1. United States
2. Mich.
3. Letter

You need to speak out — loudly and on the record — against the wave of anti-LGBTQ+ violence sweeping this country. GLAAD tracked more than 930 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents between May 2024 and April 2025, including assaults, bomb threats, arsons, and killings. More than half targeted transgender and gender non-conforming people. This is not a culture war abstraction. Juniper Blessing, a 19-year-old transgender student, was stabbed to death at the University of Washington this spring. A transgender elder was killed in a hit-and-run in San Francisco. Transgender women were murdered in Virginia, New York, and Illinois. A man in Florida was charged with beating a five-year-old boy for being gay. Legislation that strips transgender people of healthcare, bathroom access, and legal recognition does not exist in a vacuum. It creates a permission structure for violence. When federal agencies start tracking "Transgender Ideology-Inspired Violent Extremism" instead of the people actually being killed, something has gone badly wrong. I grew up knowing the name Matthew Shepard as a warning. A new generation of queer kids is growing up the same way, and that is a failure we are choosing. We are better than this. The future of this country is inclusive, and I expect you to act like it. Condemn this violence publicly. Oppose legislation that targets LGBTQ+ people. Use your platform and your vote to make clear that every person in this district deserves to be safe.