It’s been a week, and we are still trying to grapple with the decisions that we made as a country last week. I described that one group of people has already seen blame from the left for their failure to win, while the right plans to begin attacking their very existence: transgender people, especially trans youth.
One of the most common political ads that were shown on television’s prime audiences was attacks from conservative PACs on trans people, attacking the fact that Kamala Harris was supportive of LGBTQ+ rights. They described that they were doing sex change operations on illegal immigrants and Kamala was for “they/them”, an attempted attack on pronoun usage that was the hallmarks of Republicans’ “Don’t Say Gay” movement. They spent over 215 million dollars on anti-trans ads across the country, $135 for every trans person in the US.
To attack less than a percent of the population, over $215,000,000.
This isn’t a post about how badly we need campaign finance reforms in this country and the overwhelming barrage of negative ads, but the point remains: that’s still an insane amount to spend attacking only one group of people. They’re also mostly attacking young trans people, those who don’t yet even have a voice to vote against these politicians who want to ruin their lives.
Trans people tried their best – exit polling suggested that nearly 86% of LGBTQ+ voters voted for Kamala Harris, the largest majority for a Democratic nominee in nearly five presidential cycles. But it wasn’t enough, and the vilification of our lives began.
Shortly after the dust settled, the knives started to come out for the Democrats, discussing how they messed up this time. For a few, their attacks were primarily driven on trans rights and the progressive embrace of full equality. Democratic Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts did an interview with the New York Times, saying that as a father of two girls, he didn't want them ran over by a male or formerly male athlete (repeating the conservative talking point that trans people are only transitioning for the purpose of winning at sports), but his politics and party said he shouldn’t say that. However, this is fully untrue. According to reports, there are less than 100 transwomen who are playing sports nationwide at the high school level, and most of them are doing it just because of them wanting to have fun with their friends.
Even looking at the pure data, the consensus that people had that voters were deciding their vote on the issue of trans people is entirely false. Polling released on Monday from Change Research said that the overwhelming barrage of negative trans advertising didn't impact their vote. The respondents to the same poll said that 76% said that ads like this use trans people as political pawns to create division: and in that amount, 55% of Republicans agreed with that. They also overwhelmingly said that it should be doctors, parents, and kids deciding if they should go onto gender-affirming care: not politicians who only seek to use identity as a form of discrimination.
Trump has already promised to crack down on trans people and it’s going to be a tough few years. But most importantly for those allies: please stand by us. I’ve said before that Democrats need to be vocally supportive from the get-go on trans rights and LGBTQ+ rights, and we have seen that. Representative-elect Sarah McBride of Delaware, the first openly trans representative in Congress, said that Republicans were the ones focusing on culture wars and attacking people instead of campaigning on the issues that impact the everyday American, and that is true. Identity and who people are isn’t a secret, but we need to stand up for every single one of our peers. Because somewhere, there’s going to be someone that needs us to be the ones who stand up for them.
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