On the campaign trail, Donald Trump moved undecided by firing conservative voters, with transgender people focused on sports and bathroom access. And with his first few months inauguration, Trump pushed the issue further, trying to erase all mentions of trans people on government websites and passports, and remove them from the military.
It is a contradiction of numbers that reveal deep cultural disparities. Transgender people make up less than 1% of the US population, but they have become a major part of the political chess committee, especially Trump.
For trans people and their allies, it’s a civil rights issue for a small group, along with several judges who controlled Trump in response to legal challenges. But many Americans believe that those rights were too vast.
The president’s spotlight gives another tenor this year on Monday’s transgender vision vision day.
“We’ve seen you get a lot of fun,” said Rachel Krandhall Crocker, executive director of transgender Michigan, who organized the opening day of visibility 16 years ago. “We have to show that we won’t go back to him.”
So why did we realize that this small population has such a big role in American politics?
The focus on trans people is part of a long-term campaign
Trump’s actions reflect a constellation of belief that trans people are dangerous. Men are either trying to access a female space or are pushed into a gender change that they will later regret.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and other major medical groups say gender-affirming treatment is medically necessary and supported by evidence.
Zayn Mlib, an associate professor of political science and gender studies in women, at Fordham University, said there were decades of efforts “to revive Christian nationalism principles as land law.” It took several years, but some positions gained traction.
One factor: Restriction proponents are leaning towards a wider issue of fairness and safety, attracting more public attention.
The ban on sports and bathroom laws are linked to protecting women and girls’ spaces, despite the fact that trans women are much more likely to be victims of violence. Efforts to encourage schools are related to protecting parental rights. And while the ban on gender-maintaining care depends in part on the idea that people may regret it later, research has found it to be rare.
Since 2020, about half of states have allowed transgender people to laws from sports competitions tailored to their gender, banning or restricting health care that maintains gender for minors. At least 14 people have adopted laws that restrict the bathrooms that transgender people can use in certain buildings.
In February, Iowa became the first state to remove protections for trans people from civil rights laws.
It’s not just political gamemanship. “I think whether it’s a politically viable strategy or not is second only to the immediate impact it has on trans people,” Fordham’s Murib said.
Many voters believe that trans rights are overreaching
More than half (55%) of voters in the 2024 election say they have overreached US trans rights, according to the Associated Press Voting. Approximately two in ten people say the level of support is pretty much correct, and similar shares say support is not progressing well.
Nevertheless, the AP vote found voters were split into laws prohibiting gender-affirming treatments for minors, such as adolescent blockers and hormone therapy. More than half opposed these laws, but only half were in favor of them.
Trump voters have overwhelmingly said that their support for trans rights has gone too far, and that Kamala Harris voters have become more divided. About four in 10 Harris voters said support for trans rights has not progressed well, but 36% said it was right, and a quarter said it was going too far.
A study from the Pew Research Center found that Americans, including Democrats, demanded that trans athletes compete with teams that are comparable to their birth gender, and more subtlely support competing in more cooperatively by maintaining the gender of transgender minors since 2022.
Leor Sapir, a Manhattan Institute fellow, is a right-leaning think tank, and says the positions of Trump and the Republicans have given them a political advantage.
“They put their opponents, the Democrats, at a very disadvantage by having to decide to cater to their progressive activist base and median voters,” he said.
Not everyone agrees.
“People on the political spectrum agree that in reality, the major crisis and major issues facing the United States today are not the existence and civic participation of trans people,” says Olivia Hunt, director of federal policy for proponents of trans equality.
And in the same election that Trump returned to president, Delaware voters elected Sarah McBride, the first transgender member of Congress.
No complete political fallout seen yet
Paisley Carla, a professor of political science at City University of New York, said conservatives are chasing transgender people.
“It’s so small that it’s relatively unknown,” said Currah, who is transgender. “And Trump has something like a trance used to show what’s wrong with the left. “It’s just too crazy. I’m awake.”
But Democrat politicians also know that the population is relatively small, says Seth Musket, director of the University of Denver’s American Politics Center, who is writing a book about the GOP.
“Many Democrats have not been specifically fired to protect this group,” Musket said, citing the vote.
For Republicans, the overall support for trans rights is evidence that they are a step away from the times.
“Democrats continue to realize they are on the wrong side of an overwhelmingly popular issue, demonstrating how much contact they have with Americans,” said Mike Marinella, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Some of that message may be through. In early March, Governor Gavin Newsom, the Democratic presidential candidate for the California government, launched his new podcast against allowing trans women and girls to compete in women and girls’ sports.
And several other Democrat officials said the party is spending too much effort on supporting transgender rights. Others, including Sen. Katherine Cortez Mast, have said they are against transgender athletes in girls and women’s sports.
Jay Jones, Howard University’s student government president and transgender woman, said her peers are primarily accepting transgender people.
“The Trump administration is trying to make people weaponize the weapons of the trance experience, but “I don’t think he’ll be as successful as strategy as he thinks it will.”
