Support for Transgender Rights Has Declined
Pushing all the buttons: kids, sports, bathrooms
The fact is support for transgender rights has ebbed over the past seven years, and that is indisputable. If you listen to right-wing pundits, you would think that the transgender community was guilty of ‘overreach’ — that Trans radical activists (that’s me) pushed an agenda that was repellent to most Americans. It met with the backlash it deserved.
Obviously, it was overreach for transgender Americans to ask for the unalienable rights outlined in the Constitution. Apparently, we fall outside the “straight white men only have rights club” in that document, and we, therefore, have to beg and plead for our rights.
On May 5th, 2023, the Washington Post published a story entitled, “Most Americans support anti-trans policies favored by GOP, poll shows.” The bottom line was that by a 57 to 43% margin, Americans see gender as the same as sex: binary, immutable, and fixed at birth.
To me, a transgender woman, this is tantamount to saying: that what I feel, what I do, is made up. Being transgender is so inconceivable that it elicits one response from most cisgender folks: denial.
All rights for transgender people follow the concept that we are not our fixed birth sex, that we determine our gender, and for our mental and physical health, we should be allowed to express our gender, even when it does not align with our birth sex.
And yet, in the same poll, by wide margins (70%+), the American public believes that transgender people should not face discrimination in employment, schools, healthcare, and the military.
So, in truth, most Americans don’t have the foggiest notion of what it means to be trans and are alarmed by the ideas and images that have been carefully pushed. And yet, a majority don’t want to think they are biased; and want to claim to be tolerant and accepting.
The good news: the number of Americans who personally know transgender individuals is rising — with tolerance, understanding, and acceptance closely following. Many of the articles cited above were hopeful about transgender rights, comparing the shift in attitudes to those of gay marriage, but here’s the problem: there are 8 to 10 times more gay and lesbian Americans than there are transgender Americans.
How did the support for trans identity become so weak? The truth is: Amongst the Republican party, the support for transgender rights has disappeared. According to the Public Religion Research Institute, only 10% of Republicans feel there is a range of gender identities. The other 90% see gender as fixed and binary. That is a hell of a headwind for trans folks to push against. Support for transgender identity amongst Democrats is still strong, with 74% believing there are more than two fixed genders.
A recent poll by NBC echoes the same sentiment: 8 out of 10 Republicans feel Americans have gone too far in accepting transgender individuals, and polling of Democrats shows the reverse; only 2 out of 10.
This results from a concerted effort by the Religious Right to demonize the transgender community. To summarize the NYT article (it’s behind a paywall), once gay marriage was enshrined into law, Republican strategists met and decided to throw whatever they could out there and see what stuck. Attacks on the trans community worked. False claims about medicating and performing surgery on children are very powerful stuff. Who wouldn’t be upset about that? The propaganda has been relentless.
Children: Transgender folks want children to be safe too. Once upon a time, we were transgender children. We don’t forget; we cannot forget the feeling that we had. I knew by the time I was eight years old. I believe that a child, their thoughtful, connected parents, and their informed physician are the best judge of what is appropriate for a child. Not an intrusive state government that demonizes the transgender community. Not a religious cult that is determined to use any and all transgender people as political fodder.
Sports. Make no mistake about it; the optics are bad. One athlete (Lia Thomas) won one sporting event over fourteen months ago, and the floodgates opened. And yet there is not one example of a trans woman athlete taking away a scholarship from a cis woman athlete. Trans athletes are extremely rare. When the State of Utah passed a ban on transgender girls in sports, it affected four (4) athletes. As a percentage of the 45,000 athletes playing girls’ sports in that state, it’s one-hundredth of a percent ( .01%). At the same time, the accusation of playing sports while being trans was weaponized by this ban against cisgender women who don’t conform to beauty norms. It’s not about fairness; the aim of these bills is the systematic elimination of ‘Transgenderism’ in public life.
Make no mistake about it. There is no overreach. There is nothing but a systemic, concerted effort by a powerful lobby to demonize a community with no voice. The Democrat Party is not willing to risk its neck fighting against this kind of blatant bigotry, so it has been allowed to spread and bloom, washing across this nation. The opposition is energized and smells blood in the water. What they did to Bud Light and Dylan Mulvaney worked so well they have gone after Target for daring to display Pride merchandise in stores.
As we enter Pride month, we have to keep in mind that the LGBTQ community is stronger when we stand together. United we stand, divided we fall. Only by standing together can we weather the storm of hate and vitriol that has energized this determined, well-funded movement.
