For transgender Americans looking for help or protection from the Biden administration in its dying days, Raquel Willis has a stark assessment.
"Unfortunately, the signals coming from our government right now, under a Democratic president, are telling us that we’re essentially on our own," the 33-year-old activist tells The Independent.
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What does Willis think of the standard Democrat line that the GOP’s war on trans is only a "distraction" from the "real issues"? Willis pauses and considers her words carefully before answering.
"In this moment, it is not enough to simply call anti-trans attacks from Republicans a distraction," she says. "Perhaps if this was 2015, 2016… there might be an argument.
"But lives have already been targeted and changed by these efforts. So we are beyond that point, and we can’t confront discrimination with inaction."
The Harris campaign, she adds, set a "horrible example" by declining to respond to the GOP’s late-election blitz of anti-trans TV ads, on which the party is estimated to have spent at least $215m.
"That was a loss before the election even happened," says Willis.
"If the Democratic Party wants to claim to be representative of progress and of the Left, it cannot leave communities on the chopping block, because it will continue to lose if it does so."
Mentions Democratic Party (US)
For the last few years, the GOP has coalesced around an idea that would short-circuit essentially all trans health care in America: banning federal funds from going to businesses that provide health care specific to changing one’s sex or gender identity, including hormones and surgeries. It would essentially signal to the private sector that if it wants federal dollars, it needs to stay away from sex- or gender-affirming care, and bow down to right-wing pundits who aim to, in their own words, “eradicate” and “erase” this form of health care.
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Bans like these can lead to the private sector discontinuing behaviors altogether — and once they are in place, they are hard to get rid of: The Hyde Amendment, enacted in the 1970s, led to most abortions no longer being performed in hospitals, and is continually renewed each year.
Medical groups and civil rights advocates in D.C. tell Rolling Stone they believe that if a Hyde-level ban on federal funding were enacted, many hospitals will simply prioritize federal dollars over continuing this highly specialized form of medical care. So much medicine is performed through hospital systems and universities that this could mean ending access for many.
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“I think if they had to make the choice of, ‘Do we provide this care and potentially have to close our doors to everybody,’ they probably won’t do it,” says Asa Radix, head of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. “It’s very disturbing. Legislation like this — even if it hasn’t passed — creates an environment where people are incredibly afraid. This is the type of issue where people actually feel suicidal. Are we going to see folks dying by suicide because potentially of laws like this being passed?”
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Right now many in the LGBTQ+ advocacy community, as well as some Democratic lawmakers and staff, are quietly terrified the party might let Republicans enact it anyway, should they be forced to choose between funding the government or allowing the medical system to continue to provide this care unabated.
At a minimum, anxious Democrats and advocates believe that party leaders will capitulate on trans health care coverage in federal funding negotiations on the margins, allowing language that bans government-backed insurance plans from covering these services.
This conflict is actually playing out before Trump has taken office or the GOP controls the Senate. Democrats just this week compromised on a military authorization bill that will ban TRICARE and other Defense Department health plans from covering care for servicemembers’ trans children.
Some world-class hand-wringing going on in Washington. Take that, fascism! We are resolute in our misgivings about supporting you every step of the way!
The 2025 NDAA, which authorizes an astronomical military budget of $895 billion, contains numerous policy items including a 4.5% pay raise across the board, a more substantial 14.5% raise for junior service members, and over $600 million in military funding for Israel. It also includes multiple sections that would place new restrictions on gender-affirming medical care for military families on government TRICARE health plans, the military’s health insurance program for active duty members. Under Sections 708 and 709 of the bill, no Department of Defense funds or facilities may be used to “perform or facilitate sex change surgeries,” and TRICARE plans may not provide hormone therapy, puberty blockers, or “other medical interventions for the treatment of gender dysphoria that could result in sterilization” to anyone under 18. (Right-wing sources have increasingly pushed false and misleading claims that puberty blockers and hormones lead to sterilization.) Another section would prohibit the Department of Defense from establishing any new positions “relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion,” or from adding those responsibilities to existing DoD positions.
On Wednesday, members of the House approved the NDAA in a 281-140 vote, CBS reported. 81 Democrats voted in favor of the budget, while 16 Republicans voted against it. The bill will now be sent to the Senate for another vote.
Normally, party leaders “whip” members into voting one way or another based on their party’s collective goals — but House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said he would not whip Democratic votes for or against the NDAA on Wednesday, even though the bill contains overtly anti-trans policy (for the second year in a row). “We’re not whipping on the National Defense Authorization Act. It’s a member-to-member, case-by-case analysis in terms of people making decisions as to what is the right thing to do,” Jeffries told reporters ahead of the vote, according to The Hill. Jeffries added that the bill contains “a lot of positive things” but “some troubling provisions in a few areas, as well.” The New York representative slammed Republican extremism in a press conference on Wednesday, but also told reporters that he and his party “are ready, willing and able to find bipartisan common ground with the incoming administration on any issue.” Jeffries was among the 81 Democrats who voted in favor of the NDAA on Wednesday.
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In a series of Bluesky posts on Wednesday, Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott called the gender-affirming care ban “reprehensible” and called on Republicans to “prioritize national security and servicemembers, not culture wars,” but voted in favor of the bill that day. As The Hill reporter Brooke Migdon observed, 50 other Democrats who signed a September letter denouncing the NDAA’s anti-LGBTQ+ provisions voted to advance it this week.
Er… I think you'll find they can.
“We are in possibly the second-biggest surge of the pandemic if you look at wastewater levels,” said Dr. Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, who runs a long-Covid clinic at the University of Texas, San Antonio, and has had ongoing Covid symptoms since August 2022. “There is no urgency to this. No news. No discussion in Congress. There is no education.”
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Since the Biden administration declared the end of the national emergency in May, Americans across the political spectrum have largely followed the example set by the government and entirely disposed of any level of Covid precautions. Liberal and left-wing outlets have participated in the normalizing of Covid too, dismissing or even ostracizing people who still take precautions as if they are tin-hat conspiracy theorists. “We can’t be in lockdown forever,” has become a common refrain, as if wearing a mask on the subway constitutes “lockdown.”
In September, Biden himself participated in the spread of this kind of harmful disinformation when he declared the pandemic “over” on 60 Minutes. “If you notice, no one’s wearing masks,” he said. “Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape.” This is, essentially, governing via “vibes”—so much for “following the science
Slate politics writer Alex Sammon wrote that "close watchers now expect AIPAC to spend at least $100 million in 2024 Democratic primaries, largely trained on eliminating incumbent Squad members from their seats."
Sammon said that Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), and Summer Lee (D-Pa.)—"the most outspoken and unapologetically leftist contingent of the Democratic Party in national office"—are among AIPAC's top targets.
"The price of defending apartheid keeps going up," quipped Palestinian American writer and political analyst Yousef Munayyer in response to the report.
Staffers from more than two dozen Democratic offices say they are receiving an unprecedented number of calls and emails demanding for members to support a cease-fire — an onslaught for which their caucus was wholly unprepared.
Following the Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel by Hamas militants, up to three weeks passed ― and the death toll from Israel’s retaliatory strikes reached the thousands ― before many offices even formulated an official response. “Let it go to voicemail” was the prevailing guidance in several offices, one staffer said.
The yawning mismatch between voters’ and members’ sentiments on this issue strikes many staffers as outrageous.
“This building is not listening,” said one Democratic aide. “I’ve never seen such a disconnect between where voters and constituents are and where Congress is, and that’s saying something because there’s always a disconnect.”