{"id":3224,"date":"2026-07-13T11:07:57","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T11:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=3224"},"modified":"2026-07-13T11:07:57","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T11:07:57","slug":"americas-point-of-no-return-inside-trumps-irreversible-damage-and-what-comes-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=3224","title":{"rendered":"America’s point of no return: Inside Trump’s irreversible damage \u2014 and what comes next"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Don’t kid yourself<\/strong><\/strong>. The sphere of freedom is shrinking. Trans people wanted to live their lives, but the political right, in the form of Donald Trump, made them demons and the political center, in the form of respectable white people, made the right’s demonization seem respectable. Kamala Harris wanted America to choose liberty. “We’re not going back,” she said. Many of us agreed, but we are. The pulling back of trans rights could lead to the pulling back of other rights \u2013 birth control, gay marriage, inter-racial marriage, and more.<\/p>\n

Read more The man behind Trump\u2019s personal revenge machine should not be confirmed<\/a><\/p>\n

Yet the future is unknown. People will fight. More importantly, they will find joy in the struggle. That’s the spirit I found in the interview below with Evan Urquhart. After writing extensively for The Atlantic<\/em><\/em>, Vanity Fair<\/em><\/em> and others, he set up Assigned Media<\/em><\/em> in 2022 to report on transgender news. He told me that hope can be found in the fact that for all the bigotry trans people are facing, they still face less than they used to. Moreover, there’s greater awareness, which means more chances for normalizing trans life. But most of all, he said, trans people just know themselves, and “you can’t put toothpaste back in the tube. We’re out, we’re everywhere, and even if our lives are harder, we’re not going away.”<\/p>\n

Even so, things will get worse before they get better. “The presidencies of Donald Trump represent a phase shift for American democracy, one that has made it impossible to return to the way things were,” Evan told me. “I think if you look at the totality of the actions of Trump himself, his administrations, and his judges, that’s an inescapable conclusion. … It’s too unsettling … so people tell themselves this is just trans issues stuff, nothing to do with them.”<\/p>\n

SCOTUS ruled that states can ban transgender athletes. The number of such athletes is vanishingly small. Yet states are targeting people without much power. What’s going on?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Trans women’s participation in women’s sports was identified as a perfect wedge issue by conservatives, in part because the stakes feel relatively low, because playing sports isn’t required for survival, and because fairly few trans people play sports.<\/p>\n

The right has since moved on to targeting trans people in every part of our lives, from identity documents to restrooms to stripping any mention of trans women out of rape protections in federal prisons, but sports has been around the longest, which is why it had the time to make it to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

As a wedge, it works to cement the idea in people’s minds that trans people should be treated as members of our birth-assigned sex, in order to slowly roll up the idea that treating us equally means making room for us to live as our authentic selves.<\/p>\n

What do you see being done about this among Dems and allies? What are the obstacles?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

I think that the consensus among Democrats and allies, and even among many trans people, has been to let this one go. The majority of Americans have been convinced to see this as a common sense issue of keeping men from steamrolling women’s sports, and since it really is such a tiny group of people being impacted, the thinking is to retreat and regroup.<\/p>\n

I personally think there’s a bit of a lost opportunity here, though. Because sports is lower stakes, there’s actually room to get people curious about the science, about the ways hormones influence our bodies, about the vast differences between trans people and cis members of their birth sex. In all the years trans women who’d medically transitioned were allowed to participate, not one dominated a single sport. That’s interesting and unintuitive for a lot of people, and I think you can activate the part of people’s brains that gets curious and wants to know more about this issue, which can be useful for education. It’s different with questions that are more emotional, like whether to allow your 14 year old to start a hormonal medication. On those questions, I see people’s curiosity give way to fear.<\/p>\n

On transitioning, I think what are called radical centrists are largely responsible. They pushed fear over liberty. They pretended that rightwingers are only reacting, not making the choice to punch down. What can be done? What historical models are there?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s \u2018half-hearted\u2019 and \u2018flimsy\u2019 new stunt perfectly sums up his huge decline<\/a><\/p>\n

Centrists want easy answers to the challenges we’re facing. They want an easy answer to the challenge of having a completely unsuitable, unethical, mendacious person attain the US presidency, and to other challenges like climate change and increasing inequality as well. They want to believe we’re still living in the 1990s, an eternal 1990s where the Overton Window is extremely narrow, our political parties agree and work together on a lot of things, and voters reward them for that.<\/p>\n

To someone with that mindset, it’s very appealing to think there’s a minority (one who people in their social set largely agree are a little weird) who they can just change positions on with no pain. If that’s true, you can just tweak your platform at the margins and avoid the hard question: Why are Americans so desperate for change they’ll vote for a fascist in one election and a socialist in the next?<\/p>\n

But the damage is not going to be limited to one subset. Some say the trans ruling is softening the ground toward striking down gay marriage, birth control and perhaps inter-racial marriage. The sphere of freedom is shrinking. Is there enough awareness of that?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

In my view, the presidencies of Donald Trump represent a phase shift for American democracy, one that has made it impossible to return to the way things were. I think if you look at the totality of the actions of Trump himself, his administrations, and his judges, that’s an inescapable conclusion.<\/p>\n

It’s also a very scary conclusion, which is why people don’t want to look at these precedents on trans rights and ask, if a state legislature can ban a safe and effective treatment for trans people, does that mean they can ban vaccines? Does that mean they can ban antidepressants, birth control, and ADHD medications? They want the disturbance to stay with the trans community, not necessarily because they hate us but because it’s quite scary to imagine the consequences of, for example, a far-right court deciding that equal protection just doesn’t apply to trans people in sports because there aren’t that many trans people in sports.<\/p>\n

Who else might they decide equal protection doesn’t apply to? It’s too unsettling to ask the question, so people tell themselves this is just trans issues stuff, nothing to do with them.<\/p>\n

Here in Connecticut, the state GOP is trying to <\/strong><\/strong>ban trans women<\/strong><\/strong> from women’s sports, but their effort is falling in deaf ears. That seems indicative of the future, where some states and regions honor and protect equality under law while others savage it. Legally speaking, the same person in Connecticut is different in Alabama. Is that our future?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Blue states have largely circled the wagons around their trans communities, in a way that’s lovely to see. I think that the far right really wants to federalize fascism, and make it impossible for states to protect trans people, but that project may be more difficult than they thought.<\/p>\n

As difficult and scary as it is to see my rights being chipped away, a lot has changed. Part of that is that more people know trans people, and even with a bit of backsliding the prejudice isn’t nearly what it was when I was young. Another part is that trans people have more ways to know themselves and express themselves than they ever did. I can’t predict the future, but I know you can’t put toothpaste back in the tube. We’re out, we’re everywhere, and even if our lives are harder, we’re not going away.<\/p>\n

Read more Doctor reveals key family history behind Lindsey Graham\u2019s surprise death<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don’t kid yourself. The sphere of freedom is shrinking. Trans people wanted to live their lives, but the political right, in the form of Donald Trump, made them demons and the political center, in the form of respectable white people, made the right’s demonization seem respectable. 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