The List of Trans Allies Grows Thin
And it's only Wednesday...
Several separate decisions taken by ostensibly left-leaning politicians continue to demoralize trans people.
Trans people have been dealt a series of disappointing blows from alleged political allies in the last couple of weeks as nominally lefty politicians grapple with trying to compromise with fascists over the existence of trans people.
Three important politicians: NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani, Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, and UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer, each either exercising power, trying to hold onto power, or trying to win power in their respective jurisdictions, each let trans people down in their own way this week.
Taken separately, each had their own reasons for the decisions that could potentially be justified by the current political landscape. But taken together, it makes me begin to wonder where we as trans people are supposed to fit in under the rule of lefty politicians in 2026.
And on top of everything else, each politician displayed a dramatic overreaction to the anti-trans sentiment of voting base.
When Zohran Mamdani was running for New York City mayor last year, he wasn't afraid of appearing too pro-transgender. In fact, he produced a memorable campaign ad about the legacy of trans New Yorkers like Sylvia Rivera and promised to spend $65 million for new programs to meet the needs of trans New Yorkers.
I wrote about how refreshing and extraordinary that ad felt in a moment when it felt like the whole world was turning against the existence of trans people.
But flash forward to this year, Mamdani's first in Gracie Manor and the reality isn't quite as rosy as the picture painted during his campaign. The mayor still isn't afraid to vocally defend trans people – 3 months ago he called out Trump's Department of Justice for attacking NYC hospitals for providing gender affirming care for trans youth.
Multiple major hospital systems in the city have announced the closure of their youth gender care clinics in the face of threats of withheld federal funding. Mamdani denounced those decisions at the time and promised to fill the gap with city services.
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But to date, NYC trans kids remain out to dry. The mayor last week announced plans for a new trans related clinic, slated to cost $15 million, to provide care for the city's trans population – except for trans teens. The mayor's office said that care would not be provided to those under age 19 to avoid the withholding of federal payments through Medicare and Medicaid.
The mayor's office made the exact same decision the mayor criticized local hospitals for making.
It was a disappointing turn for an unusually pro-trans figure on the left, and one that has left the trans community less trustful of his stewardship of the city. It also puts trans people in potential opposition to an otherwise very popular mayor, which further marginalizes us politically in one of the bluest cities in the country.
The Trump administration and conservatives couldn't ask for a more convenient political split right now.
This brings me to James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for Texas Senate. Talarico has been a vocal supporter of trans people and has gone out of his way to explain how God calls him to be welcoming of Texas' trans community. His support for trans people has made him a target for the right, who are desperate to whittle away at his slim but early polling lead in the historically conservative state.
Earlier this week however, Talarico was asked on a podcast about whether he is in favor of gender affirming surgeries for minors, to which Talarico said he is not.
gwen howerton
Now that is not an unusual answer at all. Most people are opposed to surgeries on trans youth, and in fact the WPATH guidelines for trans youth care generally advises against it. In fact, the panic over trans surgeries on kids is almost completely a myth created by conservatives to move the Overton window on trans issues.
That would be the easy way to answer the question, and Talarico couldn't even bring himself to do that. Instead the way he answered implied that the practice, which is already illegal under state law, is one that Democrats support more generally.
Personally I think there's a case that older teens should be allowed to access gender affirming surgeries, especially since there are no restrictions on their cisgender counterparts of the same age for the exact same procedures (breast reduction, mastectomy, or augmentation.
It's all fine and well I suppose for Talarico to demure on the question, but he should do so without lending credence to what is essentially a right wing conspiracy theory.
And besides all that, once you answer them by being squishy on trans youth care, they'll move onto sports, and once you appease them on that, they'll move on to bathrooms, and then they'll move on to the next thing and the next thing. Then you get to the end of your campaign and you realize that they've had you answering and equivocating and hemming and hawing about trans people the entire campaign and your opponent is running ads like "why is this guy so obsessed with trans issues?"
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Talarico, like all Democrats, need a stronger response than looking weak and conceding on fucking right wing conspiracy theories. Stand up there and say something like "trans people don't deserve the government in their face on everything all the time." Or "it's been a decade of this right wing obsession with trans people, has your life gotten better in the last 10 years?"
Try being the change you want to see in your politics rather than sucking up to the tiny portion of the population that actually bases their votes on who is most anti-trans (hint: they're never going to vote for you anyway).
This urge to abandon your political principles in order to compete for a tiny sliver of voters that were never going to vote for you anyway is perhaps best exemplified across the pond in the UK. Current Prime Minister Kier Starmer, a member of the formerly lefty Labour party, has been busy taking even more extreme measures against trans life than even Donald Trump in the US.
Just this week there was a debate in government over there about a proposed total bathroom ban guidance produced by the Labour government's Equality and Human Right Committee (EHRC). The proposed guidance would essentially bar trans people from participating as their own gender in almost all public facets of life, from bathrooms, to doctors' offices, and everywhere in between.
Perhaps most concerningly, the guidance seeks to bar trans women from accessing breast cancer screenings under the assumption that trans women have no need for such screenings. And yet trans women are 74% more likely to develop breast cancer than the cis male counterparts that anti-trans activists assume they're the same as.
This is the nanny government in overdrive, with a British patriarch always peering into your pants to make sure you play your gender correctly.
Anti-trans activists live in a fantasyland where trans women don't develop breast cancer and where prepubescent children were whisked away for genital surgery. None of it makes any sense to anyone with even a remote understanding of trans people and yet so many supposedly lefty politicians are willing to bow and scrape to this small band of transphobic losers.
Why?
As a forewarning to the Americans mentioned earlier, Starmer's Labour party will almost assuredly get swept out of office in the next election, having appealed to no one with their anti-trans priorities. There's no reason why Democrats should follow suit.
Take a stand. Be willing to sacrifice the transphobic voters you somehow have been deluded into thinking you can win over. People will respect you more if you show strength, even in supporting trans people.
Thank you so much for reading! I'll be back for the Sick Burns Friday post, but next week will be a lighter week for me. I may not publish anything next week because I will be visiting friends in DC and going to Pride down there. Stay tuned.
