The U.S. federal government continues to target transgender communities in order to construct a scapegoat to absorb the disappointment and anger many Americans feel toward their current leadership. Recently the Department of Justice has notified California and Maine (two liberal-leaning states) that it is investigating claims of rape, voyeurism, and a pervasive climate of sexual intimidation as a result of the states’ policies of housing trans women in women’s prisons. “Under my leadership, the Civil Rights Division will not allow women incarcerated in jails or prisons to be subject to unconstitutional risks of harm from male inmates,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon. Of course, there is no evidence that trans women are in fact causing any issues in prisons in these states.
Using women’s rights rhetoric to demonize trans people is nothing new for the Trump administration. This is political performance art and it’s being increasingly met with resistance. For instance, a federal judge in Oregon just ruled that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “overstepped his authority when he publicly disparaged gender-affirming care for minors and chastised medical professionals for providing it.” Furthermore, United Nations delegates at the 70th annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) overwhelmingly rejected an American effort to redefine gender in strictly binary terms. Only Chile and Pakistan sided with the US proposal, while 23 countries voted to block it, and 17 countries abstained from voting.
And if there was any question regarding the Republican stance on trans rights, in response to the Democratic Party’s post on X stating that “trans rights are human rights” in honor of Transgender Day of Visibility, the National Republican Senate Committee responded with just one word: “No.”
