An Overview of Anti-Gay Political Campaigns by the New President of Human Rights Campaign, Kelley Robinson: How Transsexual is America First Legal?
Last month, the new president of the advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, Kelley Robinson, posted a six-and-a-half-minute video to introduce herself and frame the mission of her organization, which was founded 40 years ago by the gay activist Steve Endean to help fund political campaigns for pro-gay-rights candidates. In the video, Robinson talked about voting rights. She talked about the children at the school. She talked about abortion access and workers’ rights. She said a lot of things, including getting “to a world where we are free and liberated without exception — without exception — without anyone left behind.”
She is not the only one. The word gay is being replaced byqueer or more broadly, L.G.B.T.Q., which are related to gender and more so than sexual orientation. The word “queer” is climbing in frequency and can be used interchangeably with “gay,” which itself not so long ago replaced the dour and faintly judgy “homosexual.”
Younger people are more likely to be in favor of it. Some Gen Xers are OK with it. Some of the reporting on L.G.B.T.Q. by NPR might be categorized into each of the categories. “And then older people or boomers, maybe, who find it problematic.”
Ahead of Election Day in the high-stakes 2022 midterm elections, right-wing groups have spent tens of millions of dollars on anti-transgender ads in battleground states.
America First Legal, an organization launched by former Donald Trump aide Stephen Miller, is behind many of the political ads targeting transgender kids that have run in at least 25 states.
Research from the Human Rights Campaign indicates that “a significant portion” of the ad spending has been directed toward Black and Spanish-speaking voters through radio, mail, TV and digital means. America First Legal spent $4 million to get its ads on Black and Spanish-language radio in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
The narrator of an America first Legal radio ad accuses President Biden of urging children to have sex with their same sex partners.
Citizens for Sanity, another group formed by former Trump administration aides, spent $20 million on TV ads in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania that focus on illegal immigration, crime and other issues.
Right-Wing Media and Politics: The Role of Transgenders in the Olympic Swimming Championships and the Gymnastics Gymnastics Championships
Polling shows that transgender-related issues are not typically a top priority for voters, but controversies surrounding transgender athletes competing in women’s sports have made headlines this year.
Yale University swimmer Iszac Henig and then-University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas broke records in the Ivy League championships in February, stirring debate as to whether transgender women should be allowed to compete on women’s teams. The governing body for swimming voted to ban women from swimming if they’re trans.
In October, another radio ad funded by America First Legal promoted claims of “reverse racism” and accused the White House of putting white people last in line for relief funds.
Miller has been pushing the white nationalist agenda since he joined the Trump administration. The Southern Poverty Law Center said that it got hundreds of leaked emails in which Miller detailed his white nationalist ideas.
The language of right-wing media is where demonizing gay and transexual people are popular and profitable. Tucker Carlson, a Fox News host who rails against transgender people and the medical facilities that serve them, has the highest-rated prime-time cable news program in the country. People with millions of followers on the social network are able to spread anti-trans rhetoric and cause in-person demonstrations or threats. Activist groups can use Facebook to spread their message.
This campaign is happening in a bigger picture. Levels of political violence are on the rise across the country, and while some of it comes from the left, a majority comes from the right, where violent rhetoric that spurs actual violence is routine and escalating. The protesters are joined by members of the street-fighting Proud Boys and other right-wing paramilitary groups. There is a risk of violent encounters happening because of their presence.
One way to do that is to call out and reject the dehumanizing language that has become so pervasive in online discussions, and in real life, about particular groups of people. It is easier to ignore violence that may come their way when they are called L.G.B.T. Q. While calling for violence is beyond the pale for most Republican politicians, calling trans people peds and “groomers” is not as taboo as it used to be.
The silence from a great majority of Republicans on the demonization of, and lies about, trans people has indeed meant complicity — complicity in what experts call stochastic terrorism, in which vicious rhetoric increases the likelihood of random violence against the people who are the subject of the abusive language and threats.