How trans activists won the election for Trump
This column was first published at The European Conservative.
If you’re happy with the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election, you might want to thank the transgender movement.
The post-election autopsies are coming in, and there is plenty to discuss and debate. But one conclusion is already approaching consensus: The Democrats’ embrace of gender ideology hurt them, and badly. The Democrats are now engaged in a minor civil war over how to deal with the T in LGBT, with accusations flying thick and fast. In fact, progressive congresswoman and ‘squad’ member Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has already quietly removed her pronouns from her X bio, while late night TV hosts such as John Oliver desperately insist that trans issues are an easy sell.
The polls, however, tell a different story. According to the Associated Press’ VoteCast, a survey of over 120,000 people who voted this fall found that more than half of voters said that “support for transgender rights in government and society” has “gone too far.” Only 2 in 10 said that support hadn’t gone far enough, and only 2 in 10 said “it’s about right.” 85% of those who voted for Trump said support for the transgender agenda has “gone too far.” A quarter of Harris voters agreed.
Trump’s ads hammering Harris’s longstanding support for the transgender agenda were pinpointed as being particularly effective. One highlighted Harris advocating for taxpayer-funded sex change surgeries for prisoners, and featured photos of trans-identifying and cross-dressing members of the Biden Administration. The ad ends with the slogan: “Kamala Harris is for They/Them. President Trump is for you.” Bill Clinton was so alarmed by the impact of the ads that, according to the New York Times, he reached out to the Harris camp and urged them to repudiate their support for the policy.
Clinton was told the ads would have no impact—but one ad, which featured liberal podcast host “Charlamagne Tha God” expressing his shock at Harris’s transgender positions—reportedly moved voters 2.7%, according to Harris super PAC Future Forward. One report put it bluntly: “The transgender issue capsized the Harris campaign, a new Democratic poll has found.” From the report:
Among swing voters, this issue moved swing votes away from Harris more than any other. Swing voters said they did not vote for the Democratic ticket in 2024, because “Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class.” That statement ranked one point ahead of voter dissatisfaction with inflation and two points higher than illegal immigration, according to Blueprint, a new public opinion research initiative funded by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and designed to “provide insights and recommendations on how to reach the voters who will be essential to delivering the Democrats the White House and control of Congress.”
“[L]iberal women were much less comfortable than they were with any other issue,” the New York Times stated. “[M]oms get really visibly angry” at this issue, noted Republican pollster Jim McLaughlin, “It’s a fairness issue. They don’t want their daughters to lose a scholarship, and they don’t want them to get hurt.”
The Harris campaign did draft a few response ads, but they never ran. The Democrats haven’t left themselves much wiggle room on the issue—for years, they’ve accused their political opponents of literally threatening the lives of “trans kids” and declaring that every jot and tittle of the transgender agenda is a matter of fundamental human rights. The 2024 Democratic Party platform is a wholesale endorsement of the trans movement, and explicitly opposes any restrictions on sex changes for kids.
To back away now—as many strategists are advising—will mean getting hammered on hypocrisy by the GOP and betrayal by LGBT activists. But they will have to do something. Even progressive atheist and staunch Harris supporter Sam Harris observed that the trans issue was a stinking albatross for the Democrats.
“I know people who haven’t been touched by this issue personally, for whom it was the only issue that decided their vote,” he wrote. “In fact, it is the issue that fully radicalized Elon [Musk], and he’s spoken about this at length. Do you think Elon continuously messaging to 200 million people on X, and going to Trump’s rallies, and donating over $100 million dollars to the campaign, and supporting him on podcasts, and doing everything else in his power to get Trump elected, might have accounted for a few votes?”
His conclusion was blunt: “Honestly, I think a doctoral dissertation, and perhaps several, could be written on how trans activism completely destroyed Democratic politics—without most Democrats knowing.” To say that trans-identifying men are women, Harris stated, “and that making any distinction between them and biological women, for any purpose, is a thought crime and an act of bigotry—that is the precept of a new religion. And it is a religion that most Americans want nothing to do with.” Harris—the atheist, not the candidate—is precisely right. He’s also correct that gender ideology radicalized Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.
Musk purchased Twitter—now X—in part because he viewed it as the world’s town square, and because accounts such as The Babylon Bee were getting banned for “misgendering” and other sins against the transgender movement. Musk’s decision to permit free speech on one of the world’s largest platforms undoubtedly had an impact on the 2024 election. But the moment that truly radicalized Musk was when his son Xavier began identifying as transgender. Xavier changed his name to “Vivian” and, at age 18, changed his name to distance himself from his famous father.
“I lost my son, essentially,” Musk told Jordan Peterson in an interview. “They call it ‘dead naming’ for a reason. The reason they call it ‘dead naming’ is because your son is dead. So my son Xavier is dead, killed by the woke mind virus.” He paused, nodded sadly to himself, looked up. “So, I vowed to destroy the woke mind virus after that. We’re making some progress.”
Musk is right about that, and even the shrill hectoring of the Baghdad Bobs on late night TV hasn’t been able to prevent the Democrats from noticing. The Democrats have spent the past decade pledging allegiance to the transgender flag and creating a false equivalence between murder and comparing common sense legislation restricting life-altering medical experiments on kids to murder. Now, many Democrats want to de-transition—but it turns out there is no easy path back to normality, and the damage may be irreversible.
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I think you’re right in many ways. There’s another nuance, though, that you didn’t mention. This is not the most important issue in the world to most people (although it is for me because I also have a child caught up in this mess). But this issue is opening people’s eyes to the fact that freedom of speech and belief and being curtailed, the government is censoring people, and the media is lying to us. And that IS the most important issue in the world.
I used to believe the narrative that there was a very small number of people who insisted from an early age that they were the opposite sex, that never changed, and maybe there was some biological reason for it. When my own previously very stereotypically feminine daughter decided at age 14 that she was a boy, it did not compute. It was obvious that the trans-supporting information being given to me was dishonest - the previous 14 years did in fact exist and I was there!
I started looking for information that made sense. And I found it, and other parents in the same situation. And then I started to wonder what else I’d been lied to about. Perhaps Trump wasn’t actually Satan? Perhaps my opinions about him had been manipulated by dishonest media? I started to see all the propaganda, all the ways that we’re being manipulated by media and entertainment and corporations (including those we work for).
And so I’ve veered rightward. I think it’s becoming more and more obvious how we’re being manipulated, and more people are starting to realize it, but I recognize Musk’s journey because it’s a lot like what I’ve experienced. And this is the issue that causes a lot of people to see what’s going on, and start to fight back against censorship.
That political party does have a problem.
I’ve recently heard discussions about states imposing restrictions on child transitions, vs parental rights with doctors decisions.
This issue is no different than other minor-child restrictions. There must be an age of consent.
For example, tobacco use, alcohol use, drivers license, ability to sign contracts, join the military, having sex… tattoos. These require a minimum age of consent, for good reason.
Children are too undeveloped and inexperienced to understand the consequences of their decisions, especially long-term consequences. They cannot understand the effect on themselves, family or society. They do not have the ability to comprehend how their lives are forever altered by choices.
Early hormone treatment before puberty is irreversible and causes lifelong impact. Surgeries create lifelong medical patients, and there is never a true recovery. Genital surgeries are horrific when you dig into the details.
If we apply the trans ideology into other situations, the logic cannot stand.
If a kid feels like a fish and wants to alter their fingers to have webs so that they can swim faster, should doctors perform surgery to accommodate this?
If a 10-year-old girl is unhappy with her chest and wants to have augmentation to a C cup, does that make sense?
Where does it end?
Should we surgically amputate fingers for kids who want to appear like an alien?
Children do not have informed consent because they cannot comprehend the impacts of their decisions.
Society has a responsibility to protect children from parents and doctors who would take advantage.
Any political party supporting child “transition” is doomed by basic logic.