Donald Trump and the Republican Party is leaning heavily into transphobia in order to scare people the polls. Reports have said that the GOP is spending over $21 million on anti-trans ads which are running heavily in battleground states.
One of the top ads pushed by the Trump campaign this month attacked (Kamala) Harris for supporting "taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners," the ad stated.
The goal seems to be turning election into a referendum on trans rights and backing Harris into some sort of corner over her support of the trans community. However, Harris and her campaign hasn't taken the bait. One thing probably helping her is that voters aren't really that interested in the issue.
In fact, according to The Hill, voters may feel the opposite:
More than half of voters surveyed this month by Data For Progress said political attack ads targeting the trans community have gotten “out of hand” — including nearly a third of Republicans, whose candidates are largely responsible for the ads. Just more than 60 percent of surveyed voters, including a majority of independents and 41 percent of Republicans, said it is “sad and shameful” for GOP candidates to make anti-LGBTQ rhetoric a part of their campaigns, according to the poll, which was released Thursday.
Nevertheless, Trump continues to beat the drum of transphobia. One claim he has repeatedly made on the campaign trail and in interviews is that schools are actually performing surgeries on trans kids:
“I want one person and a secretary to just make sure they’re teaching English,” he said of his intentions for the Department of Education. “Reading, writing and arithmetic. No transgender, no operations. You know, they take your kid. There are some places, your boy leaves for school, comes back a girl. Without parental consent. What’s that about?”
This claim of course has been debunked and laughed at continuously, but Trump seems to have a psychological inability to admit when he's wrong. He repeats the lie because perhaps he thinks he can gaslight people into believing something, no matter how ludicrous it sounds or how many times it's been disproven.
But if you ask me, I think Trump's attempt is becoming comically undone. He's gaslighting so hard that he's tripping himself up. This clip from an interview he did with Joe Rogan on Friday illustrates just how much the repetition of the lie is breaking him down:
Trump: The transgender operations where they are allowed to take your child when he goes to school and turn him into a male… pic.twitter.com/s6G23QhH7U
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 26, 2024
Transcript:The transgender operations where they are allowed to take your child when he goes to school and turn him into a male…into a female without parental consent.