Trump's Anti-Trans Genocide -- Brad Archer

Photo credit: Greg LaRose/Louisiana Illuminator

Brad Archer -- World News Trust

Feb. 19, 2025

The Trump administration has taken the historic war on transgender Americans to a new, dangerous level aimed at the complete erasure of one of the country’s most marginalized and vulnerable groups.

Let us speak clearly as to the intent of these efforts: Trump and his supporters are carrying out what amounts to genocide against trans folks. 

While efforts to limit the rights of transgender Americans are not new, the eliminationist urges behind recent statements and policies have perhaps never been so fully on display as they are currently, fueled by Trump and his MAGA enablers. Michael Knowles of The Daily Wire set the tone for this new transphobic virulence at CPAC’s 2023 conference with his demands for the complete eradication of “transgenderism (from American) public life.”

Trump’s recent moves against the nation’s transgender population show that he was listening to this call to action, and he liked what he heard. 

Trump’s recent flurry of executive orders directed against transgender adults and children have been shocking in their scope, seeking not merely to restrict trans legal rights, but moreover to eliminate the right of trans Americans to exist at all. One such order denies appropriate accommodations and health care to transgender adults serving time in the federal carceral system, all but guaranteeing these incarcerated individuals will face the horrors of prison violence, including an increased risk of homicide.  

According to the LGBTQAI+ advocacy group GLAD Law, other Trump executive orders “tell schools to deny the existence of transgender people altogether,” while also prohibiting adolescents from accessing the specialized health care they need to live happy and healthy lives. Studies have consistently demonstrated that LGBTQAI+ youth struggle with suicidal thinking and related behaviors at much higher rates than their non-Queer peers and that this high risk of suicide is directly linked to anti-LGBTQAI+ policies and public discourse.

We will surely see an uptick in attempted and completed suicides among trans kids. Oklahoma’s deep-seated transphobia and its impacts were recently brought into the national spotlight when a nonbinary teenager, Nex Benedict, committed suicide after facing ongoing bullying related in part to state-mandated restrictions on restroom access for trans and nonbinary students. 

The Trump administration’s transphobia has insinuated itself into many facets of American life, from the national down to the state and interpersonal levels. In what is perhaps the clearest example of erasure we’ve yet seen, the National Park Service removed the initial “T” from the acronym “LGBTQ+” that was previously found on the website commemorating the Stonewall Riot, an historical moment led by trans New Yorkers that many currently look to as the beginning of the modern Pride Movement. In its explanation, the Park Service justified its scrubbing of Queer history as its realization of Trump’s denial of the existence of gender diversity. 

At the state level, the ACLU has documented nearly 400 “anti-LGBTQ” bills -- many of which specifically target transgender Americans -- currently being considered in 45 state legislatures. And while not all of these bills will be enacted, “they all cause harm for LGBTQ people,” the ACLU report said. A recent study published by SafeHome.org shows Wyoming, Florida and South Dakota were the most hostile states in terms of anti-LGBTQAI+ laws and the prevalence of anti-Queer hate crimes. 

Trump -- a master of emotional manipulation -- weaponized transphobia by way of creating a wedge issue he could ride to the White House. In one of his uglier campaign ads, Trump made clear that he sees human rights in America as a zero-sum affair: The ad says that if “they/them,” (gender-diverse individuals) receive their rights, the rest of America cannot.

Within this toxic socio-political climate vis-a-vis LGBTQAI+ rights, the United States has seen an alarming rise in interpersonal, anti-Queer hate-based violence. It has reached the highest levels seen since the FBI started tracking these statistics.

Transgender Americans, especially trans women of color, have experienced the largest increase in bias-motivated crimes, as perpetrators feel emboldened by what they perceive as top-down approval of their actions. These incidents are sure to become more commonplace as the federal government continues to question the very existence of trans Americans.

Transgender Americans face existential threats on multiple fronts, thanks in large part to the Trump MAGA movement’s vicious anti-Queerness. Should these national, state and interpersonal attacks continue unabated, the estimated 2.3 million Americans who currently identify as trans, in addition to future generations of transgender individuals, will suffer the very eradication called for at the 2023 CPAC conference.

Above all else, Trump is a bully. And like all bullies, he is adept at identifying and targeting those already existing within social margins.

Bullies only have power as long as bystanders appease and acquiesce. At this point, it appears as though there are too few firewalls in place to keep Trump from carrying out his ultimate plan of trans erasure and, ultimately, genocide.

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A career educator and occasional activist, Brad Archer currently lives with his family in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he teaches social studies at a local middle school.