Transgender people are frequent targets of discrimination, and the recent increase in this prejudice has been used to fuel political campaigns.
Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential bid in manifests how demonising marginalised populations – such as transgender people – can be used to gain political support.
During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump spent almost $215 million on television adverts, according to AdImpact, which directly demonised transgender people.
One of these adverts criticised Kamala Harris’s intentions to "give criminal illegal aliens taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries"; in reality, documented instances of inmates receiving Gender Confirmation Surgeries are rare.
This seemingly referenced a 2019 questionnaire filled out by Kamala Harris when running for Democratic nominee, in which she affirmed her support for the surgical treatment of transgender inmates.
Framing this position as excessive and extreme was a method to appeal to conservative voters.
According to the US Census Bureau’s data, approximately 1.14% of US citizens identify themselves as transgender, and a further 1.52% as other genderqueer terms which are not cisgender.
Spending such a large amount on vilifying a tiny, marginalised group of the population has easily garnered support for his bigotry from some conservative Americans – some of whom are even instilled with ideas such as transgender women being male predators, when in fact president-elect Trump has been accused many times of sexual misconduct and assault.
It can be argued that this money should have been spent on adverts about housing, immigration and the economy, which have been identified as key issues to all US citizens, but disparaging a vulnerable group has proved effective.
This advertising strategy is designed to promote hate, and this is what fuels citizens so strongly – these adverts aimed to make voters think less about the key issues when polls showed a consistent near-tie between Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
In 2017, according to the New York City Anti-Violence Project’s Crisis of Hate report, there was an 86% increase in homicides of queer people in the US; the increase in violent hate crimes is a significant impact which rose during Trump’s 2016 presidency and is likely to happen again.
However, supporters of Trump’s campaign may argue that their issues with the rights of transgender people stem from cultural values and moral concerns.
Nevertheless, Trump’s consistent bashing of the transgender community only strengthens stereotypes and contorts ambivalence into hate.
Exploiting marginalised populations has been used before in American politics: George W. Bush’s 2004 called the rights of queer people a moral threat whilst pushing for a ban on same-sex marriage; this was particularly effective during a time when social norms were changing.
Trump has further used this type of rhetoric in his 2016 campaign by his Islamophobia which manifested in his advocation for a ban on Muslims entering the US.
Therefore, by focusing on transgender people, Trump’s campaign epitomises the reoccurring tactic of targeting vulnerable groups in order to rally political power.
As the United States transitions into a second term of Donald Trump’s presidency, transgender people as well as other marginalised groups will have to face severe continued discrimination and denial of their identity.
These tactics initiate the erosion of human rights and equity, not only for transgender people, and challenging this harmful rhetoric is essential.
