Stand With Trans Americans
You don’t have to understand everything about the transgender experience to know that Trump’s acts of humiliation and dehumanization are unjust and dangerous.
DONALD TRUMP AND HIS ADMINISTRATION’S dehumanization of transgender people—literally denying their existence—is deeply harmful to a small group of Americans who face discrimination already. As someone who helped lead the fight to win marriage for same-sex couples, I’m familiar with the playbook of sowing fear, though I have never seen it carried out as viciously as the Trump administration is now doing. The question for all of us is whether we go along with it or, instead, question it, listen to the stories of transgender people and their families, and see if we can connect, empathize, welcome, and push back.
Trump is a master scapegoater. He scapegoats to motivate voters to focus their anger on disfavored people, from falsely accusing Haitians who legally immigrated to this country of eating dogs and cats, to pledging on the campaign trail to “root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”
The first six weeks of Trump’s second administration have been marked by a relentless barrage of anti-transgender attacks, playing into people’s lack of familiarity and discomfort. Trump has directed his administration to systematically take away every aspect of what transgender people need to live their daily lives. Under the cynical guise of “defending women,” Trump now conflates those who meet the medical definition of gender dysphoria with practitioners of what he dubs “gender ideology.”
Many people will find especially jarring Trump’s executive order touching on transgender members of the armed forces. He asserts the “falsehood” of transgender people’s existence to justify curtailing medical treatments and banning trans people from uniform, stating that such identification “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle,” and is “not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
The nastiness and the pace of rollbacks and erasure is jaw-dropping. Check out the National Park Service’s website for the Stonewall National Monument, which commemorates the site of the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion, considered the birth of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. Until a few weeks ago, the page spoke of LGBTQ+ individuals—as it must since trans people played a central role in the Rebellion—but now the “T” has been deleted. It is absolutely chilling, and it is the same story across multiple federal government websites.
These aren’t just symbolic attacks: Trump’s orders are having immediate effects on real lives. Individuals who have transitioned are no longer able to get passports or other forms of federal identification that conform to their lived gender anymore, putting them in danger, or even jeopardizing their freedom to travel. Doctors’ appointments booked by parents have been canceled even in major cities in blue states. School administrators are walking back policies and practices that strive to make schools safe places for all students. The Pentagon just announced that it will soon begin discharging trans people—of whom there are an estimated 15,500—from the military.
Trump is trying to trick the public into thinking that his administration is trying to protect girls or children. But he is merely following the well-worn blueprint of scapegoating a small minority of misunderstood people who simply want to be able to live their lives freely.
Not all Republicans are on the same page as Trump. Republican Governor Spencer Cox of Utah, for example, in 2023 vetoed a measure banning transgender kids from playing sports. He did his homework, engaging with transgender Utahns and conducting careful research. He found that of the 75,000 kids participating in high school sports in Utah, only one was a transgender female student. He also learned that 86 percent of trans youth reported suicidality and 56 percent have attempted suicide.
“Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few,” he said. “I don’t understand what they are going through or why they feel the way they do. But I want them to live.”
Similarly thoughtful statements came from Republican Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio and former GOP Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, both of whom vetoed measures to limit medical care for trans young people. “We’re dealing with children who are going through a challenging time, families that are going through a challenging time,” DeWine said. “I want, the best I can, to get it right.”
THROUGH MY ADVOCACY WORK, I’ve become close with many trans people. They are some of the bravest people I know. To feel with certainty that you are a woman even though you’re born into the body of a man—or vice versa—is an unimaginably difficult realization to make. The social stigma of living according to one’s gender identity when it’s out of sync with one’s birth sex is intense. Overcoming it and living as who you know yourself to be requires extraordinary courage.
The present fraught political moment for transgender people reminds me of where our efforts to win marriage for same-sex couples stood in 2004. We were in a precarious spot. Thirteen states approved bans at the ballot that year, with President George W. Bush advancing a constitutional amendment at the national level to bar it. Some Democratic operatives blamed our efforts for John Kerry’s loss to Bush that November.
Our efforts to build momentum after those setbacks relied on the fact that Americans overwhelmingly believe in the Golden Rule—treating others as you’d like to be treated—but we realized that in order to get people to apply it to same-sex couples, they must first be able to genuinely empathize and connect. And we knew that many Americans didn’t know gay people or understand us.
So we went about making our case, asking people who were conflicted to engage in conversation with us. The truth is that many Americans grew up in a culture where homosexuality was stigmatized, so it was no surprise they were conflicted. Expecting immediate understanding just wasn’t realistic, and casting people as “bigots” led only to further hostility. People needed to hear from parents of same-sex couples, gay and lesbian people themselves, people in their own towns and neighborhoods—people they could relate to. And they needed to carefully check in with their own internal compasses. As they did, they came to see that the reasons same-sex couples had for wanting to marry—to express love and commitment, to protect their families, to build a future together—were the same reasons that straight couples had for wanting to marry.
Now, as trans people face tremendous political adversity, advocates are working their hardest to pursue similar strategies. It starts with conversation. Reasonable people can have honest questions about what it means to be transgender—and there must be space for discussion and room for people to grow. Could you consider what it would be like to have your kid or close friend tell you that they are transgender? How would you respond to them?
See if you can apply the Golden Rule—and then take a stand for the dignity and freedom of transgender people.
THE LAST WORD must go to Martin Niemöller, the German theologian whose famous 1946 poem begins “First they came for the Communists / And I did not speak out / Because I was not a Communist.” Think of these attacks against trans people as tests for how much authoritarians can get away with. If we don’t speak out now and show Trump and his supporters that Americans disapprove, it will only make it easier for this administration to come after other marginalized groups.
It’s time right now to raise our hands and be counted—as allies, as Americans, as those appalled by the discharging of loyal members of the armed services, as those who believe in the Golden Rule. It doesn’t need to be loud; it can be pushing back at the dinner table or challenging a friend who says something that doesn’t sit quite right with you. Right now, we must take a stand against this cruelty and declare that trans people exist—and should have every right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as everyone else.
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