On Wednesday, Senior House Democrat Adam Schiff encouraged President Biden to drop out of the presidential race, becoming the highest profile party member to do so thus far. Elsewhere, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer played a large part in the Democratic National Committee delaying their official nominating process until at least August 1st after a substantial group of the party’s US House members threatened to torpedo the process in an effort to get Biden to drop out of the race.

The debate over Biden’s status as the Democratic candidate has raged across traditional and social media since his disastrous debate appearance with former President Donald Trump on June 27. In the debate, Biden came off as frail and diminished, occasionally letting his words drift off and fumbling his most important potential policy question on abortion rights.

The following two weeks were dominated by breathless media coverage over the question of Biden’s possible withdrawal from the race. The New York Times wrote numerous op-eds calling on the president to step aside, while political reporters have fueled the issue with many anonymous quotes from senior Democrats and powerful donors wishing for Biden to drop out in favor of a younger candidate with more vitality.

Now, rumors are swirling that the president might announce his withdrawal from the race in a few days. This has left the Democratic party in a state of flux just as Republicans gather in Wisconsin for their convention. They’ll be coronating Trump as their undisputed party leader this week and Democrats don’t even know for sure who their candidate will be this fall.

The Biden question has introduced some interesting fault lines within the Democratic coalition, with Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez backing Biden and many in the party’s center calling for him to drop out. On the voter front, it feels like progressives that would normally support Sanders and AOC are finding themselves agreeing with the party centrists in wishing for Biden’s withdrawal from the race. The unity that Democrats desperately need to face Trump in the fall seems more elusive than ever.

Out of everything, the bickering on social media, the all out press from the newspapers, and the uncertainty of it all, the waiting has been the worst part of it as a marginalized voter.

As a trans person in the US, there is nothing more important to my future and the futures of my friends and community than this election. Almost every trans person I know has been dreading the election this fall and our coming doom if Trump wins and installs the heart of the conservative anti-trans movement into our nation’s federal institutions. I myself have skin in the game, if you take seriously the conservative interpretation of their party’s ban on “pornography” including anything published related to gender identity. A Trump porn ban likely ends my own career as a trans writer, since the majority of my work is about trans issues that would fall under an overly broad interpretation of the GOP’s proposed ban.

The stakes could not get any higher for us, and seeing our only hope against Trump flail about on that stage took the life out of me. This is the election of my life as a trans person, my life and the lives of those in my community are all on the line here and we simply cannot afford a Trump win this fall. Remember, it’s not just Trump that would take office, we’re also talking about the thousands of other government officials who also find themselves in power when a new party takes over. Some of my trans friends have started to seriously plan for fleeing the country, as many families with trans kids have already fled red states with anti-trans laws.

Every day that passes without an answer to the Biden candidacy question just extends our dread even further, the stakes are simply too high.

The assassination attempt on Trump and the Republican National Convention this week has eased off the pace and and pressure on Democrats to decide on Biden’s future, but it is a question they will need to resolve by the end of the month and so far, they’ve gone about it the Dem way: chaotic and spineless.

Behind the scenes, senior Dem lawmakers are telling reporters and pundits that many of them are simply resigned to trying to endure a second Trump term rather than try to push out Biden. That attitude was called out publicly by Ocasio-Cortez, who said any party lawmaker who thinks that way should resign immediately. I agree with her.

This election is simply too important for trans people and other marginalized folks to simply resign to a second Trump term without a fight.

Katelyn Burns is an opinion columnist based in Massachusetts. She was previously the first openly transgender Capitol Hill reporter in US History.