A surprisingly tense midterm election in the United States has queer people across the country grappling with the uncertainty over how the fight for broader LGBTQ2S+ rights will continue in the country.
Traditionally, parties in power in the United States lose ground during midterm elections, so as Americans headed to the polls, many braced for the Democrats—the party in power—to have a long night without much electoral success. Instead, the country watched as the election proved to be much closer than any polls or pundits had imagined.
For LGBTQ2S+ Americans, this brought a mixed range of results depending on where they were in the country. But overall the midterms presented a chance to breathe—Republicans running on explicitly anti-LGBTQ2S+ policies would not control Congress, at least for now. From here, many states—such as California, Nevada and Arizona—will continue counting votes over the next week before winners are declared, and one high profile Senate race in Georgia will go to a runoff election in December.
“The reality is that extremists worked overtime this election cycle, pushing discriminatory and inflammatory narratives about LGBTQ+ people, women and people of colour, because they know we are the only thing standing between them and their extremist vision of America,” Joni Madison, Interim President of the Human Rights Campaign said in a statement after the initial results came in.
“But as voters made clear tonight—this outdated playbook remained as ineffective as it has in the past.”
While some national results went the way of the pro-LGBTQ2S+ party, Republicans scored some big wins in Florida and Texas, two states that have worked hard to enact anti-trans legislation as well as laws that stigmatize LGBTQ2S+ children.
Incumbent Governors Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott won commanding majorities after running on platforms that included banning trans youth athletes from competing on sports teams that match their gender identity, and criminalizing gender affirming care for trans youth.
Jordan, a trans woman living in Central Texas who preferred to be quoted by her first name only, tells Xtra that the disappointment from the statewide and national elections was palpable, as was the worry that trans people could be much less safe given the results.
“I watched Dems try to get a larger foothold in Texas and fall short in a lot of ways. Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton all held on to their seats,” she says.
These electoral victories are ones for politicians that continue to target transgender Texans in the name of electoral power. Now, she is worried that national organizations will see victories there and in Florida as proof that these communities are not worth investing in.
Leaving communities behind and having only ad hoc mutual aid projects to help people was a worry of the activist community as they braced for a poor national result for Democrats. Lyra Foster, a trans woman and attorney based in Georgia, said that activists were strategizing in the days before the midterms on how best to “deal with the consequences if transphobic scaremongering turned out to be an effective tactic.”
As activist communities were still dealing with how many civil-rights nonprofits were not prepared for the fallout of waves of anti-trans legislation, community organizers had been rallying to fill in gaps to prevent an “interstate refugee crisis,” she adds.
“If the Republicans had won big last night we might be expecting anti-trans attacks in every Republican controlled state. It really might not have been safe in half the country,” Foster says.
Thankfully those results did not come to pass, and Republicans quickly turning on each other to cast blame for mediocre results showed “a rebuke of anti-LGBTQ hate as an election strategy,” she added.
“At the very least the GOP is going to have to rethink that direction. And to be clear, we’re still ready if they don’t,” Foster said.
While the Democrats may not have held on to both houses of Congress, they did make inroads in many state legislatures in key states that were seen as potential linchpins for conflicts over the 2024 election. Kyra Schwartz, a trans woman from Philadelphia who also serves as the Democratic committeeperson for Philadelphia’s 38th Ward, spent the 2022 midterms in, enjoying the night for the first time as an elected official and told Xtra it was “really affirming” to see her neighbourhood turn out and work to help secure one of the biggest electoral victories for Democrats that night.
Senator John Fetterman flipped a Senate seat in Pennsylvania boosting the Democrats’ chances of retaining the chamber for the next two years. Pennsylvania as a whole also flipped its State House from a Republican to Democrat majority, which Schwartz says will help stop any anti-trans bills from making their way in the state.
“My polling place was a public elementary school with a trans flag prominently displayed, and lots of visibly trans people came to vote,” she says. “It really did warm my heart that things are already better for some of these kids.”
Visibly queer people could relish in the fact that, according to the Victory Fund, 2022 set a record of most LGBTQ2S+ candidates elected to public office in history. As votes continue to come in, that number is expected to rise well past the 340 candidates the Victory Fund noted on election night.
“Bigots tried their best to undermine our political power—but their hate backfired and motivated more LGBTQ people to run and win than ever before,” Annise Parker, President and CEO of Victory Fund said about the results.
“Tonight’s Rainbow Wave is a clear rebuke to the increased homophobia and transphobia sweeping our communities – and proves voters want to elect qualified LGBTQ leaders.”
In Minnesota, Shelby, who is non-binary and preferred to be quoted by their first name, shared with Xtra that they had tears in her eyes when they realized that they helped elect Leigh Finke, the first out transgender woman elected to the State House.
“I had the opportunity to not just vote for a trans person to represent me in government, which was exciting in itself, but for someone who is actively representing my local LGBT community in her values and policy positions,” they said about electing Finke, who received over 80 percent of the vote in the district.
“I know that the electoral outcomes weren’t as positive everywhere, but I wanted to share that I had some pretty strong feelings in the positive, specifically in terms of LGBT people being elected!”
The next few weeks will be tense with anxiety for many as results from this election will take days, possibly even weeks to be sorted out. Even as anti-LGBTQ2S+ legislators made their mark, it is unlikely to stop the consistent onslaught of bills that have emerged in recent years in many areas around the United States.
However, for one night, many in the community could breathe a little easier.
Why you can trust Xtra
