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Two op-eds published in this section, in the span of a week, praised Sen. Susan Collins’ “record” on gay and lesbian rights (“Remember that Pride is measured by actions,” June 20 and “Proud of Susan Collins’ championing gay rights,” June 27).

Neither writer mentioned Collins’ record on supporting bisexuals, transgender or queer people, probably because the record is absent.

I thought to myself, that’s a weirdly specific topic to be popping up all of a sudden. Turns out one writer was the president of the Log Cabin Republicans, a national organization dedicated to representing LGBT conservatives. The other writer, identifying as a Democrat, is the president of a public affairs consulting firm whose second listed employee and “advisor” is a former deputy campaign chairman for Susan Collins. Real grassroots stuff. 

As this newspaper’s resident obnoxious queer, I had to point this out. First of all, it makes me think that someone, somewhere has seen some negative campaign polling. What are the odds that people just need to be reminded of Collins’ “record”?

Sen. Collins may have gay friends, but she’s not a friend of the gays. I’m sure that in her personal life she is perfectly accepting of lesbian and gay people, and honestly I’d bet a few bucks that she’s probably fine with transgender people. But publicly? Collins has said nice things about equality and tolerance, but she continues to support and vote for the Republican Party and its priorities.

The Republican Party as it stands today is largely controlled by Christian conservatives who don’t believe the LGBTQ community should exist, period. They think we’re immoral and should be purged from public life and society. 

I used to believe that Susan Collins was an ally to my people; in fact, I voted for her in 2014 because I was 22 and incredibly naive. I thought she could be a moderating force for the Republican Party. Obviously, that hasn’t happened.

Yes, we’ve won gay marriage — and trust me, as a happily gay married gal, I appreciate that — but every year conservative legislatures pass things like the “Don’t say gay” bill in Florida, which prevents teachers from talking about orientation or gender identity in classrooms. They organize to ban books. The Supreme Court has affirmed people’s ability to discriminate against the gay community as long as they cite religion as their reason.

And those supportive op-eds outlined her support for laws that either haven’t passed or passed with large bipartisan majorities. Right now, the T part of the LGBT community is under attack by the federal government. And if you think that religious zealots will be satisfied with simply wiping transgender Americans out of public life and won’t come after the gays and lesbians next, you’re as naive as I was in my early 20s. 

Does anyone seriously think that if push came to shove, if one of her 10,000 votes was a tiebreaker between a Republican priority and gay rights, that Susan Collins would stand up for the LGBTQ community? Don’t make me laugh. There’s a reason professionals wrote those op-eds. The rest of us queers who live in the real world know she’ll drop us like a hot potato and smile while doing it. 

I haven’t written about Graham Platner since I published a column about my meeting with him in early October 2025. The drama about the tattoo and the Reddit comments started breaking literally days after I had given birth, so I was a little preoccupied. By the time my head had gotten back above water and I could form semi-coherent thoughts again, everyone and their mother (and my mother) was talking about him. I figured I didn’t need to add my thoughts to the mix, especially since, like a lot of folks, my thoughts were shifting, changing and often ambivalent. 

But, last week, after the Portland Pride Parade, I saw pictures of him marching, smiling, hand in hand with his wife, just like I would be with my wife if we didn’t have an 8-month-old. (The parade schedule cut into naptime.) Platner was holding a transgender pride flag. 

It’s never been politically popular to support deviation from gender norms, and right now, America’s teeny tiny transgender population is serving as a lightning rod for hate, controversy and fear.

Trans people are even less popular than usual right now. Democrats are backing their support away and people who think of themselves as liberal, gay-supporting allies have “questions” and “concerns.” To quote Elrond in “Lord of the Rings,” one of my very favorite movies, our list of allies grows thin. 

It’s a scary time to be a trans American or, like me, to be married to a transgender woman. To see someone as high-profile as Platner holding that flag, holding up that symbol of our community — it felt good. It felt like he and his movement care about my family. My dad always said doing the right thing usually wasn’t the easy thing. Marching with us was the right thing to do.

There’s been a lot of ink spilled about Platner’s Reddit posts. The Reddit post of his that matters most to me is from August 2025, when he did a question-and-answer session on the site.

Someone asked “just curious where you stand on LGBTQIA+ rights and freedoms.” Platner’s response was: “I stand right in the f-ing way of anyone who’s going to try to come after the freedoms of the LGBTQIA+ community.” 

Now that’s being an ally.