Chappell Roan is having a moment. The 26-year-old singer is suddenly all the rage. She recently won the MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist. Good for her. We need more representation, especially for out lesbians.
I was first introduced to Roan last year when my Gen Z staffer asked to write about her local concert. The piece “Chappell Roan: Drag Queens, Free Condoms, DeSantis Trolling,” sounded like my kind of concert. The crowd was clearly anti-DeSantis, chanting “Fuck DeSantis” over and over. Her opening act included a couple drag queens as well.
She’s obviously an ally, and it’s clear she’s no fan of Republicans. So it was surprising when she announced this week that she wouldn’t endorse any candidate in the 2024 presidential election. That’s of course her choice. But what I take most issue with is her false equivalence of both sides.
“There’s problems on both sides,” she told The Guardian. Later when she tried to clarify and clean up her comments she declared she’s in fact voting for Kamala Harris but also doubling down saying, “So yeah, there are huge problems on both [sides]” and “I'm critiquing both sides because they're both so fucked up.”
Problems on both sides. Really? I think it’s important to point out there’s only one side that’s actively coming after the queer community – her community. There’s only one side waging war on women.
It’s so important for us to push back on these “both sides” arguments especially to allies who are just occasional or uninformed voters. It’s easy to hate both sides when neither one perfectly aligns up with our belief system. But in this election, if you believe in equality for the queer community; reproductive freedom and/or U.S. democracy then there is only one side that champions those causes. Casual indifference or political detachment in this climate only serves to empower the side that threatens these essential freedoms.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. Bernie Sanders have found common ground to support Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. It’s no secret both of those politicians take issue with plenty of specific policies within the Democratic Party.
Whatever policy differences each of us as individuals have with the Democratic Party pales in comparison to the active war on our rights and freedoms here in America. Only one side is attempting to roll back those rights.
Of course Roan also encouraged people “to use your critical thinking skills, use your vote — vote small, vote for what’s going on in your city.” As noted above she made it explicitly clear she’s not voting for former president Donald Trump and will vote for Harris. On social media she added, “voting is all we have right now in the system, and so I encourage it yet again. Vote for who, in your mind, is the best option for what we have right now, because that's all we can do. Yes, one's obviously better than the other.”
In the interview with the Guardian though, Roan stated her most important issue is “trans rights,” while also adding “they cannot have cis people making decisions for trans people, period.”
According to TransLegislation.com, there have been 658 anti-trans bills introduced this year. Let that sink in – 658. That’s up from 21 in 2015. There’s been an explosion of hate directed toward the trans community.
Let me be clear – this is not a problem being driven by both sides.
Christian nationalists and far-right conservatives have spent the last several years demonizing and dehumanizing our trans siblings. They’ve used trans people as scapegoats. They’ve also set their sights on anyone that doesn’t conform to the gender binary. They’ve relentlessly attacked our drag community. They’ve even gone after pronouns.
The irony of this is that the higher Roan has climbed the ladder of stardom the more she’s dealt with the ugly side of fame. She took to Instagram and TikTok calling out “creepy” fans; their abusive behavior, and noted she’s been harassed herself.
That’s awful. I applaud her for standing up for herself.
But you know what else is awful – an entire political party harassing our trans siblings through continued hateful and mean-spirited legislation meant to erase their existence. A party who is actively stripping away the freedom of choice for millions of women coast to coast.
Trump has gone out of his way to spew lies and disinformation and hate at the trans community.
Here are just two of those things he said recently:
– ”Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.”
– ”Can you imagine you’re a parent and your son leaves the house, and you say, ‘Jimmy, I love you so much, go have a good day in school,’ and your son comes back with a brutal operation? Can you even imagine this? What the hell is wrong with our country?”
Then there’s Project 2025 – a dystopian vision for the U.S. where “transgender ideology” is outlawed and public librarians who spread the concept of being trans would be registered as sex offenders.
Pretty sure liberals and progressives and Democrats are not the ones who want to force this upon us. So the “both sides” argument is just bullshit if you care about trans rights.
It’s hard to fathom how the artist could genuinely believe that both sides are equally culpable.
