Yes or no for the transphobes ...

I came across this too late to advise me (I voted 10 days ago) but pass it along in case it might be of use to some others.

The states colored magenta on this map are ones where major candidates have allied with the GOP/MAGA campaign of transphobia in this election season. (At least as of Sept. 8 -- I am late to this because I was locked up in post-fracture rehab when this came out. Map may have been updated.)

Trans-advocate Erin in the Morning explains why it should matter to decent people that some otherwise progressive Democrats are hedging or simply turning away from support for the human rights of trans people. 

The gravest long-term threat to transgender Americans is not just the Republican Party. It is also the campaign to strip support for transgender people out of all parties. Republicans fall in and out of power, and when they lose it, rights lost under their control can be reclaimed. 

But if the Democratic Party itself ever flips to being anti-trans, there is no one left to do the reclaiming. There will never be enough lawmakers who both hold power and support trans rights to repeal the damage, and every loss becomes permanent. It is a one-way ratchet, and it is terrifying.

It is not hypothetical, either. In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party, the ostensibly left-of-center party, completed exactly this flip, and since taking power it has enacted more horrors on the trans community than even the Conservatives before it. British trans people now have no major party to turn to. That is the endgame of the strategy currently being tested here in the United States.

In the linked post, she explains for the colored states who the capitulating and/or bigoted Dems are, offering those who might vote for them the choice to avoid them.

I had missed that our California governor candidate Xavier Becerra had put himself on what I think is the wrong side of the panic over trans participation in sports; if I'd known, I'd have skipped voting for him. He doesn't need me.

Of course, that's an easy choice. He's going to win, regardless of what a few of us do as a matter of conscience/necessity. And any Dem in office will be an easier target to drag on to the right side of inclusion than any GOPer. We know that; after all, it took until gay marriage was a foregone conclusion for Barack Obama to get around to supporting us. It was grassroots energy and legal smarts that to won that round, not our fearful Dem leader. 

In a state where the election was a cliffhanger and the choice was a MAGA villain or a chickenshit Dem, I would have a harder time refusing my vote for the latter. We don't vote for heroes -- we vote for whoever would be easier to influence in directions we think are right. I'm glad I don't live in Ohio where the gubernatorial choices really do stink. But I might vote for Acton even though she seems a genuine transphobe. Living in a flawed world ain't morally simple ...