ATLANTA — Donald Trump made his opposition to transgender rights the centerpiece of his closing argument earlier than Election Day, utilizing demeaning language and false statements to color an especially slim slice of the U.S. inhabitants as a menace to the nationwide identification.
The former president and Republican nominee’s marketing campaign and aligned political motion committees have spent tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} on advertisements attacking Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris for her earlier statements in help of transgender rights.
His speeches at rallies now function a parody video mocking trans individuals and their place within the US army. The montage, interspersed with clips from the Vietnam War movie “Full Metal Jacket,” usually attracts loud boos at his rallies, as do Trump’s false statements about feminine athletes and his mocking impression of what he says is a trans lady who elevate weights.
“We will remove … transgender insanity from our faculties and hold males out of girls’s sports activities,” Trump mentioned at his latest Madison Square Garden rally, drawing a roar of approval from a crowd of greater than 20,000.
Though typically overshadowed by Trump’s emphasis on migrants, his anti-LGBTQ broadsides appeared to develop into extra frequent and threatening within the last days of the marketing campaign, meant each to energise his core supporters and win over extra average voters who they could disagree with Trump on different fronts. issues. It’s a part of an general marketing campaign through which Trump has pushed his personal model of hyper-masculinity, most lately repeatedly referring to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, who’s homosexual, by a lady’s title, “Allison Cooper.”
Harris largely ignored Trump’s assaults however rejected his characterization of her positions, mentioning that federal coverage granting U.S. army personnel entry to transgender gender-affirming medical care and surgical procedure was in place throughout Trump’s presidency.
“I’ll observe the legislation,” Harris mentioned in an Oct. 17 Fox News interview. “And it is a legislation that Donald Trump truly adopted. You’re most likely conversant in it now. It is public reporting that below Donald Trump’s administration, these surgical procedures have been accessible on a medically vital foundation to individuals within the federal jail system.”
On “The Breakfast Club” podcast earlier this week, he added that Trump was “residing in a glass home” along with his assaults. He in contrast the variety of individuals affected: He mentioned two U.S. service members sought transgender surgical procedure, whereas hundreds of thousands of individuals could possibly be stripped of their medical health insurance if Trump and Republicans succeed of their efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act .
Polls recommend an citizens divided on transgender rights. About half of Americans, 51%, say altering your gender is morally flawed, based on a May Gallup poll. About 7 in 10 Americans say transgender athletes ought to solely be allowed to compete on sports activities groups that match their start intercourse, one examine finds. Gallup Poll 2023. Yet about 6 in 10 Americans oppose legal guidelines that ban medical therapies and procedures that assist transgender individuals align with their gender identification, based on one examine. May Gallup poll. About a 3rd favor such bans.
Civil rights advocates, in the meantime, are expressing concern about what a second Trump administration would imply for LGBTQ rights and say his marketing campaign messages already threaten the security of transgender individuals, no matter who prevails.
Trump has vowed to focus on transgender individuals if elected. He mentioned he’ll ask Congress to cross a invoice stating there are “solely two sexes” and to ban hormonal or surgical interventions for transgender minors in all 50 states.
Sarah Kate Ellis, president of the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, mentioned Trump’s method assaults “susceptible individuals” who make up about 1% of the inhabitants “and are already marginalized” by a lot of society.
“Why are we discussing medical take care of trans individuals? Because there’s a lack of expertise and a scarcity of humanization of who trans persons are,” Ellis mentioned. “It’s not simple being transgender, waking up day-after-day with a physique that will not match who you might be, and as a substitute of feeling empathy, you are met with hostility. This is the tradition Trump is creating.”
Writer and activist Charlotte Clymer added on social media platform sure, we see the promoting, and it is demoralizing to know that this complete subset of individuals sees us as subhuman.
Indeed, since September 1, the Trump marketing campaign has spent roughly $35 million to air three advertisements primarily based on statements Harris made in 2019 as a candidate for the Democrats’ 2020 presidential nomination. The clips present Harris stating her help for federal insurance policies that permit federal prisoners entry to medical care, together with gender-affirming hormone therapies and, probably, transgender surgical procedure.
“It sounds loopy as a result of it’s loopy,” the announcer says in a industrial that, as of Thursday, has been broadcast almost 28,000 occasions on presidential battlegrounds and nationwide tv. “Kamala’s focus is ‘they-them,’ not you,” the advert concludes, referring to non-gender-specific pronouns.
Harris, in her 2019 presidential marketing campaign, wrote in an ACLU questionnaire: “I help insurance policies that be certain that federal prisoners and detainees are capable of acquire the medical care vital for gender transition, together with surgical care, whereas they’re incarcerated or detained”.
He additionally labored as California’s legal professional common to make sure entry to such take care of state prisoners. But Harris is correct to notice that comparable federal insurance policies have been in place below the Trump presidency, each for immigrant detainees and federal prisoners.
At Trump rallies, he typically addresses LGBTQ points with generalizations and emotional appeals. He routinely criticizes US army leaders for being “woke,” blaming Harris and President Joe Biden.
The parody video that performs on screens at Trump rallies alternates between scenes of intense army coaching, typically with drill sergeants yelling at troops, and scenes depicting what are presupposed to be LGBTQ members of the army, every exhibiting exaggerated feminine affections. These latter scenes, the video claims, mirror the US army below Biden and Harris.
By the time Trump takes the stage, a number of audio system have already briefed the viewers on the problem.
“We are within the midst of a nationwide identification disaster. Faith in God, patriotism, laborious work, household — this stuff have disappeared solely to get replaced by “wokeism” and “transgenderism” and different philosophies, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy mentioned in Madison Square Garden. “These are signs of a deeper void of objective and which means in our nation, and on this second we should step up and fill that void with our imaginative and prescient.”
Associated Press author Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.
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