It’s been another week of exhausting political headlines. President elect Donald Trump has been naming his cabinet positions and there are some doozies. Some of his choices are so bad that even Republicans are raising an eyebrow at the bed they’ve made for themselves. And, of course, a large proportion of his new appointees have anti-LGBTQ+ records. It’s effectively a job requirement.
Outside of Trump’s cabinet, the world keeps on ticking for now. This week we saw more movement on trans bathroom bans in the United States, Marjorie Taylor Greene is hoping Vance’s new office will get her bill passed, and the attempts to blame trans people for Harris’ loss are still coming. And apparently, people are still trying to pull gay kisses from media. But we have you covered. Here are the highlights from this week’s LGBTQ+ political headlines.
Bathroom bills continue to make people miserable
In the first move of its kind since the election, Ohio has passed a trans bathroom ban that targets colleges. The ban was snuck into SB104, a bill aimed at helping college students to enter dual enrollment. Targeting any “institution of higher education,” the bill follows through on promises for legislatures like Ohio’s to doubled down on their anti-trans machinations in the wake of the election. This comes at the same time that a lawsuit is being brought against South Carolina on behalf of a 13-year-old plaintiff over the state’s enforcement of a law that requires K-12 students to use bathrooms that are aligned with their sex as assigned at birth.
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Gay kisses are apparently still controversial
Even the MCU has managed to get as far as the same-sex on-screen kiss, but it seems that there are still some studios worried about including them. A recent interview with Denzel Washington revealed that in Gladiator 2, his character Macrinus originally had a kiss with a man. The scene was filmed but seemingly got left on the cutting room floor, with Washington suggesting that they “got chicken” over including it. If you’re wondering who the producers might be chicken of, the answer could be the group One Million Moms. Last week, One Million Moms were outraged that Pandora released a jewelry ad that included a brief same-sex kiss.
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“I kissed a guy full on the lips, and I guess they weren’t ready for that yet,” Denzel Washington said of the movie’s tragic editing choice.
Attempts to blame the election on trans people continue
Last week we discussed the way that some Democrats were pushing a narrative that Harris lost the election because of the party’s focus on trans rights. The claim was laughable, given that Harris and her campaign barely talked about the issue; rather, Republicans continually brought the topic up in an attempt at fear-mongering. This week, those claims have continued, with shows like Morning Joe still pushing that narrative despite the evidence that whatever the reason for Harris’ election loss was, it certainly wasn’t her support of the trans community. On the bright side, however, sanity has prevailed for many with a wealth of big names coming out to decry these bizarre claims, including Sarah McBride, Harper Steele, John Oliver, and a selection of Democratic senators.
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With such a catastrophic election, the Democrats were always going to start playing the blame game. And now the loss is trans people’s fault, apparently.
Marjorie Taylor Greene hopes a new White House ally will help hurt trans people
Marjorie Taylor Greene has been giddy since Trump won re-election. She has made it extremely clear that this opens the way for her full battle plan against trans people. She previously brought what she calls the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act” to the House of Representatives. The bill bans gender-affirming care for trans youth, makes access harder for adults, bans gender-affirming care being taught in medical schools, and stops doctors from immigrating to the United States if they have provided gender-affirming care overseas.
Sadly, her plans to get the bill signed into law might actually pay off once Trump is sworn back into office. A version of the same bill was previously introduced to the senate, and one of the co-sponsors was JD Vance, Trump’s VP-elect himself. With support in both the House and the Senate, the Republicans holding all three branches of federal government, and Trump running on the anti-trans ticket, this bill (or one like it) seems all too likely to be passed into law.
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Texas representative Jasmine Crockett can do more than craft reads like “bleach blonde bad-built butch body.” She can win reelection, too.
A psychiatrist has holiday recommendations
This week on MSNBC, psychiatrist Dr. Amanda Calhoun gave her thoughts on what would be best for LGBTQ+ people’s mental health this holiday season. When asked whether it was a good idea for queer people to be around those who voted against their basic human rights this past election cycle, she explained, “There is a push, I think just a societal norm, that if somebody is your family that they are entitled to your time. And I think the answer is absolutely not.”
“If you are going through a situation where you have family members,” Calhoun continued, “where you have close friends who you know have voted in ways that are against you, against your livelihood, it’s completely fine to not be around those people and to tell them why, to say, ‘I have a problem with the way that you voted because it went against my very livelihood, and I’m not going to be around you this holiday. I need to take some space for me.’”
LGBTQ+ couples are racing to get married
While some people have claimed that Obergefell v. Hodges (the Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage in the United States) won’t be struck down, there’s plenty of reason to be worried about it. If Roe v. Wade wasn’t sacred, Obergefell could easily fall, and Trump signaled before 2016 that he would like to see it overturned. While the Respect for Marriage Act provides an extra defense, if the Trump administration wages the anti-LGBTQ+ war they have promised, there is no certainty. To get ahead of this, LGBTQ+ couples across the United States are rushing to get married before the January inauguration and the madness that will quickly ensue after that.
How to keep yourself safe as we near a second Trump presidency
If all of the news since November 5 has been stressing you out, that’s fully justified. But there are things that you can do to keep you and your loved ones as safe as possible. Erin Reed (of Erin in the Morning) has put together a great seven step list you can go through to make sure that you are as prepared as you can be.
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