ThisUsernameKillsFascists

Because it’s of course totally impossible for me to have a personal stake in the well being of trans people without being one myself, right. There’s no way there could be other people in my life already feeling the damage done by this administration…

I’m also a lifelong atheist, and very much opposed to religion playing any part in government affairs. If I refused to vote for any politician that invoked god on the campaign trail, I’d have never voted in 25+ years of adulthood. Regardless of what the issue is, refusing to vote for the better/less harmful candidate means prioritizing your own emotional self-satisfaction over the well being of those most directly affected (whether that includes you or not). It might feel good and righteous to take such a stand, but it’s a trap.

It would be mansplaining for me to try to tell you how to feel about these candidates, or about the experience of being betrayed by the “better” party - I’m not here to do that, nor would I have any right to. I’m saying that however you feel, you shouldn’t let your feelings determine your vote. That shitty candidate that cares more about getting elected than about your rights will never know why you didn’t vote for them (in fact they are likely to guess the opposite), and you’ll be stuck with the one who revels in causing you pain. Please don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the bad if the only other option is the downright monstrous.

I don’t believe that most politicians of either party actually give a fuck about women’s sports in general - they certainly never have before this issue came up. For cowardly democrats on the anti-trans side of the sports issue, they simply see this as a way to avoid appearing too “woke” to independents and conservative democrats, while only directly affecting the handful of mtf athletes among their constituents.

I fully agree that most trans folk and their loved ones would gladly cede the sports issue in exchange for some real protections - I certainly would.

I’m not saying that these anti-trans democrats are trustworthy; I’m saying they are motivated by poll numbers, not personal animosity. Losing won’t motivate them to do better unless they lose to someone with better values - that’s why we can teach them lessons in the primaries but not in the general election. If they lose in the general, the lesson they will take is that they weren’t conservative enough, so withholding your vote at that point is counter-productive.

The republicans want to pass bills that will make life overtly harder for trans folk, beyond sports and even bathroom use. The priority right now is to take away their majorities in the House and Senate, so that those bills can’t even be brought to the floor for a vote. Beyond that we have to hold them accountable during their term, and we can primary them next time around. There is no situation in which withholding votes from Democrats in the general results in better outcomes for trans people.

I’m cis myself, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a very personal stake in this fight. I have yet to hear of a Democrat politician that thinks trans people should die - I wish I could say the same about republican politicians.

For trans people, I absolutely understand the fixation, because it is their lives at stake. But even if judging on just the one issue, and with no actual good choice on it, there are still degrees of badness, and one candidate is likely much more of a threat than the other in a given race.

Not for the greater good - for their own good. Even if you only care about one issue (and justifiably so), and both candidates are on the wrong side of that issue, it is likely that one of them is far worse on that issue than the other. It doesn’t have to feel good to vote for the someone who stands in opposition to your interests, but it is better than letting the person who stands in opposition to your existence win.

No issue is a strict binary - there are many degrees of transphobia, just as there are many degrees of any bigotry, as well as many degrees of non-human-rights issues, like support for public schools or privatization of health care. I would imagine that in almost every case where there is an anti-trans democrat running against an anti-trans republican, there is a significant difference both in terms of how rabidly transphobic the candidate is and which specific anti-trans policies they will support. There is also likely to be a big difference whether or not there is any potential for them to see the error of their ways. While most anti-trans democrats are likely on the wrong side of trans participation in sports, they are not likely to support criminalizing trans existence or encouraging violence against trans people, while many republicans are. They also will face pressure from pro-trans members of their own party, and from significant pro-trans constituencies, which republicans will not.

In FPTP voting systems, we rarely have the luxury of voting for candidates who have our full-throated support in the general election. Even if one issue is massively more important to you than the rest (and when that issue is a matter of survival, that is 100% valid), there is almost always a greater and lesser evil on that issue alone. Voting shouldn’t be viewed as a matter of identity or even as an endorsement, but rather as a practicality. It is a method of weighing in as to which of the limited options available is more tolerable (or less intolerable). Does that suck? Absolutely. Does it make sense to vote any other way within such a system? Not at all - because if the more tolerable side loses, the only lesson they are likely to take from that loss is to become more like the winning, intolerable side.

I’m 6’ tall, and I don’t think I have the reach to punch the big guy in pic #1 in the face. And if I punched him in the belly, I think my hand might get stuck/absorbed.

Ah yes, the tried and true vandalism technique of making grass muddy and patchy