William Shakespeare’s phrase,
“Timing is everything,” is apt for this
election period for Vice President Kamala
Harris. At no other time would she be uniquely
positioned and overwhelmingly nominated as the
Democratic nominee for the presidency. Kamala
Harris’s life as Vice President took a
180-turn in 24 hours from her stumping for
Biden in Provincetown on Saturday, July 20, to
becoming the presidential nominee on Sunday,
July 21, when the news broke of Biden leaving
the race.
The Biden Victory Fund event at
the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum
showed a forced enthusiasm about a possible
November win with the Biden-Harris ticket.
However, Harris was wildly welcomed to P-town
with placards that read “VP-Town!” When the
news broke that Harris was now on the top of
the ticket, enthusiasm swelled, as shown by
the car horns that blew down Commercial
Street, the main drag, and people joyously
applauding and screaming.
However, since running for
office, Kamala Harris’s silence on LGBTQ+
issues has been appallingly deafening.
Kamala’s website has one sentence about us
under the heading “Protect Civil Rights and
Freedoms: As President, she’ll fight to pass
the Equality Act to enshrine
anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQI+
Americans in health care, housing, education,
and more into law.” The Advocate ran articles
about President and Vice Presidential debates,
not mentioning LGBTQ+ issues.
Taking us for
granted?
“I’m
getting used to saying Madame President. But
with that said, it is important for her to
recognize us and elevate the LGBTQ+
community. The fact that she has not spoken
definitively about our community is a
misstep in my mind,” Paul Glass stated, the
co-founder and Program Coordinator of LGBTQ+
Elders of Color. “I think it’s something she
needs to correct. I think she needs to have
a town hall and address the issue concerning
LGBTQ+ issues in particular.”
However, with less than a month
away, Harris and her campaign may feel she
lacks the time to hold a town hall meeting
with us. A nationwide survey revealed in
March, according to the GLAAD 2024 Voter Poll,
that 94 percent of LGBTQ+ Americans are
determined to cast their ballot in November.
With LGBTQ+ Americans mostly Democrats,
Harris’s groundswell of support from the
LGBTQ+ community immediately followed her
announcement in July, which comes as no
surprise. Also, immediately after announcing
her bid for the White House, an HRC press
release announced that over 1,100 LGBTQ+
leaders, celebrities, influencers, and
activists had signed on to a letter endorsing
Harris. “The community is sending a message
loud and clear: we are united in support of
the experienced, tough, pro-equality Vice
President Kamala Harris and will do everything
it takes to defeat Donald Trump and JD Vance,”
stated Human Rights Campaign President Kelley
Robinson. Harris’s support letter was
organized by Advocate for Transgender
Equality, Alice B Toklas LGBTQ Democratic
Club, Equality California, the Human Rights
Campaign, LGBTQ Victory Fund, LPAC, the
National LGBTQ Task Force, and others.
For two decades as a public
servant, Harris has been a staunch supporter
of LGBTQ+ rights, beginning with her tenure as
San Francisco’s district attorney in 2004 to
the present as the Biden-Harris administration
with the passing of many pro-LGBTQ+ policies
and initiatives. Some feel her track record
speaks for itself. However, others think it’s
not enough to rest on her laurels.
Unmet Trans
issues
“We are
dealing with someone who was thrown into
this position and role very last minute. I
don’t think there were a lot of ideas fully
baked into what the platform would be,”
Giselle Byrd shared with me. Byrd is the new
executive director of The Theater Offensive
in Boston and the first black transwoman to
head a major theater company in the country.
“She has
the iconic video talking about trans rights
and trans lives from when she ran many years
ago, but what about 2024? The life is
different. Our opportunities are different?
But we are still seeing the same sort of
injustices. Trans folks are still being
murdered. How are we being protected at a
federal level because there is not a lot of
protection for us? We are not thinking
beyond gay marriage.”
With anti-trans bills continuing
to be introduced into legislation across the
country to obliterate any traces of
transgender Americans from public life -
education, bathrooms, athletics, military,
healthcare, and legal recognition- Harris
cannot afford to not speak up on trans civil
rights while on the campaign trail, because
Trump is. The “Team Trump Agenda 47 Policy
Tour” clarifies its plan to revoke
gender-affirming care. The plan states it will
“stop the chemical, physical, and emotional
mutilation of our youth because no serious
country should be telling its children that
they were born with the wrong gender.”
Although a pro-LGBTQ+ ally,
Senator Harris made some missteps on
transgender advocacy. In 2015, she denied
gender-affirming surgery for a trans sister in
prison. In 2019, Harris co-sponsored the Fight
Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) and the
Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act (SESTA) with
27 Republican and Democrat senators. Had she
repealed FOSTA-SESTA, both Acts working
together would have decriminalized sex work,
created a safer and consensual work
environment online, provided financial
stability, and stopped sex trafficking.
What Harris
must do once in office
Harris has the LGBTQ+ vote in
the bag. However, once in office, we must use
our voting clout.
The LGBTQ+ community must push
Harris on a laundry list of issues. These
immediate ones that would exponentially
improve quality of life:
· Repeal FOSTA/SESTA to
decriminalize sex workers, allowing sex
workers the dignity of a safe work
environment.
· Protect gender-affirming care
because the government should not decide.
· Protect Respect for Marriage Act
2022 that expands same-sex and interracial
marriage rights against a Trump Supreme Court.
· Pass the Equality Act
prohibiting anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination
nationwide beyond employment and into every
aspect of our lives, like housing, federal
funding, and public education, to name a few.
We must stress to Harris that
democracy can only begin to work when those
relegated to the fringes of society can begin
to sample what those in society take for
granted as their inalienable right.
