Transphobia is wrong always. Newsom's not perfect. No person is. But I will gladly vote for a roll of toilet paper instead of a MAGA. Purity tests are dangerous.
Replies
No. They aren't. Decades of the tie game where you shrugged and said "Well at least he's not the other guy" has allowed for all of this. Power needs to be swiped from the hands of those in charge and those like you who get on their damn knees to enable them.
aug 15, 2025, 7:17 pm • 3 0 • view
Purity tests, in the context you describe, aren't tests at all - rather a device to reconcile willful and deliberate wrongdoing. Bigotry or any other grievous moral lapses should disqualify a candidate from consideration, regardless of their other qualities.
aug 15, 2025, 8:48 pm • 1 0 • view
A purity test is when a voter rejects their party's candidate in the general because they don't meet all of the voter's concerns. That always gives the vote to the opponent. Grievous moral lapses should always be disqualifying.
aug 15, 2025, 11:34 pm • 1 0 • view
How frequently are one or more of those unmet concerns grievous moral lapses other voters are willing to overlook?
aug 16, 2025, 12:01 am • 0 0 • view
How is willingness to actively sacrifice the basic human rights of a group of people not "a grievous moral lapse"?
aug 16, 2025, 9:00 am • 3 0 • view
Which candidate are you talking about, and who did they sacrifice? I'm not being sarcastic; I really want to understand your point.
aug 16, 2025, 1:16 pm • 1 0 • view
Gavin Newsom has an extremely mixed record on trans rights. While he has supported some positive measures, he completely sold out the community by accepting the "fairness in sports" language used by the right as the thin end of the wedge. There is no good scientific evidence that trans women 1/
aug 16, 2025, 1:23 pm • 2 0 • view
have an advantage in sports; see @kirstimiller30.bsky.social for actual solid information on this. It is usually blown out of all proportion. He banned trans kids from engaging in sport at school to appease the fascists. As the parent of a kid who loved sport and was devastated when he had to give2/
aug 16, 2025, 1:29 pm • 2 0 • view
up soccer for lack of an inclusive team where we live (not the US fortunately) at a time when his mental heath needed all the support it could get, I've seen some of the impact of this kind of cruelty, an impact which is far greater and more widespread than any impact the tiny number of trans 3/
aug 16, 2025, 1:31 pm • 2 0 • view
elite athletes could have on "fairness in sport". Your replies are full of trans people telling you they feel unsafe with Newsom. Why are you not listening to them? 4/4
aug 16, 2025, 1:33 pm • 1 0 • view
Well, see, we're heading into the *primary*, where we choose a guy. Deciding that it's somehow already Vance vs Newsom, 3 years before that primary even begins, is a bit strange. I'm saying, vote for Pritzker or Waltz or AOC in the primary. They're trustworthy. Then we have a better candidate, yes?
aug 15, 2025, 4:27 pm • 29 0 • view
Of course! And it is too early to think about 2028--we need to focus on 2026 right now. I was just making a point about the danger of purity tests.
aug 15, 2025, 4:32 pm • 2 0 • view
I mean maybe you should lean into them, try finding a candidate who actually does meet the standards set for them. After all saying "fuck the purity tests, vote for this candidate anyway" didn't work last time, maybe "listen to the purity tests and find a better candidate" will.
aug 15, 2025, 5:14 pm • 6 0 • view
Actually, it did work last time--for Trump. Too many people didn't vote for Kamala (or didn't vote at all) because she wasn't exactly what they wanted. Look where that got us. The time to find a better candidate is during the primaries--and I'm all for that.
aug 15, 2025, 5:50 pm • 0 0 • view
You mean "because she supported genocide". Call it what it is. It's not some petty disagreement, it's a CRITICAL substantive one.
aug 15, 2025, 5:54 pm • 4 0 • view
Who supported genocide?
aug 15, 2025, 6:21 pm • 0 0 • view
Harris, Biden, Trump, and every other politician complicit with Israel's genocide in Gaza. But ESPECIALLY anyone with access to presidential authority or seeking to gain it who doesn't use/pledge to use it to cut off American funding of the genocide. If they had done that it would LONG since be over
aug 15, 2025, 6:24 pm • 1 0 • view
which of your rights are you willing to sacrifice in this primary, since we’re avoiding “purity tests”?
aug 15, 2025, 5:32 pm • 18 0 • view
In the primary we can vote for our favorite. It's in the general that we need to vote Dem no matter who the candidate is. Otherwise we give a vote to the GOP.
aug 15, 2025, 5:47 pm • 0 0 • view
Sorry, you cannot expect minorities to vote for a candidate that wants to strip them of civil rights. If you insist on nominating a candidate that’s wants to do that, it shows that you don’t care about beating the GOP, and expect for minorities not to vote for said candidate.
aug 15, 2025, 8:17 pm • 7 0 • view
Which Dem candidate wants to strip minorities of their civil rights?
aug 15, 2025, 11:36 pm • 0 0 • view
Gavin Newsom, for example.
aug 15, 2025, 11:37 pm • 4 0 • view
you avoided my question. since trans women’s rights are a “purity test,” which of YOUR rights are you willing to sacrifice in the election to get a Democrat in office?
aug 15, 2025, 5:49 pm • 19 0 • view
Hey, now, let's not get hasty. She's very willing to sacrifice other people's rights, not her own. Then she'd have to suffer instead of us lowly transes.
aug 15, 2025, 11:21 pm • 5 0 • view
as always, libs ask things of marginalized people that they’d never tolerate being asked of themselves
aug 16, 2025, 11:38 am • 3 0 • view
I get where you're coming from except your characterization of criticism as "purity tests." While Dems like myself will always vote against MAGA, remember that 90 million people didn't vote at all. It wasn't because Kamala was too "pure" on trans rights. If it was, they would have voted for Trump.
aug 16, 2025, 1:31 pm • 0 0 • view
I think it was because they didn't like either candidate, and didn't realize that not voting was giving Trump an advantage.
aug 16, 2025, 2:04 pm • 0 0 • view
Nope... we had just lived through Genocide Joe. Watching AOC & Bernie still arming the Iron Dome as apartheid Israel is still committing a holocaust leaves me with doubts that Harris would have called for the arrest of protesters like she did with single mothers.
aug 16, 2025, 2:33 pm • 0 0 • view
Yep, I think so too. And given that polling consistently shows the factors that influenced people's choice to not vote were the economy & Gaza (not trans rights), candidates who concede on trans right won't gaining anything, except a perception that they're morally and ethically weak.
aug 16, 2025, 2:22 pm • 0 0 • view
This is already a problem for Newsom, who has a history of throwing trans and homeless people under the bus, and launched his podcast by platforming white supremacists. It was weird & unsettling; doesn't inspire confidence as a potential President. We can do better. We have to. Wishing you well.
aug 16, 2025, 2:27 pm • 0 0 • view
“Transphobia is always wrong but…” That is a problem. Civil rights are not a purity test. Newsom opposes civil rights for trans people. Newsom is MAGA within the Democratic Party. Nominate a better candidate or expect people not to vote for
aug 15, 2025, 8:16 pm • 13 1 • view
For him*
aug 15, 2025, 8:28 pm • 4 0 • view