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At some level, it couldn't be less complicated. Donald Trump is a classic bully. Which means, if you aren't on his side of things (as he sees it), watch out! And count on one thing, anything involving DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) isn't on his side of things. We know that now, of course. How could we not? He couldn't have been clearer on the subject this time around. He's already done his damnedest to ensure that anything having to do with DEI is removed from the U.S. military and its websites because everyone knows that soldiers are (White) men (right?). And as he told graduating cadets recently at West Point, "We've liberated our troops from divisive and demeaning political trainings." In the meantime, the Defense Department has gone little short of wild removing anything essentially not White and male, including photos from military websites simply because a service member's last name was "gay" or even images of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, which happened to be known as the Enola Gay (the name of the mother of that plane's pilot).
And if being a woman or gay is bad enough, being transgender is unimaginably worse. In fact, in the age of Trump, spending a single government cent related to being transgender is simply inconceivable. That's undoubtedly why the president supported Elon Musk cutting what they both considered wasteful government spending by, as he said in a March address to Congress, getting rid of "$8 million for making mice transgender." (And no, I swear I didn't make that up! It's a genuine quote from that address in which he went on to request that Congress pass a bill "permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body.") He also, of course, cut off federal money for schools that don't ban transgender student athletes, while the National Park Service "removed all mentions of 'transgender' from the website for New York City's Stonewall National Monument, a classic monument to gay pride.
And from essentially the moment he entered the White House the second time, he really hasn't stopped, which means that, as Pride Month arrives this June, he's only begun. And with that in mind, let TomDispatch regular Liz Theoharis, Aaron Scott, and Moses Hernandez McGavin explore just what it does mean to be transgender in the age of Trump. Tom
The War on Trans People
And What It Means in the Age of Trump
By Aaron Scott, Liz Theoharis and Moses Hernandez McGavin
This year, Pride Month arrives at an especially dire moment for the LGBTQ+ community. Under the second Trump administration, homophobic vitriol and violence are on the rise. On Elon Musk's X platform, a "deepfake" video of Donald Trump canceling Pride Month has gone viral. And even as Pride celebrations continue as planned (in many places without as many corporate contributions), the attacks against LGBTQ+ people, especially transgender people, seem to be on steroids. After all, since taking office a second time, Trump has issued executive orders that ban transgender women in sports and transgender troops in the military, while limiting federal recognition to two genders. And his executive actions are only the spear tip of a significantly larger legislative attempt to target and scapegoat transgender people, who make up just over one percent of the U.S. population.
Believe it or not, so far this year, 701 anti-trans bills have been introduced in American legislative bodies at both the state and federal levels. More than $215 million was spent on anti-trans television advertisements during the 2024 election season alone. Now, Trump's "big, beautiful bill," barely passed by the House and at present in the Senate -- which would gut Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and other lifesaving safety-net programs -- takes explicit aim at gender-affirming care for Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) patients. If the Senate passes it, the result will be devastating for trans people, who are already twice as likely as the general population to be unemployed and unhoused and four times as likely to live in extreme poverty. It should be no surprise, then, that almost half of transgender adults in this country have already relocated or are considering relocating to more trans-affirming places.
While executive orders, budget cuts, and other attacks threaten all trans and nonbinary people, the most vulnerable are, of course, at greatest risk, including the poor, people of color, the young, the disabled, and the incarcerated. In a recent report, the ACLU offers a horrific insight into this reality:
"Some of the most immediate impacts will likely be felt by the more than 2,000 transgender people currently held in federal custody. [One] order specifically calls on the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to ignore the guidelines of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) and enforce a blanket policy forcing transgender women into men's prisons and detention centers against their will. This puts them at a severely heightened risk of sexual assault and abuse by other incarcerated persons and prison staff. The order also mandates that BOP withdraw critical health care from trans people in federal prison."
The overwhelming majority of anti-trans bills target trans and nonbinary children, youth, and young adults by taking away their sense of safety and belonging in healthcare locations, libraries, schools, sports, and so much more, while only accelerating anti-trans bullying and hate. In fact, according to a study from the Trevor Project, "When states pass anti-transgender laws" suicide attempts among trans and nonbinary youth ages 13 to 17 increased from 7% to 72%."
It's important to note that none of this is happening simply because Donald Trump himself is a bigot or because the Republican Party is just deeply cruel. It's happening because there is a highly connected, well-funded, and strategically positioned Christian nationalist movement pushing forward anti-trans policy and its accompanying social violence.
But in the struggle against religious extremism and political oppression, trans people know what losing strategies look like. Preemptive compliance from the institutions we have often relied upon -- including healthcare providers, colleges, and philanthropic foundations -- has been a losing strategy. Submission to divide-and-conquer rule, theological idolatry, and biblical distortion, as well as silence from supporters and allies, also loses the day.
Given the position of exclusion and criminalization in society, however, trans people also know how to fight and it's a massive fight that we need to wage right now. Trans people, who have always had to live with their backs against the wall, are now being joined by those from all walks of life. Indeed, as Trump and the Christian nationalist movement attack everything from decent healthcare to decent housing, more and more people are poised to enter a struggle for survival. In the fight for dignity and democracy, trans people have much to teach everybody.
A History of Resistance
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