I am incredibly concerned about the New Jersey primary election coming up. Most people have no opinion of the six Democratic candidates or even know who they are. As you may not know, in the Garden State, trans rights are essentially just protected via executive orders from the governor at this time. That means that the next governor can rip them away immediately should they choose — or should they cut a deal.
The really big problem with the way New Jersey elections are covered is that context doesn’t really get put to things like you’d see in other states. This makes it incredibly easy for people like the two professional establishment Democrats to double-talk, manipulate, and even lie without people catching on. And this is why I’m especially terrified.
People may have forgotten or forgiven Mikie Sherrill and Josh Gottheimer’s votes to pass the anti-trans military spending bill in December because they bought the explanation — or at least Sherrill’s — that she was trying to be strategic because she cared so much abut trans folks that she feared a worse bill would come. The fact of the matter is neither she nor Gottheimer will be champions for the trans community.
Gottheimer is an outright weasel whose plan is to ingratiate ourselves to the federal government and give up any economic independence Murphy carved out for us. His entire history shows he’s the next Joe Manchin. I’m not going to bother trying to get into him talking about trans rights because he doesn’t actually get on any of the forums that have legitimate discussions about issues like that. To be clear though, he MUST be stopped as he is definitely the worst candidate of the six. He just co-sponsored that anti-free speech bill, for example.
Sherrill is a bit more clever, so no one has called her out yet. It has been really upsetting to me to see groups like LCV and Emily’s List support her. Again, that’s the problem with no one talking about this. That’s why I am.
Sherrill is, let’s be clear, a centrist and that’s why she and Gottheimer were chosen by the Democratic Party. We cannot have a centrist in a state that is currently being led by a staunch progressive who is so progressive he is being targeted by the federal government for doing the right thing. We cannot have someone known to take major corporate dollars and prioritize increasing military spending against pleas from constituents and peers, who also heavily advocates for working across the aisle, in a state where our most vulnerable are protected only by executive order — and Sherrill has proven she views them as expendable.
Mikie Sherrill does not give firm answers on anything. If she won’t speak loudly and clearly now when she has hundreds of other Dems by her side, there is absolutely no reason to believe she will suddenly start sticking her neck out to speak out when she will be the only one standing. Contrary to her claims, she didn’t even lead the charge for Donald Trump’s first impeachment. She hesitated for months and then, even when she finally did speak up after many other Dems already had, still left herself a back door she could wriggle through if need be.
The real indication of why she is going to be actively detrimental to the trans community, not just not be a champion, was in her Indivisible One NJ interview. In it she effectively pushed a “don’t say trans” approach to “the trans issue”, as she put it. It was the only time she said the word “trans” or any related term the entire time, which was odd to me.
She spoke about how we shouldn’t be taking the bait and this is really a matter of privacy and that’s what we should be focused on. But she really just steered the conversation in a way that made it evident she meant to say we should not really focus on trans rights being targeted specifically, but rather rely on the umbrella terms and, I guess, hope for the best that people don’t target it like they do to chip away at almost everyone’s hard won freedoms over the years, because that’s worked so well for equal rights, voting rights, and abortion — the thing that used the privacy argument for decades, hitching millions of lives on the hope all people would just respect that interpretation of privacy.
Beyond that it was hard to follow Sherril because she didn’t say any relevant terms for the rest of the interview. She said something about not knowing about the complicated specifics regarding trans folks playing sports, which felt like a GOP cabinet hearing cop-out to me. She could not be bothered looking into one of the most urgent topics right now, particularly with the kind of flack she’d received because of her December vote. She then started talking about tier two vs tier one issues. She threw parents’ desire for healthcare for their children in there so I’m not entirely sure what she was getting at because of her lack of specificity. That is no reason for vagueness in a progressive group’s interview as a Democratic candidate in New Jersey when you’re trying to prove you’ve grown. What it sounded like was honestly easy to understand: she believes trans rights vs general healthcare for children is a zero sum game.
The fight for Medicaid started to get steam at the time she did the interview. She could have been saying gender affirming care is tier one with sports being tier two. This shouldn’t need to be confusing. But in my opinion, that’s not her call to make. And they’re not related legislatively in the sense that it’s not as if they can’t be handled at the same time. They are both incredibly vital to the well-being of trans folks/kids in their own way.
The issue of believing that more rights for the LGBTQ community means it comes at the expense of resources for other communities has been a big problem. It is a deliberate strategy by the opposition. By suggesting Democrats “not take the bait” in the sense of not talking about issues concerning the trans community at all or highlighting the attacks is obviously a way of contributing to erasure and THAT, if anything, IS taking the bait. Sherrill is so afraid of soundbites that she will not say the words at all so they can’t be used against her.
This tactic lets the opposition control the narrative while fostering a more dangerous and isolated community for the people you’re supposed to be protecting. The reason Florida started banning visible displays of LGBTQ folks was because reports started showing that even the most conservative, ignorant youths responded positively/not overtly negatively about expecting to have a LGBTQ classmates of some kind, of seeing that as the norm and not being overtly against any of the group — at least, in the way their parents were raised to be.
Studies have shown a correlation between even leftists who were for very strong protections for gay couples, but thought trans policy might be going too far. That is due to a lack of exposure to trans folks in person, in representation, or information. It’s all very well documented that keeping people hidden doesn’t make people safer or make bigots more accepting, while it’s actively harmful for everyone. However that’s the kind of regressive strategy Sherrill was advocating for. She even kept talking about how the current regime is targeting everyone who isn’t a white straight Christian wealthy man, saying that repeatedly, but never once using “cis”.
You can tell by the way she speaks that she is not comfortable using the terminology in that way, showing she really hasn’t put any of the work in by now. She won’t take a firm stance or say the words “trans” and “gender affirming care” to make it clear what she’s speaking about in progressive groups in a race other places do not pay attention to. She pretends to be firm about other topics that she hasn’t been on the Congressional floor. She hasn’t made up her mind yet or still doesn’t have enough information as to what’s going on and thus what needs to be done in this state. If this is where she’s still at NOW, one month from the primary when we have numerous candidates who are NOT afraid to make it clear that they are ready to go to the mat for the LGBTQ community, candidates who have demonstrated in their actions as well as how they speak that they have definitely put in the work to become true allies and CHAMPIONS in this fight, there’s absolutely no reason to even RISK it for someone who’s far less qualified to lead this state.
I’d like to reiterate that Gottheimer will be far worse. It is his intention to effectively sell the state and he has an even worse track record than Sherrill, but my point is that NEITHER can be allowed to continue unchallenged. Neither can be allowed to continue on and skirt by because they have the backing of dark money donors like AIPAC, Wall Street, and the health insurance industry, along with the Party’s support in a state where primaries are largely determined by name recognition.
Trans folks are fleeing to New Jersey from around the country. But many people do not realize this instrumental role we play in trans people’s lives. They also do not realize just how much of a difference a New Jersey primary can make. The funny thing is that everyone could just look to our state primary to see what voters want to see. We have every kind of Democrat running, but this would take a fair election where everyone is actually informed of all the candidates and their stances.
I will admit that I do have thoughts on other candidates. I do believe I know who the Democrat I will be voting for is. But I am not speaking about that here because I believe it is too important to raise awareness about the two incredibly dangerous candidates in this race than it is to try to persuade anyone towards a specific candidate.
