recent gallup The list has been published About the most pressing issues Americans are considering when choosing their next president. Not surprisingly, there is no overlap between Republicans and Democrats in the top five.
Republicans say they are concerned about the economy, immigration, terrorism, national security, crime and taxes.
Democrats are concerned about American democracy, Supreme Court nominations, abortion, health care, and education.
Transgender rights do not appear among the top concerns of voters of either party, whether they support or oppose them. In fact, out of more than 20 issues pollsters asked about, transgender rights ranked last in terms of importance to voters overall.
So why did former President Trump’s campaign spend tens of millions of dollars? inflammatory advertising Are you attacking Vice President Kamala Harris’ support for transgender rights?
Since early August, Trump and other Republicans have $65 million Anti-trans ads focused on battleground states. Even here in the bluest California, you can’t turn on the TV without seeing ads.
“Kamala supports gender reassignment of prisoners with taxpayer funds,” says a disdainful narrator. “It may be hard to believe, but it’s true. Even the liberal media was shocked that Kamala was supporting the sex change of prisoners and illegal aliens with taxpayer funds.”
The edited images include Harris and Assistant Secretary of Health Gen. Rachel Levine, transgender people including drag performer Patti Gonia, and inmates from the Orange Is the New Black series. The actors who played the characters are shown.
“Kamala is for them,” the ad concludes. “President Trump is on your side.”
As the Harris campaign and others have pointed out, this ad is misleading. Federal policy, including under the Trump administration, allows incarcerated transgender people to receive gender-affirming medical care. According to , only two federal prison inmates have ever undergone gender reassignment surgery. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and FactCheck.org.
In other words, this is not a problem.
President Trump has made unbridled claims for months about children going to school as one gender and coming home as the other. Initially I thought he was awkward and the debate surrounding whether schools should force parents to tell their nonbinary or transgender children that they are “out of school” or “in transition.” I assumed that he was referring to. But no, he has repeatedly insisted Schools are actually subjecting children to gender reassignment surgery without their parents’ consent. (I can’t believe I had to type that.)
President Trump’s campaign of fear against transgender people is disgusting, dishonest, and dangerous because it is what it is.
“These ads remind me of President Trump’s first term,” said Heron Greensmith, vice director of policy at the Transgender Law Center. “It’s just cruelty. They’re mean and mean and they beat you up.”
So what exactly is going on here? Is it easy to demonize vulnerable people to score political points in close races, or is there something deeper?
“What the Republican Party is seeing and feeling is that people are worried about the future,” M. Gessen said. Conversation about advertising Last week, I spoke with an opinion editor at the New York Times.
“They are worried about their economic future,” said Gessen, a nonbinary journalist who frequently writes about LGBTQ+ issues. “They feel anxious about their social future, and it all boils down to this anxiety about their children. I’m afraid I’ll talk to them, use a different name, or just be a stranger in general.”
This explains the moral hysteria surrounding gender-affirming care for minors that is spreading across the country’s red states. At least 22 states have passed bans on such care for transgender and nonbinary minors. Five even made it a felony. And at least 70 clinics that provided gender-affirming care have closed since 2021, the report says. Research results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn..
There’s no law against lying in political ads, but President Trump’s ramblings about sex-reassignment surgeries in schools may be too bizarre for ad creators. Bullying transgender inmates and immigrants must have seemed like the next best thing. But the message is always about fear.
“So fear works on certain people,” says Greensmith, who is non-binary. “This works for people who are already primed to seek out their ‘in’ and ‘out’ groups. But the majority of Americans support people’s right to live as their gender, have autonomy over their health care, and support people’s protection from discrimination against things over which we have no control. ”
This presidential campaign is almost over. But the damage President Trump inflicted on transgender people through fear-mongering, scapegoating, and “othering” will undoubtedly live on.
thread: @rabcarian
