What We Know About How Trump Will Approach LGBTQ+ Rights, Abortion, and Other Issues
Much is still unknown about how Trump will carry out some of his big promises on issues like the economy and immigration, or how he may curb abortion access and LGBTQ+ rights. Project 2025 and what he’s said so far offer some clues.
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Throughout his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump has made big promises on issues of enormous consequence to Americans, from the economy to reproductive health care — but offered few details on how he would see those promises through.
What he’s said in his campaign and what he did during his first term offer some clues, as does Project 2025, the blueprint for a second Trump term written by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Though Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, saying he has “no idea who is behind it” and that he has not read it, six of his former cabinet secretaries contributed to it in some form and much of what is in the 920-page document aligns directly with statements Trump has made this year.
Though there are still many unknowns, here is what we know so far about how a second Trump term will approach reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, the economy, education, immigration and aging and disability care.
Abortion
Throughout his campaign, Trump has repeatedly taken credit for the fall of Roe v. Wade. He appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who helped overturn the decades-old case protecting federal abortion rights. His stance on abortion access has wobbled over time between a national ban and state-by-state laws.
Though Trump has said he would not support a federal abortion ban and he’s called restrictive abortion laws like Florida’s six-week ban “a terrible mistake,” it’s unclear how much he will stick to those statements: A day after he said people needed “more time” than six weeks, he said he would vote to uphold the ban in Florida, where he lives. About 57 percent of Floridians voted in favor of an amendment to undo the six-week regulation, but it fell short of the 60 percent threshold it needed to pass.
The biggest question mark heading into the election was his support of a federal ban. During the presidential debate in September, Trump said “there’s no reason to sign a ban, because we’ve gotten what everybody wanted, Democrats, Republicans and everybody else, and every legal scholar wanted it to be brought back into the states,” meaning the issue had been returned to the states. A majority of Americans disapproved of the Supreme Court decision that led to a patchwork of abortion decisions, according to polling from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.
What Trump will ultimately do will likely come down to who he appoints — and listens to — in his administration. Some of his closest supporters, including Vice President-elect JD Vance, have said they support a national ban on abortion, though during the vice presidential debate in October, Vance acknowledged that his position is not popular with “a lot of Americans.”
Trump has also said he’s open to limiting whether mifepristone, one of the pills used in medication abortions, can be sent by mail.
Economy
Much of Trump’s win Tuesday was likely due to Americans’ view on how he could improve the economy — and particularly their own personal finances. Early exit polls show that the economy was a lead motivator for many after record inflation during the Biden administration brought on by a confluence of factors, including supply chain issues, Russia’s war in Ukraine and coronavirus stimulus checks.
In the end, the reason for the inflation — and how much of it was Biden’s doing — didn’t matter. Trump presented himself as the person to “fix” the economic troubles that have plagued Americans over the past four years, and it appears to have been a salient message.
Trump inherits an economy in repair: Inflation is back down to 2.1 percent from 9 percent, hovering at the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent goal. And the country has been adding jobs consistently for months, though the most recent report shows fewer jobs added in October than expected. Still, the unemployment rate is down to about 4.1 percent from 6.3 percent when Trump left office in January 2021.
The biggest economic showdown of a second Trump term will likely come next year, when parts of Trump’s 2017 tax bill expire. Among those provisions is the child tax credit, which was expanded in 2017 to $2,000 per child. Trump has expressed support for the credit, but has not said what he’d do with it in 2025. Vance has floated increasing the credit further to $5,000 per child. Trump has also called for further lowering the corporate tax rate, which he brought down from 35 to 21 percent in 2017, to 15 percent.
The president-elect has also proposed several tax breaks — on tips, Social Security and overtime pay — but it’s unclear how he would pursue those aims.
Cutting taxes on tips would impact the women who make up the majority of tipped workers directly, but only those who earn enough to be taxed in the first place. Nearly 40 percent of tipped workers already don’t earn enough to pay federal income taxes.
If Trump also eliminates payroll taxes on tips, most workers would see some impact, but could also see their Social Security benefits diminish (payroll taxes fund Social Security and Medicare). The same would happen if taxes are cut on overtime pay, though it’s also unclear what the impact of that would be. Trump has offered no details on how he would approach the policy.
Trump has also called for eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits, a proposal that would impact about half of recipients, most of them higher income, who currently pay taxes. But that proposal alone could make Social Security insolvent three years earlier than predicted, by fiscal year 2031, rather than 2034, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization.
It is likely that the second Trump administration will vigorously pursue curbing the rights of trans Americans. Trump’s campaign has proposed terminating Medicare and Medicaid funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to trans youth, attempting to charge teachers with sex discrimination for affirming students’ gender identities and ordering federal agencies to “cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age.” Trump has also pledged to ask Congress to halt the use of federal funds to promote or pay for gender-affirming care, without distinguishing between care for adults or minors.
Leading up to the election, Trump falsely claimed that schools were performing gender-affirming surgeries on children without parental knowledge or consent — a claim divorced from reality that marked a particularly bizarre moment in a campaign littered with anti-trans misinformation. At an October 28 rally, as Trump did at multiple rallies on the tail end of his campaign, he doubled down on framing anti-trans policies as key to his vision for the Republican party, saying: “We’re the party of common sense. That means no open borders, and no transgender operations.”
In October, about 41 percent of the campaign’s ad spending was focused on messaging around trans people, particularly trans athletes and children receiving gender-affirming care.
When polled, most Americans do not rank trans issues highly compared to issues like the economy or abortion rights. It is currently unclear if these ads motivated Trump voters to turn out in 2024 or if they were incidental to issues that voters rank more highly.
Education
Trump has called repeatedly for an end to the Department of Education and presented himself as a champion for school choice, a position that will likely take center stage in a second term.
That stance aligns with details in Project 2025, which also supports eliminating the agency, as well as gutting protections for LGBTQ+ students and what he sees as progressive curriculum. Trump has vowed to cut federal funding for schools that teach lessons related to race or that teach “gender ideology.” Much of the impact will be on trans students, especially in sports.
Under his previous administration, then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos worked to limit trans women’s participation in women’s sports, arguing it violated the anti-discrimination law Title IX.
DeVos also sparked outrage by revising Title IX regulations to make it harder for sexual misconduct survivors on college campuses to hold perpetrators accountable.
Earlier this year, the Biden administration reversed these controversial DeVos-era regulations and offered protections for LGBTQ+ students in schools, but the incoming Trump administration will almost certainly introduce their own updates to this federal law. Specifically, Trump is expected to go further by defining “sex” to exclude transgender students from playing on teams or experiencing school generally in ways that align with their gender identity.
Gutting the Department of Education would also have a major negative impact on disabled students, who rely on federal enforcement of civil rights laws to protect them from discrimination, lack of access to appropriate education, unnecessary segregation and abuse.
Immigration
Some of Trump’s most divisive rhetoric during his campaign was toward Latinx people and immigrants, who he blamed as the reason for many of the country’s challenges, from safety to job loss to affordable housing. In the final days of his campaign, at a Trump rally in Madison Square Garden, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.”
Throughout his campaign, Trump has called immigrants “the enemy from within,” saying undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
His response as president, he said, would be to mount the “largest deportation in the history of our country,” but he has offered very little information on how that would happen, who would be targeted and with what resources.
Much of what Project 2025 has to say about immigration overlaps with Trump’s campaign promises. The document discusses reinstating “every rule related to immigration that was issued” during Trump’s first term, and the president-elect has specifically called for putting back into place his “Remain in Mexico” policy, by which some asylum seekers had to wait out the outcomes of their U.S. immigration cases in Mexico.
Plans laid out in Project 2025 would also make it even more difficult for undocumented students to attend college. It calls for the Department of Education to deny loan access to students who aren’t in the country with authorization and for loan access to be denied to students at schools that offer in-state tuition to the undocumented population. Nearly 20 states, including California, Texas and New York, offer in-state tuition to undocumented students.
Disability and aging
During the presidential debate in September, Trump indicated that he had “concepts of a plan” for replacing the Affordable Care Act, which protects disabled, chronically ill and older Americans from being excluded from standard health insurance coverage.
Opposition to the Affordable Care Act was a centerpiece of Trump’s 2016 campaign, and his first year in office was characterized by a failed, widely unpopular attempt to repeal and replace it, in addition to cutting Medicaid funding. Medicaid, a federal poverty program, funds the majority of long-term care for disabled and older adults in the United States.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has indicated that he is willing to commit to dismantling the Affordable Care Act during a Trump presidency. While Trump promises on his website not to cut Medicare, which provides health insurance for Americans over 65, he has made no such promises about Medicaid.
Affordable drug pricing may also take a hit during a second Trump term. The Biden administration vigorously pursued Medicare price negotiation to lower the cost of some particularly expensive prescription drugs for older adults. While Trump promised to pursue a similar policy during the 2016 race, he never implemented that promise.
Both Vance and Trump have promised a tax credit for family caregivers of older and disabled adults between $5,000 to $6,000 per year. The average cost of home care in the United States, per the most recent data from the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program, is $42,120 per year. The average cost of a shared room in a nursing home is $100,740 per year.
Nadra Nittle and Orion Rummler contributed to this reporting.
“There has to be as many traitors executed as he has days in office,” urged another Gab post. “Build the gallows, restore the REPUBLIC.” “Many many many executions are warranted,” someone wrote on Truth Social. One viral meme that was shared widely across platforms on Wednesday had the caption “RELEASE THE PROJECT 2025 HANDMAIDS TALE RAPE SQUADS.”
Read the full article. Other posts and memes call for executing Nancy Pelosi, Alejandro Mayorkas, and Kamala Harris. A Proud Boys account depicts Harris as “Whore Of The Year.” Hit the link for more.
In a follow-up post, Davis said the following: “Here’s my current mood: I want to drag their dead political bodies through the streets, burn them, and throw them off the wall. (Legally, politically, and financially, of course.)”
In August 2024, Davis appeared here when he threatened to sue any publication or social media user who referred to Trump as a “convicted felon.”
In April 2024, he appeared here when he vowed to imprison Trump’s critics and prosecute Barack Obama for murder.
In February 2024, we heard from him when he declared, “What’s so bad about Christian nationalism?”
His first appearance here came last year when he threatened to “arrest and deport” journalist Mehdi Hasan and throw gay reporter Tim Miller in a women’s prison.
And he could be the nation’s next Attorney General.
One of the reasons given by people that voted for tRump, that he would lower prices of stuff. Yup that was dumb. They also claim that he speaks like they do so they understand him. I ask why do you speak as hateful as him? They also think he cares about them, a man who was a born millionaire and who lives in golden penthouses is just a man of the people? A man who thinks money is the most important thing in life doesn’t care if poor people live or die. Hugs
As President-elect Donald Trump readies to return to the Oval Office, U.S. retailers that depend on foreign suppliers are prepared to pass along the cost of his proposed import tariffs to consumers, potentially leading to higher prices for a range of products.
Americans stand to lose between $46 billion and $78 billion in spending power each year on products including apparel, toys, furniture, household appliances, footwear and travel goods due to the new tariffs, the National Retail Federation stated in findings released Monday.
“Retailers rely heavily on imported products and manufacturing components so that they can offer their customers a variety of products at affordable prices,” NRF Vice President of Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said in a statement. “A tariff is a tax paid by the U.S. importer, not a foreign country or the exporter. This tax ultimately comes out of consumers’ pockets through higher prices.”
For example, a $40 toaster oven would retail for $48 to $52 after the tariffs, while a $50 pair of running shoes would jump to to $59 to $64, according to the industry trade group. A $2,000 mattress and box spring set would cost $2,128 to $2,190, the NRF said.
During President-elect Trump’s first term in office, his administration imposed tariffs of up to 25% on more than $360 billion in products from China. President Joe Biden’s White House kept most of those tariffs and added more onto goods including Chinese electric cars and microchips.
Now, Trump has said he plans to impose a 60% tax on goods from China and a 10% to 20% levy on all of the $3 trillion in foreign goods the U.S. imports annually. Such sweeping tariffs would reignite inflation, as they would mostly be paid by U.S. consumers, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned, offering a general view widely shared by other economists on both sides of the political aisle.
“A consistent theoretical and empirical finding in economics is that domestic consumers and domestic firms bear the burden of a tariff, not the foreign country,” the nonpartisan Budget Lab at Yale University stated in an analysis published in mid-October.
Trump has repeatedly contended that foreign companies would foot the bill, telling a gathering last month at the Economic Club of Chicago that “the countries will pay” the tariffs. In reality, American importers pay the tariffs to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency when their goods cross the border.
“These policy steps would amount to regressive tax cuts, only partially paid for by regressive tax increases,” and cost a typical middle-income household about $1,700 in increased taxes a year,” according to economists at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The proposed tariffs would shift tax burdens from the well-off to lower-income Americans, the nonprofit also stated in a policy brief published in August.
For now, it is unclear when the new Trump regime could seek to stiffen tariffs. The process to complete legislation required to raise the levies could take nearly a year, so any adverse impact might not be felt until 2026, according to Oxford Economics.
Harvard University professor and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers questioned the wisdom of taxing imports, noting the potential impact on prices. “For parents, we’re coming up on the holiday season and most of our toys are imported from China,” Summers tweeted on Thanksgiving Day.
Trump has argued that tariffs compel American companies to make goods on U.S. soil rather than purchasing from foreign suppliers.
But some companies have other plans.
“If we get tariffs, we will pass those tariff costs back to the consumer,” Philip Daniele, CEO of vehicle parts supplier AutoZone, told Wall Street analysts in an earnings call in late September. “We’ll generally raise prices ahead of — we know what the tariffs will be — we generally raise prices ahead of that,” Daniele said.
Major suppliers to AutoZone include companies based in China, India and Germany, according to the company.
Stanley Black & Decker CEO Donald Allan Jr. said last week his tool-producing company has been planning for the possibility of additional tariffs on imports since the spring. “Obviously, coming out of the gate, there would be price increases associated with tariffs that we [would] put into the market.”
Allan downplayed the idea of moving manufacturing back to the U.S., saying it would not be cost-effective. The company’s options could include “moving production and aspects of the supply chain to different parts of the world,” including from China to other parts of Asia and possibly Mexico, the executive said.
Such a shift has already been made by Shelton, Connecticut-based Acme United, which now has its Westcott brand products like rulers made in Thailand and the Philippines, avoiding the tariffs targeting China, CEO Walter Johnsen said in an October earnings call.
Acme has switched production of certain medical products to India, Egypt and U.S. plants in Florida, North Carolina and Washington state, the executive said.
Businesses have also stocked up, placing bigger-than-usual import orders ahead of new tariffs taking hold, as the U.S. imported 11% more Chinese products in July and August than they did during the same two-month period a year ago, according to the Census Bureau.
As Donald Trump readies to return to the Oval Office, U.S. retailers that depend on foreign suppliers are prepared to pass along the cost of his proposed import tariffs to consumers, potentially leading to higher prices for a range of products. https://t.co/FnazDzizgT
Special counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks about an unsealed indictment against former President Donald Trump on Aug. 1, 2023, in Washington, D.C.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Donald Trump started this year fighting two federal prosecutions that threatened to send him to prison. But he will end it free and clear of his most significant criminal legal problems.
With his resounding victory at the polls, and a longstanding Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president, the key question is not if, but when, prosecutors move to dismiss or delay his federal election interference case in Washington, D.C.
Trump recently said he would fire special counsel Jack Smith “within two seconds” after he returned to the White House. Now, that won’t be necessary to bring his federal criminal troubles to an end.
Smith is taking steps to end both federal cases against Trump before the president-elect takes office, according to a source familiar with the Justice Department deliberations.
1. What are the outstanding cases the federal government has lodged against Trump?
A grand jury in Washington indicted Trump this year on four felony charges in connection with his effort to cling to power in 2020, culminating in the violent siege on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Judge Tanya Chutkan had set a trial date for March 2024, but that date came and went, after the Supreme Court accepted the case and ultimately handed Trump significant immunity from prosecution for official actions he took in the White House.
The judge is just now beginning to consider what parts of the prosecution’s case amount to official acts, and which are private conduct of a person seeking rather than holding office.
The Justice Department has appealed in a separate criminal case against Trump that accuses the former president of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort and refusing to the return them to the FBI.
Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, dismissed the documents case on July 15, the first day of the Republican National Convention this year, reasoning that the way the special counsel had been appointed violates the Constitution. The Justice Department has been seeking review by a higher court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
2. What does Trump’s election victory mean for these cases?
They’re on life support and likely to end even before the inauguration in January.
On the campaign trial, now President-elect Trump has vowed to fire the special counsel, Jack Smith, on his first day in office. But Trump would not need to dismiss Smith or order any new DOJ officials to fire Smith in order to end the criminal prosecutions.
President-elect Donald Trump delivers remarks during the Georgia state GOP convention in June 2023 after a grand jury indicted him on 37 felony counts in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents probe.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
In 2000, a lawyer in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the federal government on its powers and boundaries, concluded that a sitting president could not be indicted or prosecuted because that “would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.”
Administrations led by Republicans and Democrats have adopted the DOJ policy against prosecuting presidents.
The Florida case involving classified documents is a bit more complicated. DOJ could file notice with the appeals court that it is abandoning the appeal. But that case involves two other defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira.
Dismissing the appeal outright would also mean walking away from cases that prosecutors built against those two defendants, Trump’s personal aide and the property manager at Mar-a-Lago.
What’s more, the federal government may have a broader interest, because Cannon’s reasoning could upend the way special prosecutors have been appointed for decades.
But one DOJ veteran who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly told NPR that Cannon’s ruling would not be considered binding precedent, so the stakes could be lower.
Former Attorney General William Barr says voters have evaluated the allegations against Trump—and decisively rendered their own verdict.
“Further maneuvering on these cases in the weeks ahead would serve no legitimate purpose and only distract the country and the incoming administration from the task at hand,” Barr said in a written statement first reported by the Guardian.
3. What happens to the special counsel, Jack Smith?
Special counsels are obligated to file a report on their actions with the Attorney General when they finish their work. The current attorney general, Merrick Garland, has pledged to make most of those reports public.
If Smith’s written report is not complete by Inauguration Day, it will be up to new DOJ leaders to decide its fate.
Mike Davis, a Trump ally, told a conservative interviewer this week that the attorney general “is probably President Trump’s most important appointment.”
Davis told the interviewer that Smith’s entire office should be fired and said, “After today, Jack Smith, you’re going to be the hunted: legally, politically and financially. So lawyer up, buddy.”
4. Trump also faced criminal charges in two states, New York and Georgia. How will the election reshape those cases?
A jury in New York this year convicted Trump on 34 criminal charges related to bookkeeping for an alleged hush money payment to an adult film actress shortly before the 2016 election.
Justice Juan Merchan scheduled a hearing for Nov. 12 to assess how the Supreme Court’s immunity decision might affect that case. It’s not clear whether the criminal sentencing for Trump set for Thanksgiving week will occur. Trump’s lawyers may seek to stop it given the election results.
The case against Trump in Fulton County, Ga., over alleged election interference, has been on pause for months while a higher court considers possible conflicts of interest involving District Attorney Fani Willis. There’s a hearing scheduled in that appeal Dec. 5.
It, too, could be overtaken by events — and a strategy of delay and deflection by Trump’s lawyers that appears to have succeeded beyond imagination.
As I said yesterday, today is the day we start to figure out how to fight back against what is coming. From what I read yesterday a lot of men still won’t vote for a woman, especially Latino heritage men. Plus people said things cost less under tRump in 2019 and felt he could bring prices down to those levels. But that is stupid, he won’t and can’t because to him and the wealthy profit is king. But what could happen is that their incomes will be cut, their safety nets will be cut. One guy was heard saying tRump had the economy and immigration and Harris only had women’s rights and Democracy. Think on it, hating others was more important than others rights and Democracy. But we will learn more. Arab voters who claim they warned Harris she needed to change on Gaza will notice that already Israel has increased its take over of Gaza, saying that Palestinians will NOT be allowed to return to the north and all that are still there will be killed. Knowing that tRump will back him. So they sure made a difference didn’t they. Hugs.
Vice President Kamala Harris led President-elect Donald Trump 86% to 12% among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender voters, according to the NBC News Exit Poll Desk.
By Patrick J. Egan, NBC News Exit Poll Desk
Former President Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to become the next U.S. president, NBC News projected, but he didn’t do so with the help of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender voters.
LGBT voters shifted even more solidly into the Democratic camp this year, according to the NBC News Exit Poll. Harris led President-elect Trump 86% to 12% among LGBT voters, the poll found. That’s a 15-point change from 2020, when Trump won 27% of the LGBT vote against Biden.
Harris’ performance among LGBT voters was stronger than that of any Democratic candidate in the last five presidential elections.
Although Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance predicted that he and Trump would win the “normal gay guy vote,” the GOP presidential ticket captured fewer than 1 in 5 LGBT male voters, though that figure could also include bisexual and transgender men. Trump’s support among LGBT female voters was even more tepid, at 8%. White LGBT people went solidly for Harris over Trump by 82% to 16%, though Harris’ margin was even bigger among LGBT voters of color at 91% to 5%.
Most LGBT voters said they’d be either “excited” (39%) or “optimistic” (43%) if Harris were elected president. By contrast, 62% of LGBT respondents said they’d be “scared” if Trump won.
According to the exit poll, 8% of American voters identified as LGBT in 2024. That’s the highest share on record. The percentage of the electorate identifying as LGBT has doubled since Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, when it was 4%.
As in previous elections, LGBT voters stood out as one of the most left-leaning voter blocs in the electorate. Among LGBT voters, Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans, 56% to 5%, and liberals surpass conservatives, 61% to 5%. LGBT voters are staunchly pro-choice: 59% say abortion should be legal in all cases, a much higher level of support for abortion rights than among non-LGBTs, at 31%.
“As an American, I’m out of fucks to give for my fellow Americans. It’s been almost 10 years to see who he really is, and 3/4 of us either LIKE that or are too ignorant to care.
Don’t come crying when your loved one gets beaten by a police officer and they face no charges.
Don’t come crying when a friend/family member gets raped and the baby can’t be aborted, nor if they suffer a miscarriage from a pregnancy and bleed out because they can’t get medical help.
Don’t come crying when the Supreme Court is packed with 2 more far right corrupt justices and more lifelong rights start to vanish.
Don’t come crying when Ukraine aid stops and, if the rest of the world doesn’t pick up the slack, Russia takes even more land and continues killing more people.
Don’t come crying as the deficit explodes from corruption and the economy crashes as Trump lines his own pockets.
Don’t come crying when our education system bottoms out because Elon guts the government so that, combined with project 2025 ending all abortion care, poor people are forced to raise lots of stupid babies to run his factories.
Don’t come crying when worker protections are cut and overtime pay is all but eliminated.
Don’t. Complain. To. Me. I’ll ask who you voted for and then laugh in your fucking face. ‘But. But. I didn’t think. . . ‘
‘Of course you didn’t fucking think. You voted for him. Well, we tried to tell you. We tried to reason with you. We tried to compromise, but no. You just had to take your stand on whatever single fucking issue.’”
It was still something shoved up your ass while strangers watched.
GOP candidate for NC schools chief has spread conspiracy theories, ‘groomer’ rhetoric – Michele Morrow has a track record of falsehoods – for example, saying Islam is a cult and that the plus in LGTBTQ+ stands for pedophilia. via NPR https://t.co/nItjI0LE6r
Lovable policy dork and new US Congresswoman Sarah McBride gives a hug to the kid who stole my pink unicorn dress. Yes, I will sue.
How do you do, fellow Wonks! It is I, your friendly neighborhood trans woman who is happy about a thing!
What? What is with those faces? Did something bad happen? No matter! For it is my job to give you the good news, with a spring in my step and a song in my heart and I am going to fucking do that because it is my job, melonfuckers, and I will not neglect my professional duty to be happy about a happy thing. Or three!
Yesterday, for those not in the know, the United States had an election. And during this election the transgenders worked their genderqueer asses off, not only running for election to the local sixth-grade softball team but also to at least 35 political positions around the country. And while we here at Wonkette salute every single one of those eager beavers, a couple stand out for their prominence and their victories.
No trans star shines brighter in, lo, these early morning hours as I write you this, than Sarah McBride. While McBride was not the first trans person to be elected to any ol’ thing, she was not elected to any ol’ thing. She was elected to the actual Congress of the US America. That’s right! We’re talking about the very same federal legislature made famous in Schoolhouse Rock’s song “I’m Just A Bill.”
This is not particularly surprising, as like some San Franciscans we could name, she was very well qualified for the position she sought. Before coming out or even turning 20 years old she worked as a junior staffer for Delaware Governor Jack Markell’s campaign in 2008 and Attorney General Beau Biden’s campaign in 2010. Next she lobbied for adding gender identity to Delaware’s equal protection law and interned at the White House in 2012 before graduating from college. She was on this shit young, I tell ya. And after she came out that year, her story was featured on American University Radio (later rebroadcast on NPR) including an anecdote about Beau telling her that after coming out she “was still part of the Biden family.”
After graduating she went to work as an activist with Equality Delaware and used her relationships to help pass positive bills before she became the first ever out trans speaker at a major party political convention in 2016 — something she’s sure as hell going to do again now. She then went on to write a book (foreword by some dude named “Joe Biden”), work for the Human Rights Campaign as their spokesperson, and then spend the most recent four years representing 50,000 Delawareaniteishers in the state Senate.
With her resumé and the Blue-leaning makeup of the state electorate, she had this. And it showed both during her campaign and in her 57/42 victory. (Which won me five bucks.) And now she’s going to Congress to make sure that Republican dickweasel bigots have to look a trans person in the eye as they ban driving through McDonalds while trans or whatever evil-ass bill they’re proposing next January. She lists her top two priorities as universal healthcare and reproductive rights, with other big ticket items like the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, the union-friendly PRO Act, curbing climate change, ending mass incarceration and more. She sounds too good to be true, but she’s real and she’s going to be kicking Matt Gaetz ass in just eight weeks.
Still convinced there’s a catch? Like maybe she’s great but replaced someone greater? Worry not: The woman she’s replacing is now your new US Senator from Delaware Lisa Blunt Rochester, making all kinds of demographic firsts from a state previously obsessed with sending only white men to the Senate but which has now elected a Black woman 56/39/4.
Yeah, we could use a lot more Delawares right now.
But if you’ll excuse Hawaii for not being Delaware, there’s also some good shit doing down on the islands. Over the last few decades indigenous Hawaiians have become homeless at a horrible rate — yes, this started long before Lahaina burned to the ground. The primary culprit is a tourism-first legislature full of corporate Democrats who never met a bit of housing they couldn’t rezone for rental to visiting mainlanders. Along with other forces making housing expensive even on the continent, this has made trying to find a place to live in the state a genuine crisis, especially for the people working those low-paying service jobs catering to tourists.
While Kim Coco Iwamoto isn’t the only Hawaiian to notice the problem, she made it her mission to knock off the incumbent Speaker of the Hawaiian state House in the Democratic primary. It took three tries, but this year she managed it and put the game away in the general last night. She only takes over the district of Scott Saiki, not his speakership, and the still pro-corporate Dem majority is certain to elect another tourism-pleasing Speaker, but Iwamoto becomes a trans voice against homelessness and for affordable housing. Iwamoto didn’t start off in politics going straight after Saiki. She was actually the first out trans person ever to hold statewide office anywhere in the US as she was elected to an at-large position on the Hawaii Board of Education and then later appointed to the state Civil Rights Commission. She is experienced and determined, she knows Hawaii politics, and she’s going to get things done.
Our third and final Trans Nice Times! for this morning comes to you from Los Angeles, where for the first time ever a trans-centric non-profit was designated a voting center. You may be used to voting in gymnasiums and churches, but yesterday in West Hollywood if you wanted to drop off your ballot (or fill one out if you hadn’t had a chance to vote from home as is the norm in California these days), your home precinct was The Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center where instead of having to to look at posters saying, “Jesus dies a little every time you touch your cooter! Don’t be chewed bubblegum!” as you walk through the lobby to cast your vote, you instead got to see signs saying, “Trans joy **is** resistance!” Won’t that just be a hoot for the two conservatives who still live in West Hollywood?
In summary and conclusion, there is still joy in this world, like trans people who kick ass and golden retrievers who know just a little too much English.
Now ain’t that some nice times?
Send this post to a friend who needs to read it! (I thought we all needed this here. -A)
Scottie's Playtime 