You Ask Me How I'm Doing, Part IV

Another week.

(image credit: Jose Luis Magana // Associated Press)

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Quick note: I understand many of you subscribe to my blog for commentary on a wide range of topics, and lately, I’ve been writing mostly about trans equality.

Believe me when I say that I would rather be writing about anything else. It makes my skin crawl that I’ve had to devote so much time to pushing back on the avalanche of anti-trans hatred over the past seven weeks. It’s exhausting and personally reductive.

I’m a writer who happens to be a transgender woman, not a transgender woman who happens to be a writer.

I am countless multitudes more than being a trans woman, and the circumstances of this moment forcing me to focus almost exclusively on transphobia is really not my ideal situation. Nor is it the ideal situation for any trans person or nonbinary person in this moment.

So, if you’re tired of reading about it, understand that I’m tired of writing about it.

Regardless, it has to be done and should be done, so I appreciate your patience and understanding.

On Monday, Senate Democrats successfully blocked a bill that would have banned trans girls and young women from participating in sports. It needed 60 votes to overcome the filibuster and only achieved 53 votes.

No Democrats voted for the bill, but Elissa Slotkin (Michigan) and Peter Welch (Vermont) were both absent. I suppose we’ll find out in the near future if their absences were intentional.

Many hailed this as a victory for trans rights, and I’m very sorry to say that I don’t share that assessment. The predominant messaging around the bill was the threat of girls and young women being subjected to genital examinations, which, in itself, is obviously reason enough to kill the bill. That’s a good thing.

However, I would not call this a legislative win for trans rights. If there had been a way to guarantee invasive exams would be prohibited, the bill very well may have been passed with enough Democratic support.

Again, I’m sorry to diminish this, but I can’t sit here and pretend this was about trans equality. It wasn’t.

I realize many of you want to reply “but Charlotte, a win is a win,” but my driving concern is that this is yet another example of the vast majority of federal Democratic lawmakers being afraid to engage directly on the dehumanizing rhetoric against trans people.

On that note, I do want to thank Democratic senators who did speak out against the bill’s inexplicable transphobia.

On Tuesday, there was some good news when a federal judge extended a nationwide block on Trump’s executive order that would ban gender-affirming care for youth, which will likely be appealed by the administration.

That evening, Trump delivered a joint address to Congress and spent a significant portion of it pushing anti-trans propaganda, most notably claiming that the federal government has spent millions “making mice transgender.”

The White House then released a list of studies to back up this claim, which, as Rolling Stone reports, included no such research projects. Instead, most of the studies were done in service to improving treatments in women’s health care.

One study featured transgenic mice, which are rodents who have had DNA transferred to their bodies from another organism. This is, of course, not even close to being the same thing as “transgender.”

At the risk of again being a wet blanket, it was fascinating to watch the whole of resistance media specifically jump on this particular claim with glee—suddenly becoming quasi-experts on scientific studies—while mostly being absent on the relentless onslaught of other anti-trans propaganda.

For example, Trump also intentionally lied about a child’s school discussing trans identities with the student without parental consent. The young student and their parents were celebrated by Trump and Republicans at the speech.

The LGBTQ media organization GLAAD released a statement—with receipts—on how this is a pretty blatant lie. A public records request revealed that the student’s school had been in ongoing communications with their parents about the topic.

But I guess talking about that is just not as fun. Or lucrative.

On Wednesday, Science—the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science—revealed that sixteen studies funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have been cancelled because their research focussed on transgender medical care.

On Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom released the first episode of his new podcast featuring Charlie Kirk as the inaugural guest.

For those unaware, Kirk, among other things, is an anti-trans extremist. He openly believes the trans community should be removed from society. He believes trans people should not be permitted to exist.

During the episode, Mr. Newsom, who has certainly seen all the evidence otherwise, revealed his new opinion that trans girls and young women should be banned from girls’ and women’s sports teams. He also praised the anti-trans ads aired by the Trump campaign during last year’s election.

He also gushed that his teenage son is a fan of Kirk. Wonderful.

Mr. Newsom is widely expected to run for president in 2028, and given that he’s nationally-known as the progressive Governor of California, it’s no surprise that he’s clearly attempting to rebrand himself as more moderate.

Because most Democratic lawmakers have generally been abysmal—if not completely absent—in responding to the GOP’s anti-trans propaganda, Mr. Newsom’s advisors told him that attacking the trans community is the easiest way to ingratiate himself with moderate voters.

For Mr. Newsom, trans people are now seen as convenient bargaining chips to bolster his national profile. I’m really glad we could be useful for his political ambitions.

I hope that trans youth in California who are watching all this take place have enough affirming and loving people around them as a reminder of their inherent worth and dignity while their governor treats them like disposable bargaining chips.

The question of trans youth in sports has been infamously obfuscated by everyone from elected officials to journalists to celebrities. I understand many of you are looking for clarity because of the confusing and contradicting claims you’ve heard, and I completely respect questions and concerns on this in good faith. I hope to publish a (very long) piece on it this week.

That same day, Andrew Parsons, the President of the International Paralympics Committee announced that there would not be “one global regulation” on the participation of trans athletes in the 2028 Los Angeles Paralympic Games, instead deferring to each sport to set their own guidelines.

Trump has publicly demanded the International Olympics Committee and Paralympics Committee ban all trans athletes from participation in the Los Angeles Games. To that end, Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, as you may recall from my previous piece, has ordered the prohibition of trans athletes entering the United States.

We shall see what happens.

This is already a lot, and I’m sure most of y’all aren’t exactly eager to read every bit of anti-trans news after a long week. I can’t say I blame you.

That’s how I’m doing.

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