The SAVE Act and Trans Voters

Speaker 1 [00:00:02] Thanks for watching! Hey trans-fam, this is The Mess, Imara’s guy to our political hellscape, and that’s me, I’m Imara. Today we’re going to tackle a series of messes, like we always do, because there’s so many and they just keep piling up week after week and we have to selectively pull out the ones that we think are most important to you all. So thank you for trusting us. Thank you for hanging in there, but I mean, you know, every week it’s getting harder and harder to choose because, well, because. But this week, the three messages that we will focus on are first the SAVE Act and its implications for trans access to voting. And actually beyond that, everybody has access to vote. The injunction on Trump’s trans military ban and the battle between Maine and the Trump administration over trans student athletes. Now, as always, this was recorded a day or so before you’re hearing it. So some things might’ve changed or maybe not. You know, it’s a. topsy-turvy world depending on the president’s state of mind. So if things have changed for some reason, now you know. All right, let’s get messy. So first of today is the save act, which when you hear it sounds like it’s a great thing, we’re saving something. Well, it may not be what you think it is.

Speaker 2 [00:01:32] The SAVE Act is short for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. It’s a House bill sponsored by GOP Congressmember Chip Roy from Texas. Its purpose, to ensure only U.S. citizens are registered to vote.

Speaker 1 [00:01:46] That was some local station, WGRZ in Buffalo, New York. Now, it sounds like it could be just a innocuous bill, right? We’re just trying to make sure that, quote, citizens are allowed to vote. Now, already citizens are allow to vote and there’ve been so many audits around voter fraud and we know that voter fraud is essentially not a thing. And most people who’ve been convicted of voter fraud in the United States happen to be people who are voting for the Republican party. It’s true, go read about it, easy to Google. So that’s just the way it is. But the thing is not necessarily that this is a requirement, it’s already a requirement or that they’re even maybe updating some of the rules around it, which may not necessarily be a bad thing. It’s how and what those rules are. So essentially what this act says is that anyone who goes to register or read register to vote must either have a federally issued document, i.e. a passport, and or a birth certificate, and that those things must match the name of the person who is voting. The problem is that most Americans don’t have a passport, and tens of millions of Americans don’t actually have access to their birth certificate. So that means that it automatically disenfranchises or potentially disenfranchises people, including nearly 70 million women are potentially at risk because their married names may not be consistent among all the documents that they have, and it certainly wouldn’t be consistent on a birth certificate But I think that one of the things that’s really important about the SAVE Act is that it actually shows the migration of politics and attacks against trans people and others to the wider society. So you’ll remember that we’ve spoken about it here before during the election and then also on the Translash podcast that a lot of the stricter ID changes, which insist that names match exactly documents and pictures and signatures and that all of those things line up exactly, have the potential to disenfranchise 200,000 trans people. That is based on reporting from Joe Ukeba, who we spoke to on the Trans Lash podcast. But all that is, or was, was just a road test to see how you could do it and expand it to much larger populations. And here we are with the SAVE Act. It is the nationalization of voter disenfranchisement, which was happening on a state-by-state level. And what’s fascinating is the degree to which this impacts cis women. I mean, 70 million people. could potentially lose the right to vote because they didn’t change their name when they got married or they don’t have access to a birth certificate which reflects their new name. It’s all just ridiculous and it’s all the gender-based politics that we are living through right now with the attempt to enshrine and reinstate patriarchy. And that just didn’t impact trans people, right? It’s clearly beyond trans people now and it is expanding to the larger population. and just goes to underscore the giant flashing red light that happens whenever there are attacks on trans people because they’re not gonna stay there. And it’s something that we’ve spoken about here before and that I’ve said over and over, but now we see it crystal clear in the SAVE Act. We’ll keep following it and see what happens, but either way, the SAV Act is a non-rescuable mess. Next up today is some good news. I mean, there is some news out there, and we pulled it out. And that is a ruling on the trans-military ban. In Washington, D.C., U.S. District Court judge, Ana Reyes, ruled that the Trump administration could not implement its transgender ban. Now, it’s the latest case when people stand up to the Trump Administration that they’re actually able to have an impact on what happens and how things unfold. this is an injunction, and it’s going to stop that ban from moving forward while the courts sort this out, that we know courts can take a long time, which will effectively preserve the thousands of trans service members’ livelihood and lives while this gets sorted out. And there’s this big push and pull between people in places that are caving in society and just rolling over, and people in places that are standing up. In this case, not only is it the plaintiffs in the case, but. the civil rights organization GLAAD, not the media organization, but the legal organization and also NCLR, both of those organizations rallied around these service members and took this to court, and it was ruled in favor of trans people while the court sort this out to stop it. And slowing down the Trump administration’s targeting of transpeople in the military. And we know that these winds can stop up, so if you stop them in one place based upon… legal language and legal interpretation, it can move to other places and areas. So this is actually a really good signal for the rule of law and the ability to be able to slow down the implementation of discrimination across the country. But what’s particularly interesting about this particular ruling was just how seemingly disgusted the judge in this case was with the Trump administration’s legal arguments, just showing kind of open contempt for them. not as in contempt of court, but just as in borderline disgust and disapproval for what they were trying to argue, just the things that they believe that they can come in and make up, namely that this wasn’t about the discrimination against trans people, but was more about regulating the interpretation and the ability to serve based upon a medical condition, in this case, gender dysphoria. And here’s actually Nicole Wallace from MSNBC’s daily show, The Dateline, characterizing what the judge said and what it means.

Speaker 3 [00:07:50] I am not going to abide by government officials saying one thing to the public, saying what they really mean to the publish, and then coming in here to the court and telling me something different like I’m an idiot. I am NOT an idiot! The court is not going be gaslit. The Secretary of Defense called it a transgender ban. This idea that you all can just come in here and pretend or have us pretend that what’s happening is not actually what’s happened is totally unacceptable. Everyone knows what the ban is intended to do. Everyone knows.

Speaker 1 [00:08:21] That was Nicole quoting from the ruling from Judge Reyes. So I think that what that shows is that this isn’t really thought through. These things are just kind of blatant discrimination moving through the court system, trying to disguise themselves as considered bureaucratic rulings. And this is just about an interpretation of them rather than what’s underneath, which is blatant, discrimination. And the judge had it and just called them out on it. We’ll see whether or not this is replicated elsewhere, but I think at least for the trans service members, this is clearly good news. And you know, I mean, do we feel sorry for the Trump lawyers? I don’t know, maybe not. The administration’s lawyers in this case seem to have gotten into a justice is blind, but maybe with one eye open mess. Last up today is actually more good news if you support trans athletes, and that is the way in which Maine is standing up for the trans athletes in their state, the two trans athletes reportedly that are in their State who are still being protected by the governor against the moves of the Trump administration. Now for context before we get into unpacking what is exactly happening and where this might be going, let’s rewind the clock a little bit. to where it all started in a face-off between the main governor directly and Donald Trump when Donald Trump invited the governors of all the states to the White House and decided to single her out personally for something that seemed random given everything else that he was talking about.

Speaker 4 [00:09:58] Is Maine here, the governor of Maine? Are you not going to comply with it? Well, we are the federal law. Well, you better do it. You better do it because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t. And by the way, your population even though it’s somewhat liberal, although I did very well there, your population doesn’t want men playing in women’s sports. So you better comply because otherwise you’re not getting any federal funding. Every state… Good, I’ll see you in court. I look forward to that. That should be a real easy one.

Speaker 1 [00:10:32] that clip was from News Center Maine. Now, that doesn’t seem to be hyperbole from Governor Janet Mills of the state. I mean, she’s still standing 10 toes down, even after receiving a letter which said that Maine has to comply with the ban on trans athletes that the Trump administration is insisting is law, when it’s not really law, but is insist that it’s law or the state will be referred to the Justice Department for a second time in violation of this executive order and the Trump administration’s tic-tots. Now, is that really clear what is going to be the legal road into this? Is it withholding funds? Is it just the referral to the justice department sues and it moves through the courts? I mean, as we discussed in the last segment around the trans-military ban, sometimes all of the legal moves aren’t necessarily you know, laid out in three-dimensional chess, let’s say. But it is clear that the Trump administration plans to go after the state of Maine. Now, what’s interesting, as we indicated at the top of this show, it’s only likely just to athletes. One athlete in particular has gotten attention in the state, a pole vaulter, and in response to demands that that person be banned from participating in sports. And now in response to that demand, where it was actually sent to Maine School Administrative District 51, they responded that they would follow Maine state law and in particular, the Maine Human Rights Act. So we’ll see how this plays out over time. But I think the thing that is consistent here is that this is yet another case where someone is deciding to stand up to the Trump administration and has actually slowed them down in the process of implementing. the things that they are trying to do. And again, it is just an indication that things don’t have to go totally off the rails if people decide that they will follow, in this case, laws and the Constitution and due process and a whole host of things that had been the case up until recently. But in all this, I don’t know who your money is on, but I don’t know. It sounds like Janet Mills is a person Who knows? what she’s doing, and maybe in deciding to take her on, the Trump administration has just pole vaulted itself into a giant mess. Thank you for being a train slash fam subscriber. That’s how you’re listening to this, because you subscribe and sorting through all this mess with me today. I mean, you could also be testing it out, but don’t wait, just go ahead and hit the subscribe button if you’re testing out a few episodes. If you like the show, it means so much to me. If you left a review on Apple Podcasts, you might just hear me read it out on the show. I’ll be back in your feed in a couple of weeks to sort through all of the shenanigans that come up between now and then. And that will indeed be a whole lot. I’m your host, Imara Jones. This show is produced by Aubrey Callaway. Xander Adams is our senior sound engineer and contributing producer, and this episode was engineered by Lucy Little. Oliver Ash-Kliene oversees production as the director of podcasts at TransLash Media. This show gets to your ears with the help of our social media team, including Morgan Asprey. And of course, this show is made possible by TransLash fam subscribers like you. Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you soon.