Over the past month, California Governor Gavin Newsom has been making headlines for all the right reasons: he’s led an effort to respond to Texas Republicans’ push to further gerrymander their state, used his profile to pressure Border Patrol and ICE, and found a very effective-and hilarious-way to get under Trump’s skin through his Press Office’s parodies of the president’s writing style. All of these actions have catapulted him to national stardom, where he’s taken on the role of leading the fight against the Trump administration.
However, to the trans community, his rise only brings fear. Because before these developments, he was trying to win over potential voters in a very different way: by abandoning the LGBTQ+ community.
In the United States, California has long had a reputation. And not just for its stereotyped sunny weather, surfer culture, and affluent, snobby culture, but for its liberal politics as well. California Democrats are synonymous-especially in more Republican-leaning areas-with the liberal style of politics conservatives detest. It’s so difficult to overcome that despite California’s large population and plethora of Democratic figures with a national profile, of the three presidents from California, none of them have been Democrats.
Evidently, Newsom is facing an uphill battle. So he’s set off to appear more palatable to conservatives, starting with LGBTQ+ issues. Beginning in 2024, he started attempting to suppress pro-LGBTQ+ bills while they were still in the legislature in order to keep him from having to either veto them-losing progressives-or sign them-angering conservatives. Then, he went public with his new opinions during a conversation with Charlie Kirk on his podcast earlier this year, calling trans athletes’ participation in girls’ and women’s sports ‘deeply unfair.’ And more recently, he signalled he changed his stance on gender-affirming care for minors as well.
Don’t let perfection be the enemy of progress.
Don’t let my human rights get in the way of your progress.
Help move the Overton window left or it will keep moving right.
Correct you do this by rejecting gavin and those like him who are false friends.
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How well did that go when Kamala was a cop? When Hillary was a corporate lib?
It’s possible to support someone for the good things they do and criticize them for the bad. But if you won’t do the former then the latter is meaningless.
The left is full of as many simple-minded black-and-white thinkers as the right. Our problem is that the dimwits on the right fall in line and the dimwits on the left cut their nose to spite their face.
😂 imagine using the two least popular candidates in the last 30 years as your position’s defense.
It worked out exactly like you’d expect they lost. Surprise!
If you don’t like it stop voting for shitty candidates like gavin and biden.
Haha this is exactly my point. Whiny babies didn’t like enough Kamala so chose to morally justify doing nothing to stop a fascist from running the government. This despite the fact that nearly all of her policies were significantly closer to theirs than the alternative. But I guess if a candidate crosses the same hard line as their competition, then just not participating will stop you from feeling bad I guess?
‘liking’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting i think you meant an anti Palestinian, anti trans, antiworker, and genocidal candidate.
It was hardly ‘shes not fascist’ the cunt was running around with fucking liz chaney for gods sake child.
Anyways thankfully i dont have to deal with you im happy to continue not voting for your shitty candidates.
Hey thanks for helping elect the candidate who is instead
Oh? She was against the Genocide? Pro Healthcare for all? Wanted to stop war? Wanted the rich to pay taxes? Wanted to change the immigration system to help people get here and get set up? Wanted to clear out the prisons in favor of programs to help people get back on their feet and become useful members of society? Wanted to stop bombing kids? Wanted to completely restructure the economy so that it works for the people and not the rich? Wanted to tear down the torture prisons? Wanted to completely reform drug laws? Wanted to put war-criminals in prison, even if they are rich and powerful politicians?
Because I didn’t get that impression from her campaign, but maybe I just missed it.
Oops, didn’t want to do a revolution, so basically equivalent to the alternative. Both sides same.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. When none of us have any rights left it won’t even matter anymore. I understand the need to draw this line and stick to it and we should not overlook his treatment of transgender people, but the fact of the matter is we don’t really get to pick and choose our allies right now. Personally, I have never liked the guy and never will, but he’s at least fucking trying to do something while other politicians bend over or stick their head in the sand and wait for someone else to do something.
Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is also my enemy. If someone is willing to sell out one group of people, they are also willing to sell out other groups.
And Newsome has been very clear that he’s willing to sell out multiple groups of people.
Kamala has been clear about selling out the palestinian people but eperyone kept believing her that she wouldn’t sell them out.
Right? I keep hearing people say that she only said that she would side with Israel to get votes, but she was actually really secretly against the genocide. Just like I saw people say that Biden was “working tirelessly” to stop the genocide. It’s been pretty obvious that wasn’t true, but I guess calling a spade a spade is too much for some people.
from https://citationsneeded.medium.com/news-brief-us-media-top-dems-assist-trump-and-israels-unprovoked-attack-on-iran-d391810dc29b
We’re dealing with a fascist takeover of our government right now. We haven’t forgotten you, we just have to work our way down from the bigger issues right now, which are illegal kidnappings, deportation, imprisonment and torture of innocent Americans on our own soil, the eradication of habaeus corpus, massive market manipulation, the defunding and sabotage of our education system, and the Constitution itself being wholly ignored by everyone in charge.
I completely sympathize with trans struggles, but they’re not the ones being kidnapped and tortured right now. Call it political triage, if you must.
Trans people are literally getting their passports revoked and altered. People are losing healthcare access, prisoners are getting transferred into all male prisons and basically getting green lit to be raped. Your ignorance of how bad shit is for us right now doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
Immigrants and US citizens are getting sent to concentration camps and sent to foreign countries. Everyone in America is losing their right to vote. What Newsom is doing is important for everyone. We shouldn’t forget how he’s treating you though, and he should never be president.
Trans people are included in all that as well, but for some reason never in the groups of people that deserve protection.
You do deserve protection, absolutely. Newsom is protecting you from the back while he’s stabbing you in the front. He’s all we have right now trying to keep the midterms from going to the right. If the right wins again, you’ll lose every single protection you’ve ever had. You may be on the list next to go to the camps. We have to back this decision, but also yes, never forget and don’t let him become president.
Edit: Also, no one is protecting the immigrants and US citizens right now either. The Texas dems that went to Illinois are the only other ones that I know of trying to offset the gerrymandering.
Newsom can’t be reelected as governor in 2026, neither Senator is up for reelection, and I don’t see Newsom running for Representative.
Literally no reason related to the midterms to not criticize the shit out of him. If trans people criticizing one of the most powerful governors in the US for being transphobic is what destroys the country then I think we were already there.
The midterms for the republicans gerrymandering and taking the senate and house. We’re fucked if they do that again. It might already be too late. But you knew that was what I was talking about though, yeah?
THANK YOU
Oh come on. Y’all would be silent should the day come where Newsom gets the primary, wins the presidency, and proceeds to keep most of Trump’s fascist power grab bullshit in play for his own enrichment. Not a peep should he leave all the ICE torture camps open, and should he either keep all us trans folk in them after DJT sends us there before his term ends, or else starts sending us in the first place if Trump never gets the opportunity to do so. Newsom’s a fucking snake and I’m absolutely sure he’d do to the Democrats as president what Keir Starmer did to the UK’s Labour party, a hand-in-hand “I Can’t Believe They’re Not Tories/Republicans”-assed continuation of all the conservatives’ laws and policies, with some aspects changed for the better and plenty changed for the worse, but still on the same downward spiral trajectory towards collapse. Pick a better fucking candidate in the primary, we don’t need to pick fucking Newsom.
Fine. Get stuck in your search for the perfect angel while fascism just rolls right over us 🙄
They said that they want someone who will:
But you say they are waiting for “the perfect angel”
Maybe that is why the Dems keep losing. All of those requests sounds like less than the bare minimum to me.
every dem has expanded the concentration camp. Trump came into office and all the tools were already there. This dem that reverses course on immigration is a fairy tale, they dont exist.
Thinking gavin will save you is the truly scary part. Dont like fascism? You have two options light shit on fire or vote for socialist candidates like bernie. Good luck!
Here’s the thing with US presidential elections: either the Democratic or Republican candidate will take office. It’s not right, it’s not good, but it’s true. If you want the candidate you want to win the election, you need to get that candidate nominated by one of those two parties. Primaries matter.
Once the primaries are over, you need to vote for the candidate you prefer out of those two. Voting outside of those two, or not at all, gives your electoral support to the candidate you don’t want to win.
Yes, you may well be forced to choose between bad and worse. But that’s the choice you have. To be clear, I really don’t want Newsom to rise for all sorts of reasons. However, I can’t deny that his tactics against Trump right now are brilliant, and taking on the Texas redistricting nonsense head on is a good thing.
Your human rights, along with a whole lot of other people’s, are in serious jeopardy right now. Is Newsom doing things right now that are supportive of those rights? Yes.
Incorrect as harris found out. Its best you stop living in this fairy land of yours.
If dems want to win they need to start meeting their base where its at.
People don’t vote this way and you can’t make them.
What if I don’t want either to win?
What a stupid country.
I hate it here.
You’ll get no argument from me on that.
And the worst part is that by constantly having to choose between bad and worse it will only get stupider.
Get armed. Make friends.
Are you aware that you are posting this to Blahaj Zone?
How many dead trans people are acceptable in the name of progress?
This isn’t a hypothetical. Newsom is engaging in behavior that measurably worsens mental health among trans people. Or for anyone that doesn’t need a fucking scientific study for basic moral insight, political leaders legitimizing attacks on trans people very reasonably makes trans people live in fear.
So how much progress makes it worth terrorizing trans people? What’s the minimum you’d take in exchange? Do you think you’re actually getting that out of Newsom right now? Where’s the line that will make you go ‘okay, we’ve made enough progress, now it’s trans peoples’ turn’?
Does that point even exist for you?
Or was your comment just a thought terminating cliche?
Is Newsom better or worse on that issue than the alternative? If you think he’s worse, then I wonder who you think is the alternative?
Or is your comment also a thought terminating cliche itself?
It isn’t even the fucking midterms and I’m being told to eat shit and vote for someone who isn’t even the candidate yet, god I love politics.
Do you know what a primary is?
If we can’t criticize politicians before, during, or after the primary then it sounds a whole lot like we just can’t criticize them.
Who is the alternative? Seriously. I never said shit about voting.
I am open to these conversations and I am no fan of Newsom. That said, I am absolutely willing to give credit to people for the good things they do AND criticize them for the bad.
I don’t find it productive to be saying that it is completely disqualifying for someone to have a bad policy position that is a significant improvement over the status quo.
If you’re not talking about voting then the alternative to what? Jesus.
If he was coming after your kids’ healthcare and access to an equal education you’d probably feel differently. But as always, trans people do not fit into the analysis of whether the status quo is improving or worsening and for whom.
Who else has the type of platform and the tools available to do these things that Newsom is getting credit for here that this article is referring to?
There are thousands of lawyers trying to get the regime to follow the law. That’s awesome but a totally different thing. They’re getting more of my dollars than any politician right now.
Zohran is exactly the type of politician I’d love to be doing this type of thing against Trump (and he kinda is) but he’s just running for mayor, while Newsom is currently the governor of the most powerful state in the union.
Bernie and AOC captured us all on their tour, but what are they doing now? Should we be redirecting eyes from Newsom’s shenanigans to them?
Really, what I am getting at is articles that are basically “hey, stop giving credit to person doing this good thing because they did this bad thing” are not helpful if they don’t redirect energy to something better. They’re just sucking the air out of the room.
I am arguing for critical support (the actual meaning, not the meme version which is unconditional support) rather than disqualification.
I’m saying the problem is that any criticism of Newsom’s transphobia is met with responses ranging from dismissive to hostile. If actual critical support of him existed that would be great, but I see little evidence of that. Politics as fandom means anyone who doesn’t like the favorite of the week is The Enemy, even when the favorite of the week is putting them in the line of fire.
Conversely: don’t let just any progress subvert your pursuit of perfection.
Just because Newsom is better than Trump does not mean you should accept his primacy before the candidates are listed. At least wait to see who else is running before attempting to curtail criticism.
Newsome is probably one of the worst candidates they could run.
The right hates him because he’s the governor of California.
The moderates are ambivalent about him.
And the left hates him because he keeps trying to pander to the right.