Advocate NL 6/25/26
The Washington representative's message to her fellow Democrats is pretty simple: Don't throw trans people under the bus.
Hello folks, Audience Editor Edgar Ramirez back in your inbox on this Thursday with an exclusive interview Rep. Pramila Jayapal gave to The Advocate's Christopher Wiggins.
“I have critiques of my own party because I think often what we do is we tend to move away from whatever feels controversial,” Jayapal told Wiggins. “So in this case, LGBTQIA rights, it’s like, OK, don’t talk about trans folks too much, don’t give a defense, be reasonable, be moderate.”
She rejects that premise. “I happen to think it is reasonable and moderate to stand up for any marginalized community,” she said, “trans people being at the center of so many of those attacks today.”
Her remarks come as House Republicans advanced two higher education bills Thursday that the Congressional Equality Caucus warned would invite discrimination against LGBTQ+ students, and Louisiana's governor signing yet again another anti-LGBTQ+ law.
Rep. Jayapal may find an ally in Graham Platner, the Maine Democratic Senate nominee who secured a national transgender rights PAC endorsement. Platner, in another exclusive with The Advocate's Wiggins, is promising to fight federal attacks on transgender Americans as he heads into a nationally watched general election against Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins.
“When you stand up for one group’s rights, you’re actually standing up for everybody’s rights, which I firmly believe in,” he tells Wiggins. “A politics that’s willing to sell anybody out is eventually going to sell everybody out.”
Catch the full interview here or below, and we'll be back on Friday!
Discussion in the ATmosphere