Senator Cavanaugh for President
A week ago someone asked me who I would support for president if it wasn’t Joe Biden. To be quite honest, try as I did I literally couldn't answer the question because I'm so perpetually unimpressed with the American political landscape. I finally have an answer. I would follow Nebraska State Senator Machaela Cavanaugh to the freaking moon if she asked me to.
This has been one of the hardest years since I transitioned, bringing about constant feelings of panic and worry. I find myself staying up late, totally unable to fall asleep with a sinking nauseous feeling in my stomach. As a result, I find I drink twice as much coffee as I used to, and I have to solve weird coding problems as palette cleansers after work. I have spoken to so many trans people about their daily terror and unending anxiety about the future, and I’ve spoken to youth who tell me, when asked “how are you?” that they can’t stop thinking about the fact that it may be illegal to be themselves when they get older. And I have watched people I love and respect break down into tears, myself alongside them, as a torrential downpour of hate rains down.
But in all of this, nothing has given me much in the way of hope. Therefore I find it almost impossible to integrate into that reality the fact that State Senator Machaela Cavanaugh, is three weeks into what is a demonstrably heroic filibuster to block LB574, a hateful bill misleadingly and offensively named the “Let Them Grow Act”, which would ban gender-affirming care for trans, nonbinary and gender diverse youth across Nebraska.
I never want to speak for other people, but I know in my heart that I am not alone having shed happy tears of gratitude watching someone do something that, if we’re being honest, is really unpopular at the moment.
In a year where I have been consistently and permanently disappointed by allies who seem mostly paralyzed into perpetual inaction despite trans people begging them to step up, this is something I just didn’t expect. Independent of the potential effects on her career, I would bet money that an unending stream of abuse and threats are going her way right now. They likely will for a very long time following this unless this broken country changes so dramatically as to be unrecognizable from its history. Which is why— if I’m being totally honest— I assumed that Senator Cavanaugh was transgender when I first read the headline.
As a flaming progressive in one of the most allegedly blue states in the US (this deserves a huge caveat as we inexplicably had Charlie Baker for nearly a decade), it was totally unimaginable that someone in Nebraska would willingly step into the abuse that follows the limelight at this time in history. When I heard her speak and listened to why she was willing to pull out the most controversial tool in legislative procedure to defend my community I cried. I’m actually crying right now as I type this.
I would be remiss if you walked away from this post thinking that Sen. Cavanaugh was the only lawmaker doing something this session so let me be clear: we have seen some heroics this legislative session. In the middle of incalculable cruelty, incredible fierce women have continually stepped up to throw down in defense of LGBTQ+ lives, especially LGBTQ+ children. This isn’t the only time I’ve cried. When Kentucky State Senator Karen Berg spoke about her brilliant trans son who died by suicide because of this anti-trans landscape (read: was murdered by hate), I ugly cried. When badass Montana State Representative Zooey Zephyr and Virginia Delegate Danica Roem refused to be silenced about the untold number of lives these bills will take, I cheered out loud. And when US Representative Lois Frankel (D-FL), correctly and necessarily pointed out how absurd it is for the GOP to have the audacity to pretend that anything they do is about “protecting women”, I did the same.
“If this Legislature collectively decides that legislating hate against children is our priority, then I am going to make it painful — painful for everyone. I will burn the session to the ground over this bill.”
But this is something I truly didn’t see coming. This is watching someone put themselves directly in the way of the political machinery of eradicationism and refuse to move. I have no doubt, 3 weeks into this marathon filibuster that if she had to sleep there, she would, and I would bet money right now that there’s a kid in Omaha who has chosen to live as a result. Because in all of this, that’s what this is about. We talk about suicide all the time, and often in such a confusing way that it gets used against us or suggests that we’re inherently unwell. As a trans person, and a therapist with a background in suicide prevention, I can assure you that people do not die because they are trans. They die because other people cannot accept them. Every single time an adult gets up onto their massive platform and proclaims their support, they are performing a type of preventative intervention that is practically unmatched in efficacy and power. It turns out, our words do sort of matter.
For those whose lives aren’t jeopardized, these anti-trans bills do something else. They rob trans youth of the potential joy of being trans, because despite what State Sen. Kathleen Kauth wants you to believe, being trans can actually be kind of awesome. I wake up every day absolutely thrilled that I live a life which is actually mine. Can it be annoying? Sure. Do some of us have to take medication, the ever-feared “medicalization” that people like Kauth won’t stop talking about? Yes. But I also take fluoxetine every day and I probably will until I die. Nobody seems to be losing their minds about that, either.
To be honest, I’m not a fan of electoral politics. I’m also not usually a fan of filibusters. They were wildly abused by the GOP to hamstring the Obama administration, prompting our former president to call them a “Jim Crow relic” (I mean, fair.). I believe that as a tool it ultimately needs to be reformed if not completely dismantled, and it likely would have been if fellow social worker Kyrsten Sinema hadn’t been cosplaying as a progressive in a district and state where her vote really mattered. But if the GOP is going to use it every time Democrats try and do even the most mundane reforms, then Democrats need to grow a spine and use it too. In fact, if we’re going to do away with it, we should use it more often because the GOP will change nothing until it makes their lives difficult, too. And if ever, ever there was a time to use it, it would be to save kids’ lives.
Thank you Senator Cavanaugh. I look forward to your inauguration.
