On Sunday, Dec. 22, Donald Trump spoke at Turning Point USA’s annual AmericaFest, which is a who’s who of creeps. To the audience of right-wing extremists Trump said, “With the stroke of my pen, on Day 1, we’re going to stop the transgender lunacy.”
What is “transgender lunacy,” you ask? Well, it apparently is the very existence of transgender people. Trump wants to end gender-affirming care, ban trans athletes from women’s sports, kick transgender people out of the military and rid “our elementary schools and middle schools and high schools” of transgender people.
If it sounds ugly, that’s because it is ugly. Transgender people are a very small percentage of the population, which makes the laser focus on them from the highest reaches of power especially sick and scary.
“Under the Trump administration, it will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female,” Trump said. “Doesn’t sound too complicated, does it?”
No, it doesn’t sound complicated at all. In fact, it sounds woefully simplistic. But that is how Trump and the Republicans approach even the most complicated of problems. No nuance allowed. When we’re talking about people’s lives and their identities, we’re talking about some of the most personal parts of somebody’s life. But Trump apparently thinks that as soon as he signs a piece of paper with a black magic marker the entire issue of transgender people will go away. It’ll be a miracle, just like COVID.
Trump also told the Turning Point USA crowd, “I will end the war in Ukraine. I will stop the chaos in the Middle East, and I will prevent, I promise, World War III.”
Again, super complicated problems, and Trump thinks they’re an easy fix. Because he is a reckless idiot.
I got a holiday card from a friend who has gender-diverse children. On the front are photos of a smiling and happy family. The back of every card they sent out reads, “Thank you for being a safe haven for our [kids]. Please keep them in mind when you hear hatred and vitriol aimed at kids who are different. Please keep [my husband] and I in mind when you hear attacks on parents who love and support their kids.”
The message continues, “We ask that you not allow our family to be maligned in your presence. Please speak up for us whenever you can, our family needs your voice right now. We all deserve love and kindness, especially our children.”
What a thing to have to put on your holiday cards. The fear that transgender people and the parents of transgender children are feeling as we get closer and closer to Trump’s inauguration is real.
The day after Trump’s “transgender lunacy” comments, this headline appeared on fortune.com: “Fleeing the country and rationing testosterone: Transgender Americans’ new reality under a Trump presidency.”
According to the article, “LGBTQ youth calls to mental health crisis lines spiked by 700% right after Election Day. And in the first study to assess post-election transgender mental health…anxiety was shown to have increased 45%, depression by 19%, and feelings of dread by 30% among trans Americans from the month before the election until the week afterward.”
One of the subjects featured in the article is Rose, a high school senior in Houston. Rose tells Fortune that since November she’s been in “kind of a slump.” She calls the fight against transgender rights “dehumanizing.”
“My life and the lives of the people that I care about have been used as tools and a political game — and I’m not a political point to make in your speech,” she says. “I am a teenager who goes to school who gets homework done. Like, I have a life, and my life is in danger because people refuse to have empathy.”
Empathy definitely does seem to be in short supply in the U.S. But empathy is the enemy of conservative policies. If you care about other people or can even imagine their pain, it’s pretty hard to give tax cuts only to the rich at the expense of everyone else, to support the mass deportation of immigrants, to strip people of abortion rights, to deny people health insurance, to want to do away with welfare and other pieces of the social safety net, to think what the world needs now is guns, more guns.
And yet, here we are. As my friend implored me, hold the people you love close and speak out against the torrid of hate against transgender people that has really only just begun.