'How many people does it take before it becomes wrong?'
The eternal question
A Pew Research Center survey from 2022 found that 1.6 percent of U.S. adults are transgender or nonbinary. Another survey from 2024 put that figure at approximately 1.14 percent or 3 million Americans. That seems a remarkably small number. More Americans probably eat pizza topped with pineapple. You’d think that the other 343,535,081 Americans could accept or at least tolerate trans people’s existence, but this is apparently too much to ask.
Republicans have relentlessly targeted trans people, particularly children. Journalist
has noted in grim detail the ongoing efforts to erase them from society. There is seemingly no escape, no matter how respectable or unassuming a trans person is. Sarah McBride is the only trans representative out of 435 House members but a seemingly obsessed Nancy Mace continues to disparage and harass her. I realize even awful people need hobbies, but she should try floral arrangements.
Immediately after Trump won the 2024 presidential election, political analysts pointed to his flood of anti-trans attack ads as a key example of how he bamboozled his way back into power. Trans people didn’t personally increase the price of eggs, but the “Kamala is for they/them; Trump is for you” ads suggested that Kamala Harris and Democrats in general prioritized the interests of a single, small group over everyone else. It was a sinister way of making the overwhelming majority somehow feel overlooked.
The smear campaign was effective: According to a post-election survey from Democratic polling firm Blueprint, swing voters who broke for Trump believed that Harris focused too much on “cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class.” But to roughly borrow from Hillary Clinton, transgender issues are middle-class issues. There are middle-class trans people who complain about the price of eggs. The housing crisis was a major reason Harris lost Nevada, and trans people also worry about paying the rent. Republicans would see them all homeless and eggless.
Unfortunately, the mainstream media has also helped advance the narrative that trans identity is a “problem.” The New York Times ran stories over the past few years with the following headlines: “Why Is the U.S. Still Pretending We Know Gender-Affirming Care Works?” “The Battle Over Gender Therapy.” “As Kids, They Thought They Were Trans. They No Longer Do.”
Democrats didn’t bother directly challenging Trump’s anti-trans lies. The New York Times reported after the election that the Harris campaign knew the anti-trans attack ads were driving away swing voters, but none of their consultant-speak rebuttal spots tested well with whoever willingly participates in focus groups. So, instead the Harris campaign resorted to the classic ostrich maneuver and released an ad complaining that Trump had gone “negative” that didn’t even mention trans people.
Yet, in the aftermath of their recent defeat, many Democrats are acting as if the Harris campaign wouldn’t shut up about trans people.
“The Democrats have to stop pandering to the far left,” Rep. Tom Suozzi told the Times last year — dismissing a basic human rights concern as some wacky fringe issue, like everything Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes. “I don’t want to discriminate against anybody, but I don’t think biological boys should be playing in girls’ sports.” This is laughable double-talk: He says he doesn’t want to discriminate against anyone while declaring that we should discriminate against children.
“Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face,” Rep. Seth Moulton also told the Times. “I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”
Trans kids playing team sports is not a “challenge many Americans face.” It’s not even a minor inconvenience. According to a study from 2022, just 300,000 Americans between the ages of 13 and 17 identify as transgender. That’s about half a percent. Most of this panic is over trans girls so that number shrinks even further. Moulton’s daughters probably have as much a chance of being struck by lightning than they do “getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.” It also seems as though Moulton imagines his “little girls” playing tackle football against full-grown adults. If Moulton won’t acknowledge that trans girls are also “little girls,” he should at least concede that they are still children.
When I was 17, I did play tennis against a “little girl.” I was first seed on my high school team, which should tell you how bad we were. The annual tournament began with the last-place team (that was us) playing against the first-place team. I assume it was good for a laugh. My match was against Miss Huang from Severance.
She was apparently a prodigy who played with high school students. She smoked me 6-0, 6-0, 6-0. It was a New York deli’s worth of bagels. Before delivering the match point, she turned to her mother, who was filming the whole thing on non-phone 1991 technology, and nonchalantly asked, “When I finish beating this man, can we go to McDonald’s?”
Despite painting Harris as an out-of-touch elitist radical who cared more about pronouns than people’s omelettes, Trump has yet to issue an executive order that directly improves American lives. Instead, he’s pointed a political elephant gun at a small segment of the population. This has nothing to do with “protecting women and girls in sports.” Trump and the GOP aren’t just banning trans kids from high school tennis courts. They’re attempting to ban them from public life.
Republicans have steadily turned the public against trans people. It’s easy to demonize a single percent of the population. The pineapple-pizza eaters have more robust advocacy.
Look, if I’m running a vegan restaurant and a major burger chain runs non-stop ads claiming my food poisons children, I should do more than just condemn the chain’s “negative” ads, and when my restaurant folds, that’s not actually conclusive proof that everyone hates vegan food.
The Democrats’ theoretical Senate leader Chuck Schumer suggested that we all “just wait” for Trump to “screw up.” Then Democrats can reap the electoral rewards. This pathetically passive strategy ignores that when Trump does screw up, he’s even more likely to feed the most vulnerable to his angry mob of supporters. However, way too many mainstream Democrats have questioned whether if it’s worth fighting for such a small demographic. Let’s just focus on the eggs.
In 1998’s provocatively titled Star Trek: Insurrection, the supposedly noble Federation seriously considers forcibly relocating 600 people and plundering their planet’s resources. When Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) protests, his superior stresses how they’re “only” moving 600 people.
“How many people does it take, Admiral, before it becomes wrong?” Picard demands. “A thousand? Fifty thousand? A million? How many people does it take, Admiral?”
Trans people aren’t a formidable voting bloc, but they are Americans. That should still count for something. That should still make them worth defending.
Trans people are human beings, and that makes them worth defending.
The playbook is simple. Find a powerless group to demonize as an existential threat to standard whiteness, rally the witless morons who never look beyond the headlines against the group, present yourself as the savior of whiteness and motherhood, rinse and repeat.
And it seems to work over and over...