From Oklahoma to Tennessee to Montana, Republican-held state legislatures are targeting Black and trans electeds.
But LGBTQ+ politicians, still a minority in government, can’t be the only ones carrying on the fight. While many of these fights are fundamentally on the state level and the Equality Act continues languishing in Congress, Turner reminds us that the solidarity in question isn’t about maintaining the status quo. “A lot of folks think [ally-ship] stems from you allowing someone to be trans or queer around you, or two-spirit, gender noncomforming," they explain.
It’s great to talk about inclusion, they add, but “if you're not organizing in the meantime, if you're not saying, 'Here's what's next,' then that's not actually ally-ship. That is a performance.” That’s why part of Turner's goal, regardless of how the Democratic Party as a whole handles prioritizing LGBTQ+ rights, is about “return[ing] people to policy who had been checked out for a long time or who hadn't planned on checking in.
Says Turner, “Sometimes it does feel like Democrats are holding us hostage in order to make sure that we keep them in office, so that we get a little bit of access to this world, or access to this nation, that everybody else has. That piecemeal form of politics seems inadequate for this political moment."
Turner’s strongest words are for those pushing and promoting this legislation: “Instead of focusing on taking care of the folks in your district in your community, you wanted to become the footstool of white supremacy and patriarchy,” they say. “What is the next level of political genocide that you're willing to enact?”
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