Log Cabin Republicans join mainstream transphobic GOP once again on LGBTQ rights issue

It’s a rare day that I found myself yelling at the radio, but today was that day. My usual morning companion on my drive to my office is our local Public Radio affiliate. I tuned in today just as a story hit the air about a “local LGBT group supporting Gov. Greg Abbott’s call for gender affirming therapy to be considered child abuse.

I didn’t even have to hear the rest of the story; I knew it was the Log Cabin Republicans, a group which claims to be LGBTQ but is little more than Republican men who have sex with men.

They are doing their best to derail any reforms that benefit any letters in LGBTQ — save the “G” of course.

Their statement is meant to bow and scrape to the Texas Republican Party, which consistently refuses to allow the group to participate with booths at official events. The Log Cabins are merely exploited by the larger party when it’s convenient to show that the GOP is a big tent. But that only applies to getting their votes, not to any kind of actual affirmation or equality.

Gender-affirming therapy is a lifeline for many trans youth. It can make the difference between survival and suicide for some.

The LCR conveniently overlooks this in their official statement: “Log Cabin Republicans supports the rights of mature adults who are transgender to transition, should they choose to do so, as should be the right of any and all Americans to make deeply personal medical decisions that will affect their entire lives.” But they willfully ignore the lives of trans youth who may not make it to maturity without gender-affirming treatments.

For some strange reason, this group has decided that trans rights are somehow totally separate and not relevant to equality for them. They backed restrictions on how transgender students can participate in school sports and stated their support for the Florida “Don’t Say Gay” law that prohibits discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation in early childhood education.

For them it seems that equality is a zero sum game; for transgender Americans to gain equal rights will somehow lessen the rights of white, cisgender men who have sex with men.

But equality is not a commodity to be rationed and parceled out. It is like the air we breathe:

There’s plenty for everyone, unless someone is actively trying to cut it off.

LGBTQ Texans are being slowly smothered by the Texas Legislature and the Republican Party.

Sadly, transgender Texans are feeling the pinch the most right now.

The right, including the Log Cabin Republicans, is trying to categorize advocating for trans rights as being simply more “woke” philosophy. That kind of characterization is meant as a dog whistle for the racist base of the GOP. It’s hard to take them seriously as real advocates for LGBTQ rights when they consistently pander to the folks who would deny us the very rights they seek.

If equality is really the air we breathe, it’s time the Log Cabin Republicans stopped polluting it.

Now I can go back to yelling at the traffic and not my radio.

Hardy Haberman is a longtime local LGBT activist and chairperson of the Woodhull Freedom Alliance board. Read his blog at DungeonDiary.blogspot.com.