Donald Trump has made his opposition to transgender rights central to his closing argument before Election Day
Donald Trump has made his opposition to transgender rights central to his closing argument before Election Day, using demeaning language and misrepresentations to paint an exceedingly narrow slice of the U.S. population as a threat to national identity.
The former president and Republican nominee’s campaign and aligned political action committees have spent tens of millions of dollars on advertising that attacks Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris for her previous statements supporting transgender rights.
His rally speeches now feature a spoof video mocking trans people and their place in the U.S. military. The montage, interspersed with clips of the Vietnam War movie “Full Metal Jacket,” typically draws loud boos at his rallies, as do Trump’s false claims about female athletes and his mocking impression of what he says is a trans woman lifting weights.
“We will get . transgender insanity the hell out of our schools, and we will keep men out of women’s sports,” Trump said at his recent Madison Square Garden rally, drawing an approving roar from the crowd of 20,000-plus.
While often overshadowed by Trump’s emphasis on migrants, his broadsides against LGBTQ people have seemed to grow more frequent and ominous in the campaign’s final days, intended both to stir his core supporters and coax votes from more moderate voters who may not mesh with Trump on other matters. It’s part of an overall campaign in which Trump has pushed his own brand of hyper-masculinity, most recently referring several times to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, who is gay, by a woman’s name, “Allison Cooper.”
Harris has largely ignored Trump’s attacks but has pushed back on his characterization of her stances, noting that federal policy giving U.S. military personnel access to gender-affirming medical care and transgender surgery was in place during Trump’s presidency.
“I will follow the law,” Harris said in a Fox News interview on Oct. 17. “And it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed. You’re probably familiar with now. It’s a public report that under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available on a medical necessity basis, to people in the federal prison system.
