Truly superb job by Sen. Tim Kaine here…unfortunately (but predictably?) followed by a petulant display by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), which is SO revealing (and not in a good way!) of where Republicans are coming from these days. Check it out (“At today’s Senate Health Committee hearing, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) decried Republicans’ statements on transgender citizens, and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) objected to Kaine’s characterization.”) – and again, well done and powerful by Sen. Kaine!
Sen. Tim Kaine: “There was an election in Texas last week and we had a Democrat win a primary and the president’s right-hand chief adviser, Steve Miller, decided to tweet out something negative about the winner of that primary and and he tweeted out that he’s transgender. Now, that’s a lie. The the guy who won the race isn’t transgender. But the president’s chief adviser was like, ‘what is the most hateful thing I can say about someone to try to make others hate him, too?’ He didn’t say he wants to take your guns away. He didn’t say he wanted to raise your taxes. He didn’t say he was an extremist. He said he’s transgender.
We just had a governor’s race in in Virginia where our governor, Abigail Spanberger, won by about 15 points. The main attack against her on her opponent’s ads was attacking her because she was pro-trans. It wasn’t really based on any vote or anything in particular, but again, there was a choice made – what is the group of people that we most want to kick around and can we connect this gubernatorial candidate to that group?
There’s a lawsuit that’s pending right now about the DoD’s decision to kick out anybody who is transgender and force them to retire. And that’s bad enough, but guess what the Air Force did? The Air Force not only forced transgender members to retire, they then retracted the retirement order because, oh wait, if you retire, you get retirement benefits. And instead, they classified the trans members not as retired, but separated in a way that they wouldn’t get retirement benefits, even though most had served their country for plus years. And the separation code was you’re a national security risk. You’ve served this country honorably, you’re a national security risk because you’re transgender. I worry that this hearing is in that context.
The thing about Virginia…Virginians rejected this campaign against the gubernatorial candidate because she was pro-trans. Because Virginians had a memory and the memory was this: throughout Virginia politics after the founding era – where it was Jefferson and Madison, Monroe, who were the great leaders of our country – we went into about a year political eclipse on the national stage because we made our politics about kicking around marginalized, oppressed people – in Virginia’s case to African-Americans. And that was the dominant feature in Virginia politics for about 150 years. Who can we kick around? Who can we direct hate towards? And that led – what did it get to Virginia? I mean, we were bottom per capita income when I was born. Thankfully, we’ve turned the corner on that. And thankfully, Virginians could see that for what it was Attacking on trans people is sort of like the new version of kicking around who we used to kick around. Virginians rejected it.
Last thing I’ll just say is this. If you’re a trans kid watching this hearing, if you have friends who are trans kids, if you have family who are trans kids, if you’re not trans, but you’re grappling, as Miss Cole so accurately put it, like you’re a teenager, you’re an adolescent, your body’s changing, you’re confused, and you’re trying to figure it out. There is some intentional effort to make you feel bad about yourself, but you got a lot of people who love you. You got a lot of people who support you. You probably have more people who love and support you than you know. You might think, ‘I can’t talk to my parents about this.’ You know what? Parents understand a lot. And even if you can’t necessarily find sympathy with your parents, you can find sympathy with an aunt or an uncle or a sibling or a friend or a counselor. You’re a beautiful, precious person. I agree with what Miss Cole said. You know, the way you’re made, you’re made and you’re precious and worthy of love as you are. You know, you got a lot of people who love and care about you. And so, don’t believe that the issues you’re grappling with are issues you grapple with in isolation because other kids just like you are grappling with just the same things. And there’s a lot of people who want to help you.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA): “This Republican senator emphatically rejects the idea that we’re trying to make a certain group of people an example of that which we should like not like for political purposes. I actually take offense at that! And Miss Cole, your testimony is so powerful. That’s who we should be concerned about.”
![Virginia Campaign Finance Numbers for June 2019 Coming In… [UPDATED 7/16]](https://bluevirginia.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/money.jpg)
