Donald Trump had recently finished a familiar riff about banning gender transition surgery for children when the former president, speaking to an audience of Evangelical voters, moved on to something new: a policy that would affect transgender adults.
“I will ban all taxpayer funding for sex or gender transitions at any age,” said Trump, receiving thunderous applause at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Washington last month. The Republican leader, who moments earlier had also pledged to reinstate a ban on transgender men and women serving in the military, paused for several seconds to soak in the crowd’s adulation.
It’s the kind of moment — and the type of policy — increasingly common on the GOP presidential campaign trail this year.
what are you currently doing for all the children in all the other countries where it isn’t safe to be lgbt? is your plan to take over those countries? what is your plan here now? if we don’t secede, what are we doing? the fascists are winning here. we can leave or we can let them win; we are doing nothing which is letting them win. you can’t save everyone.
Not that this is really relevant to your fantasy of a Glorious Civil War of Separation, but I am a trans woman with a history of winning over conservatives and helping them grow to understanding in the rural Midwest. When I worked at a trucking motel, I led a series of truckers to the conclusion that trans people are just normal people, except this particular one who is the best damn front desk agent they can get for under $200 (for the record, our CDL rate was under $100). Now I work at the single busiest dispensary in the city where I do the same thing because even fascists love weed. Even without any group affiliation, I put myself in danger to do important and successful grassroots work in my day to day life that I could not do if separated from the people who need to see and hear me. I am pushing for change every day in one of the battleground locations for trans rights and have never lived somewhere that was safe for and accepting of me. Separating into a fascist and free state abandons people like me, people who fight where it counts because we were born where minorities don’t get rights.