liberation for a very long time. They held a sign that read, "Flush bathroom bigotries," and led chants. One was a version of a well-known chant of the AIDS activist group ACT UP, "Act up, fight back, trans rights are under attack."
And another, "Democrats, grow a spine, trans rights are on the line," which poignantly points the finger at the willingness of the majority of the Democratic Party to throw trans people under the bus when it is politically convenient.
Willis, standing outside of the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments for U.S. v Skrmetti, sums up the moment best in one quote, "Our folks have to rise up in a new era of radical defiance."
Whether or not McBride continues to shy away from a narrative that paints her as a trans activist within Congress, the work we have to do as a community and as a movement remains the same. At the end of the day it is trans people who show up for one another. It is trans people who know best what we need and how to meet those needs. Trans people will continue to exist, continue to fight impossible odds, and continue to win. Radical defiance has always been who we are, and it is the only thing that will protect us now. No amount of attempting to ingratiate ourselves to the people who would sooner see us dead than happily transitioned is going to lead to our liberation. The time for optics over action is over.
Gavin Grimm is a transgender man and activist. He was the victor in the landmark American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit Gavin Grimm v. Gloucester County Public School Board, where he sued after being banned from his high-school boy's restroom on the basis of being transgender in 2015. He is now 25 and living in Virginia.
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