On Governor Kelly, Or; How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Veto
by Therese
Allow me to propose a hypothetical, dear reader—one I think may perplex the staunchest radicals among us (amogus), that being; “What, if any, role does the “true” liberal, ““sensible”” progressive, left “““moderate”””, or milquetoast ““““democrat”””” have in the revolution? And what of circumstances where their involvement benefits the revolution greatly?”
Laura Kelly is the Governor of Kansas and has been since 2018. By all accounts she is a standard democrat—like, an actual democrat, too, not the bootlicking neolibs we got today, but like, an honest to god, slightly progressive, standard blue democrat person (who is still a capitalist and benefits from certain status quo arrangements)—like the kind of democrat from before the turn of the century, from some mythical past where we get the vague sense that at some point the democrats stood for something slightly kind of positive. She’s that kind of democrat. She mostly runs on campaigns of Education (she thinks it's good), “Good Government and Economy,” and Infrastructure (then why are there so many potholes in downtown KCK?). She’s codified laws promising protections to Trans and Queer Kansans. Which is cool, I guess. For an establishment figure she could be way worse. But…. Well, she’s not exactly the spokesperson of the revolution, either.
Well, why are we talking about Ms. Governor Kelly? And entertaining the idea that democrats or any parallels they may have in any two-party system globally is as anything more than an extension of the interests of colonizers and bourgeoisie capitalists? The two-party system is a shadow on the cave wall. Democrat? A farce—her role is one of the status quo, of the false promise of change through voting, the idea that America was ever a “democracy.” Why talk about this middle-of-the-road progressive? Well, let’s go back to that hypothetical—what do we do in a system filled to the brim with reactionaries, with someone almost acceptable in how normal she is? What do we do, when actually applied liberal policies, are what end up making life…. Not quite bearable for trans lives in Kansas, to be sure, but certainly better than if she wasn’t there.
What am I referring to?
Well, Governor Miss Madam Kelly is exceptional in one area! She has vetoed 60+ bills, many of them explicitly anti-trans legislation. Since the inauguration of the orange demon she’s halted bans on gender related healthcare for minors as well as broad name change ban that wouldn’t even work (but the whole point is that none of this works and it’s literally just—“hey let’s lynch all these trannies” but in the slowest most insane and inane way imaginable while still somehow causing maximum suffering—holy shit I hate it here and I think maybe we should start putting down white men at the age of 35 (the average life expectancy of the modern transsexual, by the by, recently learned that) but I digress, gotta give the thoughts their five minutes or they’ll start taking years, fuck)—but yes, the house republicans have tried to push a lot past the Kansas Governor, but one thing she’s remained consistent on is that she will not give in to right wing pressure to throw trans and queer people under the bus, even as the actual “““democratic party””” slides further and further towards fascism.
Yes, these bills attacking transsexuals in this country are scary, and yes, in our relative pockets of the melting pot the fire is getting turned up every day, we are all frogs slowly boiling. Or maybe we’re crabs and the boiling pot is also a bucket? Mixed metaphor but you see the vision, if you don’t, I can’t help you—they only give me so many words for this thing. Keep up. The bottom line is this—we have allies in this fight in all different forms, some are staunch cis and/or het people, who maybe have skin in the game through trans people they know—and then there are the more challenging allies, milquetoast democrats with enough spine to… maybe not break rank with more fascistic democrat tendencies, but certainly bend the party line as opposed to towing it—these allies, who are still allies, like Laura Kelly, may, in some instances—be all that stands between trans lives and ruin. We may not notice it as much closer to the cities, and the allure of the global village, but these vetoes do affect trans lives in Kansas, and they are perhaps noticed most by rural Trans Kansas (Transans?), our siblings often the most silenced in these conversations.
In some cases, the centrist, the unaligned, the milquetoast—those perhaps you wouldn’t think of when the conversation of “radicalism” comes into focus—are in truly revolutionary positions. Though I would never imply this woman is our bulwark tranny supporting fag hag Rosa Luxembourg or some such shit—it is a radical act to protect trans lives. Her vetoes keep us safe. The more I think about it in these spirals, the more I notice it for how particular, how interesting, how beautiful, and perhaps, how tragic that is.
Oh! I met her a week or so ago.
She was nice enough. Big smile. She shook my hand, asked my name—at least pretended to listen when she asked where I was from, and I stumbled over telling a condensed version of how I came to Kansas like a tumbleweed trash bag on fire, and emerged as a beautiful shemale butterfly partially because of the serenity and centering the Midwest, this flat and square state, ancient ocean bed, offered to me. I noticed two things about her—they kind of cascaded off each other, these twin realizations; 1) She was a lot smaller in person than I had imagined she would be. Like, I knew she was an old lady, and I know my ethereal, stomping transsexual height keeps me for from the 5’ foot heavenly heights of the bouncy bio-girls, but still, she was small. 4’ foot something small. Like, you got some pixie dust there for me, tiny? Lmao. Anyway. 2) The second thing, was that amidst the realization that what I thought would be an interview, and quickly realized was more of a photo op—I did begin to ponder, in the mind of someone so milquetoast, so politically unremarkably democrat that the two first name having governor could be next to the dictionary definition of “standard liberal politician,” I wondered why, she would want a photo op with a bunch of trannies, while signing a mostly symbolic proclamation (it was for Kansas Trans Day of Visibility? So not exactly the “Let’s feed, house, and secure the safety, freedom, and happiness of Transsexuals” act).
Teams of people helping prop this woman into place, symbolic active steps, faux revolutionary actual vetoes—they help us, (until 2027 when she’s out of office), but they’re stagnant help. We’re boiling in the melting pot, and Ms. Madam Empress Queen Governor, instead of turning off the heat, has opted to drop a few ice cubes in the water. Thanks Miss—we appreciate you, but we’ll keep trying to put out the fire over here.