Quinn’s Super Cute & Not Horrible Election Statistics!
Putting aside the theory and poetics; considering our lives.
Quinn McClurg
The night following the election, I stumbled to a nearby convenience store. Before crossing the street in that early dark, a stern-faced motorcyclist sped by, blasting the same emergency food supply advertisements I’d heard endlessly growing up. It seemed deliberate, like he was one of several others speeding through the city’s streets, warning the “woke” masses of what is to come. Already, the bigots are emboldened.
Maybe this constant paranoia is what experiencing a hate crime or two brings. Maybe I’m just transgender and radicalized now. Maybe I know too much about the far-right for my own good. Still, even in Minneapolis, the intimidation is more palpable: people even stare longer. The hate crime rates have already risen too. I think my paranoia is justified, especially when considering my undocumented or BIPOC trans friends.
I don’t need to explain transphobia to you, nor do I need to explain intersectionality. But here are statistics for perspective:
The trans unemployment rate is at least 18% (more than double average) (USTS).
Trans folks, specifically trans youth, are exceedingly more likely to be unhoused, especially within red states.
Almost half of American trans adults have attempted suicide (Williams Institute).
More and more trans people are killed every year (HRC). Compared to cis people, trans folks are four times more likely to be victimized in violent crimes (Williams Institute).
Almost every trans adult has experienced medical mistreatment, half having experienced physical abuse (IJEH).
2019 onward, proposals for anti-trans legislation have exponentially increased, 2024 being a record year with over 650 bills proposed (Trans Legislation tracker).
For every statistic above, assume Black and Native trans women are the most affected.
More scary facts: According to PBS, Donald Trump and his pro-Trump campaigns have spent over $56 million on transphobic ads in October. Additionally, since February 2023, Trump vowed to pass an executive order day one, banning all federal funding of gender-affirming health care (this includes city- and state-issued health insurance). In case that wasn’t enough, “United States V. Skrmetti” (a case pending in the SCOTUS) will likely rule that bans on gender affirming care do not violate the 14th Amendment, potentially overturning “Bostock V. Clayton County” (landmark case preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity) in the process. And Odessa, Texas passed a trans bathroom ban WITH A $10,000 BOUNTY.
Any attempt to understand the Republican party first seems to be a case study in cognitive dissonance: They want better education nationwide, so they close the Department of Education; they want to spend less and lower debt, so they hike prices through tariffs and several hundred billion dollar deportation plans; they want less government regulation, so they pass more to restrict, disenfranchise, and criminalize their own party members.
However, these policies are better explained as being motivated by thinly veiled desires to rule and to conquer, not as “the people,” not for “the existence of [white] people and a future for white children,” but for themselves. They want an enslaved country, militias of questioning masses uneducated enough to enact their will. Race, gender, ability, queerness, and transness are little more than scapegoats to be ripped away to produce the violent cult of number one. Whiteness resists all difference; maleness resists all competition: all are worthless in the eyes of the white male fascist.
The Right is better organized and equipped; there is little surprise that the most primal emotions of hate, fear, and disgust are their primary motivators—they lack the nuance, intelligence, compassion, individuality, and self-respect to feel anything else. These angry white boys feel betrayed because they have to struggle to live, “not having” safety nets, privileges, or guarantees—like everyone else. Truly, if “Bostock V. Clayton County” is overturned and trans and queer people are the first to go, it’s because the Right cannot comprehend the perfect beauty of creation, the eternal possibilities of self-determination.
Though small, the act of injecting HRT reminds me of the necessary pain that comes with radical action. Other minorities understand this too, the dull aches and weights accumulated from day-to-day existence in a country that wants you dead. But since the election and especially after Jan. 20, these daily pains will be dragged out, made larger, harder to ignore, omnipresent—potentially with more deadly dues. Such is the burden of life within white supremacist America. These coming four years, we will hurt for senselessness, and we will hurt for progress. We will hurt for each other, especially for those most at risk.
Refer to the “Local ‘Radical’ Resource” guide in this issue’s feature. Get organized. Host mutual aid events and skillshares. Radicalize yourself. Radicalize your friend groups. Boycott corporations and patronize local businesses and artists. Decolonize everything inside you. And please, please stay alive. We need you here. They can’t kill us all.