The last month leading up to Election Day can be really exhausting, with an abundance of political ads and nonstop text messages and phone calls. I’ve been burying myself in biographies about the Founding Fathers and presidents. I’m now behind on three book reviews (again) after finishing a biography of Martin Van Buren. I’m deliberately skipping over William Henry Harrison—not because his presidency was so short, but because the Grouseland Foundation acquired the printing rights and is working on an update. As such, I’m starting President Without a Party about John Tyler today.

A friend posted the following on Facebook, and it’s a real reminder of what we are up against going into Election Day next week.

“I just received a text from a local candidate who lists as part of his platform ‘protection in girls bathrooms and locker rooms,’ because he’s ‘a dad of three daughters.’ Dude might be a great guy and an outstanding dad, but that statement alone is enough to remove him from my consideration. It is such a stupid thing for these people to obsess over and shows how ignorant they are. Just pure paranoia.”

I hate transphobic politicians. They don’t know any trans people. They just use people like me as a scare tactic. I still carry PTSD from the Navy Pier janitor knocking on the stall while I was in the restroom in 2018, prior to an IMAX screening of The Meg. They knocked so loudly that when I opened the stall door, they told me I was in the women’s restroom. I complained to Navy Pier on Twitter that night. They subsequently apologized in replies and DMs, as well as over the phone. They promised they would train their staff to do better.

Trans people like me—who can no longer get gendered correctly on our AMERICAN PASSPORTS—are the ones who get harmed by these transphobic policies. My bathroom experience happened at a tourist attraction in a blue city in a blue state. I still have PTSD and avoid Navy Pier like the plague. And yet, transphobic politicians run on transphobic issues because they realize that they can’t run on their own record without losing votes. I am not anyone’s pawn. I have 14th Amendment rights to equal protection, and I will not go down without a fight.

The 14th Amendment was one of three amendments added to the Constitution during Reconstruction, alongside the 13th and 15th Amendments. While an upcoming documentary about the Constitution is set to be released on Netflix soon, vile antisemite Hasan Piker appears no fewer than three times. He’s not a constitutional scholar and has zero business being in the documentary. But that’s beside the point. The point is what’s actually in the amendment, especially Section 1:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

We are actively living through a constitutional crisis, especially with Republicans in Congress ceding their powers to the executive branch rather than bothering to do their jobs. If they were doing their jobs, they would be fighting all of Donald Trump’s efforts to remake the nation’s capital in his image. After proposing an unnecessary White House ballroom and a triumphant arch, both tied to his vision of military grandeur, it wouldn’t surprise me if he did the same thing to East Potomac Park. Preservationists are currently fighting efforts to close the park and prevent any more trees from being chopped down.

One has to wonder where it all ends. The only hope is that Democrats can at least take back the House of Representatives. The U.S. Senate will be close, but states like Minnesota and Michigan are not making those efforts easy. But Republicans know that they cannot run on their record on the economy or an unpopular war with Iran. Costs are continually rising at home because of Trump’s awful tariffs and a war with Iran that’s likely to continue after the midterms—there was no day-after plan.

But because they can’t run on those issues, they’ve decided to run on attacking America’s transgender population. Worst of all, we have Democratic candidates like Amy Acton in Ohio who have bought into Republican talking points. Acton has deliberately misgendered transgender girls and calling this summer’s transphobic Supreme Court ruling a “win for common sense.” It wasn’t a win. It was a terrible loss that harms very few Americans directly because trans athletes in sports were never a major issue. They only became one because the GOP lost its battle over gay marriage and decided to turn its focus to dehumanizing America’s transgender population.

Ohio Democratic U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur wasn’t any better. She decided to use “transgender ideology” in one of her ads, making her no different from her Republican opponent or Republicans in general. I’m glad I don’t live in Ohio. Acton will likely win after her Republican opponent shot himself in the foot by airing a morally bankrupt ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother, who accused Acton of lying about being sexually abused by her stepfather. Rather than standing by her own children, Acton’s estranged mother stood by her husband instead.