A tough, pointed question arrived in my email box this morning.
“Do you think people that live around you are racist and transphobic and misogynistic? Or do they just vote that way?”
Ouch.
Some of you know that I live in Otter Tail County, in a deeply conservative part of Minnesota, which voted for Donald Trump as expected.
On Election Day, I hung out at voting precincts in Clitherall, Battle Lake, Underwood, Sverdrup Township and Fergus Falls, interviewing voters after they left the polls. There was one moment, after I interviewed five Harris supporters in a row, that I wondered if the universe had tilted on its axis. I headed to a more rural precinct where I quickly met two Trump voters who set me straight.
Are the people around me racist and transphobic and misogynistic? I understand that question comes from a deep sense of grief at the outcome of the election, based on Trump’s rhetoric and his plan to overturn federal diversity, equity and inclusion hiring, his stacking of the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, and his plan to end transgender participation in women’s sports.
All the phobias exist in greater Minnesota as they do in any other place. But I hope Twin Cities folks don’t think all of greater Minnesota is that way.
In rural Minnesota, from what I’ve seen, the group that takes the brunt of open rejection is transgender people. People run for school board pledging to get rid of LGBTQ books in public schools. Social media users pass around memes mocking drag queen story hours, whipping up fear and anger over “men in women’s bathrooms,” and arguing that men can’t get pregnant.