Op-Ed: The Rights of Transgender People should be reaffirmed, but we shouldn’t have to do it
Sunday, March 30, 2025
Tonight (March 27, 2025), the Lake Forest Park City Council unanimously passed a resolution reaffirming the rights of transgender people in the City.
It is an excellent resolution. Most Councilmembers, the Mayor, and several citizens attending commented on how important it is to do this. Shoreline and other local cities have done the same. But it is shameful that people need to do this. I offered the following comments before the vote in Lake Forest Park.
Politically, socially, and economically, these are troubling times. Among all the many misuses of power being brutally and blatantly used by the President and by others in his administration and in many local and state administrations controlled by Republicans, one of the most egregious is the attacks on transgender people.
Fascists and others who support or who act like them often pick a scapegoat for the focus of their hatred. The tactic is designed to get a mob to side with them against people who are different in some way and to distract the masses while the leaders take more power and resources from everyone for the use of the elite.
In Nazi Germany it was the Jews, homosexuals, and Romani. Today in America, they target transgender people (and also immigrants, people of color, and others). If they succeed, more hatred for more groups will follow.
Actions to take away the rights of transgender people are multiplying across America. It takes courage to speak out against this and to reaffirm one’s support for people perceived as different. Doing so really helps. It helps transgender people, and it helps all of us recognize our common humanity, despite how we look, who we love, what we think, or how we choose to live.
We cannot protect people who are trans from all hatred and consequences, but we can speak out on their behalf. They do not need any special rights, just plain old human rights.
“Rights” are not something governments can give or take anyway. They are inherent to being human, to being alive. It is sad that we have to keep reminding the world that all people deserve equal rights, but I am glad that I live in a city where people and leaders are willing to speak up when needed.
I encouraged the Council to pass this resolution and to keep reminding staff and citizens in Lake Forest Park that we will not tolerate discrimination on any basis. I suggested the City hand out copies of the resolution with all applications for passports with a short note explaining that even though the current federal government does not respect the right to be who you are, this City does.
This community, the schools, and especially our youth are supportive when people come out or transition. At least here, most people tolerate difference. Maybe we can learn from our youth that, in reality, we are all different in some way. Tolerance of difference with real equality and equal protection under the law is the basis for a real democracy.
Politically, socially, and economically, these are troubling times. Among all the many misuses of power being brutally and blatantly used by the President and by others in his administration and in many local and state administrations controlled by Republicans, one of the most egregious is the attacks on transgender people.
Fascists and others who support or who act like them often pick a scapegoat for the focus of their hatred. The tactic is designed to get a mob to side with them against people who are different in some way and to distract the masses while the leaders take more power and resources from everyone for the use of the elite.
In Nazi Germany it was the Jews, homosexuals, and Romani. Today in America, they target transgender people (and also immigrants, people of color, and others). If they succeed, more hatred for more groups will follow.
Actions to take away the rights of transgender people are multiplying across America. It takes courage to speak out against this and to reaffirm one’s support for people perceived as different. Doing so really helps. It helps transgender people, and it helps all of us recognize our common humanity, despite how we look, who we love, what we think, or how we choose to live.
We cannot protect people who are trans from all hatred and consequences, but we can speak out on their behalf. They do not need any special rights, just plain old human rights.
“Rights” are not something governments can give or take anyway. They are inherent to being human, to being alive. It is sad that we have to keep reminding the world that all people deserve equal rights, but I am glad that I live in a city where people and leaders are willing to speak up when needed.
I encouraged the Council to pass this resolution and to keep reminding staff and citizens in Lake Forest Park that we will not tolerate discrimination on any basis. I suggested the City hand out copies of the resolution with all applications for passports with a short note explaining that even though the current federal government does not respect the right to be who you are, this City does.
This community, the schools, and especially our youth are supportive when people come out or transition. At least here, most people tolerate difference. Maybe we can learn from our youth that, in reality, we are all different in some way. Tolerance of difference with real equality and equal protection under the law is the basis for a real democracy.
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12 comments:
Thank you! We must speak up and defend the people in our community and let everyone know that hate will not be tollerated. Speaking up is so important. I am so appreciative of your letter.
Linking the Nazi’s “Final Solution”, and their attempted eradication of the Jewish people, with proposed restrictions on transgender individuals is morally reprehensible. It cost the Democrats the 2024 election.
Thank you Bill for these excellent thoughts. I agree whole heartedly!
Such hysteria. Don't these city councils have more things to do than to sit around virtue signaling? Trans citizens have had zero rights taken away and by "rights" I mean legal rights. City councils should be more concerned with potholes and crime.
What rights have been taken away? The right of female identifying men to shower with women, invade female safe-spaces and compete in women’s sports?
Thank you writing all that I have been thinking and feel more empowered to speak out!
"Fascists and others who support or who act like them often pick a scapegoat for the focus of their hatred. The tactic is designed to get a mob to side with them against people who are different in some way and to distract the masses while the leaders take more power and resources from everyone for the use of the elite."
What's richly ironic about this op-ed is that the author uses the exact arguments he decries in picking a scapegoat for the focus of his own hatred. He's so blinded by his antipathy for Republicans that he writes this piece to distract the public about how our state and local leaders have consolidated power virtually unimpeded for the last decade under Democratic party governance.
Our single party machine in Olympia/King County, and the local level have been systematically raising your taxes, inventing new bureaucracies, siphoning off public resources to the politically connected, and picking and choosing which civil rights of yours to defend and which to infringe. Does it trouble the author that Dow Constantine nominated over half the board to Sound Transit, who subsequently made him CEO of the same organization with a half million dollar salary? Somehow I doubt it.
Reasonable people of all political stripes are appalled at the mockery made of girls' sports, when a student who was born male and benefited from male puberty runs a solid 10% faster than every cisfemale competitor. Recently, a 13 year old Jamaican boy sprinted the 100 meters faster than every adult female competitor in history except for two. Disallowing MTF students from female competitions is an issue of basic fairness, not an avatar of fascism.
Bill this is so well said. I know many personally who are living in crushing and growing anxiety and fear. It is an important comfort to have informed, well-stated support at the city level. It is a sad abomination that we have to remind fellow humans of the basic values of empathy and respect for those more vulnerable than ourselves.
Thank you Bill Leon!
To paraphrase :
First they came for the transgender and I did not speak out—because I was not transgender.
Then they came for the gays and I did not speak out—because I was not LGBTQIA+.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
—Original by Martin Niemöller
The greedy, destructive tactics of fearful citizens will not gain traction in Lake Forest Park.
Thank you for this column, Bill, and thank you to our principled city leaders for clarifying what our region stands for: inclusive and diverse communities.
Potholes can’t get filled if gvt. can’t recruit and hire capable and relevant team members.
Thank you Bill for speaking out in favor of our city’s proclamation and for publishing it here. And many thanks to our city’s leaders for the same. Just as forming and keeping a democracy is a constant struggle, so it is with reminding everyone that a just society is one where we all follow the golden rule - to treat others as you would want to be treated. Let’s all strive to be decent human beings.
So, are you saying that transgender individuals have already been detained, loaded onto cattle cars, incarcerated, killed and cremated? How did I miss seeing that on the news?
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