Republicans Are Using Trans Kids as Bogeymen

Growing up gay in America remains challenging and will likely get worse given the radical extremist majority on the U.S. Supreme Court and the renewed GOP effort to demonize LGBT individuals.  That said, growing up transgender - which has a very real medical and scientific basis - is far more difficult and sadly, false Republican "charities" and non-profits are running ads across the country seeking to make trans kids and individuals into bogeymen who are depicted as a threat schools and children.  Not surprisingly, former Trump official Stephen Miller (who has been condemned by his own family) who orchestrated putting migrant children in cages is deeply involved in this hate drivem effort.  They ads have the further agenda of trying to suppress Democrat votes by blacks and Latinos who continue to fall for GOP efforts to dupe them into acting against their own best interest by appealing to cynically religious beliefs.  A piece in Politico looks at this foul effort which will harm real people.  Here are excerpts:

A deluge of radio spots and mailers targeting transgender children is hitting swing-state voters as part of a broad ad campaign directed by prominent Trump administration alums.

Polling rarely registers transgender-related issues as a top priority for voters, with other topics like the economy and public safety taking the lead in this midterm cycle. But America First Legal, launched by longtime Donald Trump aide Stephen Miller, has plastered airwaves and mailboxes with the issue ahead of the election — all without mentioning candidates currently running for office, as both groups are [ridiculously] registered nonprofits.

Ads targeting transgender children have spread in at least 25 states across the political spectrum — from Texas to Illinois to Michigan — in the last month, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

America First Legal has made more than $4 million in radio buys across Atlanta, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Detroit — cities in competitive states with significant Black populations. The radio ad features a man speaking over ominous music, claiming that children have been pushed to take puberty blockers and get gender-affirming surgery.

“The Biden administration is pushing radical gender experiments on children,” the narrator says in the original radio spot. “Tell Joe Biden and left-wing leaders across America, ‘Hands off our kids.’”

NAACP president Derrick Johnson said the organization sent letters to radio stations asking them not to run the ad, which he called “the worst I’ve seen” on the issue this cycle.

“This is playing to the lowest common denominator of hate and otherizing, targeting the LGBT community,” Johnson said. “When you create this type of negative reaction to individuals who [don’t] present any societal grief, you only create space for people to feel justified for attacking them physically and through public policy.”

“It’s meant to fly under the radar as much as possible. Voter suppression efforts are typically done at the last minute and behind the scenes.”

America First Legal has also sent mailers to Black and Hispanic households in states including Georgia, Texas and Nevada, according to advertisements collected as part of POLITICO’s Political Mailers Project. Citizens for Sanity, another group formed by Trump administration alumni which has spent tens of millions on late advertising, also made TV buys on the issue a week ahead of Election Day in battleground states including Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.

In Spanish and English-language mailers, America First Legal similarly warned against “radical and irreversible gender experiments,” including anecdotes from unnamed people who regretted “destroying their lives” with gender-affirming care and surgery. Another ad more specifically goes after Biden, surrounding a picture of the president with anti-transgender headlines related to schools from Fox News and the Daily Wire.

Medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, support gender-affirming care for adolescents. But medical experts said gender-affirming care for children rarely, if ever, includes surgery.

LGBTQ people of color, especially Black people, face heightened levels of discrimination leading to high unemployment rates and homelessness, according to a recent report from the National LGBTQ Task Force.

Wetrosky noted that organizations made similar efforts to create divisions between LGBTQ individuals and Black and Latino voters when campaigning against marriage equality a decade ago.

Miller launched America First Legal to be a “conservative version of the American Civil Liberties Union.” It has taken part in lawsuits and other legal action concerning instruction about racism in public schools, voting, LGBTQ and immigration policies, as well as claiming Biden’s administration is “anti-white.”

Advertising focused on transgender children has popped up in several states this year, though America First Legal and Citizens for Sanity have been by far the biggest actors on the issue. In Kansas, the Republican Governors Association has gone after Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly on youth sports policy.

Transgender-focused ads have cropped up in other races on TV, although the volume pales in comparison to spots about economy and crime. Since Labor Day, there have been just around 90 TV ads that contain references to LGBTQ issues, according to ad tracker AdImpact, over half which came from Republicans.

Hate and lies are the hallmarks of today's GOP.