The results of the midterm elections are in, and for those of us who have been watching in horror as Trump’s second administration has wrought havoc on the world for the past two years there was some genuinely good news: It seems that a “blue tsunami” has come to wash away the MAGA fascist movement.
At the same time, here in Colorado, Propositions 134 and 135 passed with small majorities of the vote. Proposition 134 bars trans kids from being on the school sports teams that match their gender identity while Proposition 135 bans gender-affirming surgical care for minors (which, as the empirical data show, isn’t really a thing that’s happening). These measures aren’t actually about “protecting girls and women” or about “biology” but about adults—some genuinely hateful, others simply confused and scared—telling children that they are unworthy.
The majority of voters in Colorado looked at trans kids—children who simply want to live and thrive as who they are—and decided they were a problem that needed correcting at the ballot box.
As a kid in the nineties, a very simple message was drilled into my head: Queerness equals death. The AIDS crisis and the murder of Matthew Shepard during the Clinton era were integral to the backdrop of my childhood, so my nervous system doesn’t expect a bright future but only contingent, temporary reprieves that exist because people fight and struggle and die for them.
So, when a blue tsunami comes and with it trans people are voted out of belonging in my own “blue” state, my body registers an all-too-familiar feeling of grief.
I want to be precise about the grief here: It's the grief trans kids in Colorado feel in the aftermath of an election where a majority of their neighbors decided they don't get to be on the team with their friends. It’s the grief trans folks feel when their neighbors tell them they aren’t worthy, that their existence is up for a vote, all because demagogues whipped up a bullshit panic to distract people from the fact that billionaire fascists are the real threat to all of us. It's the anticipatory grief I feel for everyone in my beloved queer community, because the bigots who target trans folks won’t stop with trans folks.
I'm not saying the wins don't count, and I'm not saying we should give up hope. Trans people existed before these ballot measures and will exist after them, here in Colorado and elsewhere, doing the fabulous work of being who they are regardless of what the haters say.
If you're queer or trans and you feel like you can’t join the celebration this week without something catching in your throat, you’re not a party pooper and you’re not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. You’re a person who understands, on a cellular level, that existence and belonging are fragile.
Two things are true: The blue tsunami came in, and it took something precious with it. You're allowed to stand at the shoreline and feel both.