despite blue tsunami, transphobia is still a thing

“The mea­sure was writ­ten to con­fuse people.”

“The de­scrip­tion in the pam­phlet was con­fus­ing.”

“Too many peo­ple sat out and didn’t vote.”

I am de­spaired by people’s con­stant at­tempts to ex­plain away what they see right be­fore their very eyes be­cause the truth is just too painful. 

An im­por­tant part of be­ing an ally is ac­cept­ing the facts. 

It doesn’t mean you have to like it or lay down and give in to it, but be­ing hon­est about what you’re up against is cru­cial in or­der to forge ahead and ef­fect change. 

Gay peo­ple were ab­solute­ly de­spised in the ’70, ’80s and ’90s. Eco­nom­ic dis­par­i­ty, so­ci­etal un­rest, cul­tur­al up­heaval – they were blamed for every­thing, even though they were noth­ing more than a scape­goat for the ut­ter dis­as­ter that is Reaganomics.

It was both hor­ri­ble and ridiculous. 

AIDS was “the gay plague.” Hate crimes and vi­o­lence against gay men and the broad­er LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty es­ca­lat­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly and were like­ly un­der­re­port­ed due to lack of le­gal pro­tec­tion and to­tal ap­a­thy on be­half of police. 

The re­peal of the FCC Fair­ness Doc­trine gave way to talk ra­dio, par­ti­san re­port­ing, and even­tu­al­ly the 24 hour news cy­cle. There wasn’t a talk jock­ey in ex­is­tence at the time who didn’t con­stant­ly make dis­gust­ing jokes about f*gs and d*kes.

Rush Lim­baugh hat­ed on the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty dai­ly. His bla­tant ho­mo­pho­bia helped to fur­ther en­raged mil­lions of knuck­le-drag­ging de­plorables and got them foam­ing at the mouth. 

And he was only one per­son. There were plen­ty more where he came from. Then along came Fox News, con­stant­ly and re­lent­less­ly churn­ing out ugly, dis­gust­ing mis­char­ac­ter­i­za­tions and lies, which they are (un­for­tu­nate­ly) still do­ing to this day.

The ’90s saw Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and DOMA. Oh and re­mem­ber Prop 8? Vot­ers in Cal­i­for­nia passed that in 2008. In CAL­I­FOR­NIA. 𝘐𝘯 𝘵𝘸𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘨𝘰𝘥𝘥𝘢𝘮𝘯 𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵. That wasn’t even twen­ty years ago. 

And now it is all hap­pen­ing again with the trans­gen­der com­mu­ni­ty. Peo­ple you know and trust, peo­ple you think are pro­gres­sive, they vot­ed for this. 

They dili­gent­ly filled in the lit­tle cir­cle next to “yes” when de­cid­ing to still tax bil­lion­aires and pro­tect chil­dren from vi­o­lence at home. While pass­ing the li­brary levy. While en­sur­ing Wash­ing­ton State de­moc­rats kept their seats in the House and re­pub­li­cans picked up zero.

Peo­ple knew ex­act­ly what they were do­ing. Do not let them fool you and do not fool your­self. Be sad, be an­gry, be frus­trat­ed, be­cause it’s dis­heart­en­ing and in­fu­ri­at­ing and fuck­ing tragic. 

But peo­ple knew. That is the re­al­i­ty we are deal­ing with, and there is a long road ahead.
 

“Amer­i­ca is back!”

And Ha­keem Jef­fries is al­ready mak­ing an ut­ter jack­ass out of him­self.

He has no point. The de­moc­rats ab­solute­ly have to step up and ac­tu­al­ly do their jobs and look to peo­ple like Mam­dani for ex­am­ples while also drag­ging these Nazis to the gallows.

Peo­ple de­serve the breath they’ve been wait­ing to take for years now but it’s fol­ly to be­lieve that the Amer­i­can peo­ple cared about any­thing more than the price of groceries. 

The over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty of de­moc­rats in con­gress ac­cept AIPAC funds. We just re­placed one tire on a car that still needs to be trad­ed in entirely.

 

—emi­ly duchaine

Flom­mist Emi­ly Duchaine lives in the Pa­cif­ic North­west. She likes to drink mead, learn about sharks, and lis­ten to the Talk­ing Heads. She pre­tends to be a pro­fes­sion­al busi­ness­woman most days. Copy­right © 2026 Emi­ly Duchaine. Top im­age source.

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