Warning: This article touches on sensitive topics, such as violence against transgender people. Please take caution.
On Sunday, Dec. 22, President-elect Donald Trump was in Phoenix, Arizona, speaking to a conservative crowd at AmericaFest 2024.
Unsurprisingly the audience cheered as he pressed on the same points with which he ran in this year’s election, like tapping the same keys on a toy xylophone. What’s most disconcerting about this is that Trump’s policies often go after the most vulnerable in society:
“With a stroke of my pen on day 1, we’re going to stop the transgender lunacy. And I will sign executive orders to end child sexual mutilation, get transgender out of the military, and out of our elementary schools and middle schools, and high schools. We will keep men out of women’s sports. And that will likewise be done on day 1. […] Under the Trump administration, it will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.”
If there were still any doubt, last Sunday’s speech made it crystal clear what Trump’s stance on transgenders rights is – in a nutshell, trans people shouldn’t have rights, or, at best, not the same rights as everyone else.
Let’s dive a little further into a pressing matter that should never have been controversial, without neglecting to, from a critical perspective, provide a reason as to why anti-trans rhetoric has become one of Republicans’ favorite but severely unfunny party tricks.
Four Horseman of the GOP: Intolerance, Fear, Anger, and Hate
Anyone who perceives transgender people as a problem in society has never taken the time to sit down with a trans individual and simply converse while maintaining open-mindedness – something that shouldn’t be as hard as it seems to be – as a fundamental but very achievable condition.
It is not enough to have encountered a transgender person if one has decided to preemptively answer integral questions about this group’s gender identity without making the smallest attempt to understand how they feel. This, heartbreakingly, includes people who are parents to trans children, like Elon Musk, who cannot seem to do his daughter the basic kindness of not misgendering her.
Trans people’s gender identity, for the record, is not something that can be influenced by talking about trans rights. It should be needless to say, but no one wakes up one morning and decides on a whim that they were born in the wrong body.
Everything that was once considered different or outside societal norms was prejudiced against or outlawed at some point in time. Galileo went to trial for heresy for believing the Earth gyrated around the Sun and not vice versa. Those who erroneously judged him and deemed him a heretic though he was correct, saw themselves as standing on the moral high ground.
Just the week before Trump’s recent speech, the House voted on passing a version of the National Defense Authorization Act that would prevent children of military service members from receiving the gender-affirming care they need. In recent years, transgender individuals acquired the right to serve openly as members of the U.S. military. As Trump said in his anti-trans rant, he’s seeking to kick out of the military service personnel who have put their bodies, hearts, and minds into serving their country. There are about “15,000 people” (via HRC.org) who would be deemed unfit to serve simply because they live with gender dysphoria, which in no way impacts their ability to perform their duties.
As Trump claims in the clip above, he intends to revoke Joe Biden’s protections for gender identity and non-discrimination in healthcare. Besides overblowing problems that do not even exist, Trump also intends – as he reiterated during his Dec. 22 public appearance – “to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female and they are assigned at birth.” Listen carefully to the then-nominee’s words and the emphasis he gives them. It’s all purposeful (maybe except for the fact that he’s clearly reading from a teleprompter and wouldn’t win an Oscar if he’s pretending not to).
Propaganda based on hate of an entire group of people has been an ever-present characteristic of fascist movements. MAGA believers deem the comparison to fascism more virulent, more violence-inducing, than any and all negation of transgender identity. Trump was shot at once, whereas, if we combine global statistics of both external and self-inflicted violence, transgender people die every day on average – not accounting for the surely dozens of undocumented cases.
It is not surprising that these statistics cannot improve when Trump has set his mind to reinforcing and implementing further barriers to these citizens’ process of becoming who they are. A conclusion that trans people come to on their own, and not because society, Democrats, or leftist teachers tell them. It is pathetically paternalistic to imagine otherwise.
On Sunday evening, it was not the first time – and unfortunately won’t be the last – that Trump showcased how far he intends to trample on trans rights. It should go without saying but Trump’s view and the narrative he spews on transgender issues is swathed in misinformation. The “so-called gender-affirming care” saves lives. Just as people are not performing abortions at 9 months, not eating cats and dogs in Springfield, people are also not “performing [gender-affirming] surgery on minor children.”
This rhetoric goes beyond fearmongering to become hatemongering, which it ultimately amounts to. Emotions are powerful weapons, and Trump and his Republican buddies – a word Musk would use – have never been afraid to exploit them, inspiring the most negative ones in his supporters.
If you’re a transgender person who is struggling during this understandably difficult time, there are resources that can help. You may also refer to our article about how you can help the trans youth in your community.
Published: Dec 24, 2024 11:12 am