Before you point fingers on why we lost the race for president, you might look at the incredible victories and unfortunate losses we had as a community. And one figure says it all: while other communities were going south and voting more Republican/Trump then we’ve seen in history, according to exit polls for this election, the LGBTQ+ community voted Democratic at its highest rate in history. In past elections, members of our community voted Republican anywhere between 25-33% of the vote. This year, with the rise of Log Cabin Republicans fighting for Trump, that group was the big loser as our community voted 88% for Harris and only for 12% Trump. LGBTQ+ people understood the message: Vote for your marriage and your spouse over Trump.
The second loser of the election is “Queers for Palestine.” Supporting any group (Hamas) that would murder LGBTQ+ people is a red flag, but Queers for Palestine’s self-hatred and efforts of disrupting Kamala Harris rallies and Pride events makes them traitors to the LGBTQ+ community. Their voting third party or not voting at all helped elect Donald Trump. And guess what? Just six days after Trump was elected, Israel announced the annexation of the other Palestinian lands, new settlements in the West Bank, and they did it in the name of Trump’s victory. Queers for Palestine took a situation and made it worse for the very people they claimed to support. Thanks to them, more Palestinians will die. Did your privilege and attempt to politically assimilate make you feel good? You have Palestinian blood on your hands.
Another loss was given to us by GLAAD, who with less then a year before the election decided on a major campaign against the New York Times regarding what they stated was bad journalism on trans issues. Battling the Times with billboards, text messages and emails, they took the fight against trans issues to a liberal newspaper. Of course, they also used it to fundraise for donations, I guess to buy another chandelier for CEO Sarah Kate Ellis’s home office. Do you know where GLAAD should have spent their dollars in support for the trans community? Against Donald Trump. Donald Trump’s campaign spent a whopping $251 million on anti-trans ads, and the tagline was “Kamala’s for they/them. President Trump is for you.” Gee, that’s a real understanding of the media and politics. Trump used the trans community to victory, and GLAAD shook their fist at the New York Times. That’s a disconnect from reality if I ever saw it.
Now to the election victories. Victory Fund announced some amazing elections of our community members, including the brilliant Sarah McBride of Delaware, who became the first out trans person in Congress, Julie Johnson, the first out Southerner elected to Congress, and over a hundred more victorious for judges, city councilmembers, state senators and more. Congratulations to Victory Fund.
In four of the five swing states with senators up for re-election, the Democratic senators won, with only Bob Casey in Pennsylvania still undecided.
With that 88% figure I gave you at the top of this column, LGBTQ+ people are the third-largest group of Democratic supporters — with Black women and Jewish women taking the top two slots. So if our message worked, why didn’t the message in other demographics work? Rather than finger pointing, let’s find a message that does work and begin the dialogue that will assure us a victory in four years. And on a personal note, get over the idea of “I’m not going to talk to anyone who voted for Trump.” That’s half the country, and we have no time for that since we need to win some of them over. Being a privileged elite who turns their nose at people with different viewpoints isn’t the way.