Halloween is almost here, and it’s a scary time for many LGBTQ+ parents. November is around the corner, with consequential elections and the hearing for a U.S. Supreme Court case that could facilitate discrimination against our families.
But we’ve faced scary things before.
This year’s midterms will determine control of Congress and whether we have any hope of stopping or slowing the federal administration’s attack on LGBTQ+ equality, including attempts to ban gender-affirming care, to block access to LGBTQ+-inclusive books in schools, to stop trans youth from participating in sports aligned with their gender, to restrict reproductive rights including access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) and surrogacy (which depends on IVF) and more.
Elections to state legislatures and to local entities like school and library boards will also impact our families. The ACLU is currently tracking 531 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in state legislatures across the U.S. During the 2025-26 school year, too, 114 school boards banned books, the highest number ever, according to a report this month by PEN America and these efforts “have overwhelmingly targeted books about race and racism, LGBTQ+ people or characters, people or characters of color, and sex.”
Also up for a vote are ballot measures in Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska and Washington that seek to ban trans youth from school sports aligned with their gender, and measures in Colorado and Missouri that would prevent trans youth from accessing evidence-based, gender-affirming health care even when their parents and doctors agree on a course of action.
The Missouri measure would also ban abortion access. Another Washington measure would require schools to out LGBTQ+ students to parents if the students confide in teachers or counselors.
These measures “[mark] the first time in American history that voters themselves, rather than legislators or politicians, will directly weigh in on a proposed statewide anti-transgender policy,” said the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) in a new report. The use of ballot measures is the return to an old tactic that was “one of the primary weapons used against marriage equality.”
Only one state has a pro-LGBTQ measure on the ballot: Voters in Virginia will decide whether to repeal the state’s ban on marriage equality.
The ban has been unenforceable since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell decision, but, like a similar law in Texas, it remains on the books and could rise, zombie-like, if marriage equality were to ever be overturned at the federal level. Thirty-two states in fact still have constitutional or statutory bans on marriage equality, per MAP (though a state supreme court ruling in Iowa would stop that state’s ban from resurrection even with a federal reversal).
And you can add in the many other issues we may care about that aren’t specific to LGBTQ+ people and families — such as the economy, the environment and gun control (how have we as a country not managed to stop school shootings?), not to mention the current federal administration flouting basic tenets of our democracy, from freedom of the press to the separation of powers.
Also on Election Day, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case to decide whether religious preschools can take public money but still discriminate against LGBTQ+ children and those with LGBTQ+ parents. The impact of a negative ruling would, first and foremost, harm the LGBTQ+ children and families who would face discrimination, but as the NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s amicus brief in the case noted, it could also open up “broad swaths of civil rights laws to challenges.”
The outlook is scary, indeed. But the LGBTQ+ community has faced frightening things before, as the briefest glance at our history shows, and we have countered them with action and community.
And our most important action right now is to make a plan and vote. Vote early if you can, or on Nov. 3 otherwise. (If you are voting by mail, check your state’s deadlines.)
Make a plan. Know your polling place, its hours and what ID your state may require. (Vote.org is helpful for all this.) Visit Ballotpedia.org or your state’s election website to review the ballot in advance, then vote all the way down the ballot (and check both sides).
If you have children, make plans for their care, or bring them with you to show them what voting is all about. If you have kids over 18, remind them to vote, too.
And remember: In every state, you are allowed to vote if you are in line when the polls close. If you voted by absentee or mail-in ballot or in person with a provisional ballot, visit Vote.org to make sure it was received and accepted, and find contact information to follow up if it wasn’t.
Community is part of this, too. Offer to help relatives, friends or neighbors get to the polls (and perhaps share a personal story about why you’re voting a certain way).
Finally, remember that perfect candidates are rare — but not voting for someone because you don’t agree with them completely may give an edge to an opponent who is much worse.
For our children. For ourselves. For our families, however we define them. For our country and all that it could be. Vote. ■
Dana Rudolph is the founder and publisher of Mombian (Mombian.com), a two-time GLAAD Media Award-winning blog for LGBTQ parents, plus a searchable database of 2,000+ LGBTQ family books.
