A new message from your friends at People For the American Way.
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Friend,

Welcome to our weekly “Trumptastrophe” email series that serves to remind
us of the destructive policies, decisions, and actions we encountered
during the Trump presidency and the threats that he and others in the MAGA
movement still pose – and to keep those moments clear in our memory as we
fight to defeat Republican extremists during the upcoming elections.

This week’s Trumptastrophe brings into focus the ongoing attacks on the
transgender community by MAGA Republicans and highlights how they plan to
exploit those attacks in order to mobilize Republican voters this
November:

On March 23, 2018, the Trump administration [ [link removed] ]filed a memo declaring that
transgender people “are disqualified from military service except under
certain circumstances.” After months of legal challenges, the policy was
formally [ [link removed] ]implemented in April 2019; it was [ [link removed] ]reversed by President Joe
Biden in his first few days in office.

Trump had campaigned as a rare Republican supporter of LGBTQ equality, but
it turned out to be, like so much else about Trump, “[ [link removed] ]a giant con.”
Trump wasted no time putting religious-right activists in [ [link removed] ]influential
administration positions, which they used to turn their political agenda
into official policy. In Trump’s first month as president, the
administration [ [link removed] ]withdrew Obama administration guidelines protecting
transgender students in public schools. Later that year, the Justice
Department [ [link removed] ]rescinded an Obama administration memo that interpreted the
civil rights act’s prohibition on sex discrimination to include
discrimination based on gender identity.

Trump’s ban on trans people serving in the military had been unfolding
since the previous summer when Trump surprised Pentagon military leaders
by [ [link removed] ]tweeting that the U.S. government would not allow transgender people
“to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military.” Two weeks before Trump’s
tweet, the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins used a day-long White
House “listening session” for evangelical leaders to [ [link removed] ]argue for banning
transgender people from the military.

Right Wing Watch has called 2017, the first year of Trump’s presidency,
“[ [link removed] ]the year the religious right moved into the White House.” As
religious-right leaders relished the unprecedented power they enjoyed
under Trump, they expanded their anti-transgender rhetoric and legislative
agendas. Right Wing Watch reported that a speaker at the Family Research
Council’s 2017 Values Voter Summit urged religious-right activists to
“[ [link removed] ]focus on gender identity to divide and conquer” the LGBTQ equality
movement. She also urged activists to run for school boards and encourage
others to do the same.

During the Trump administration and the years since, the overlapping
Christian nationalist and MAGA movements have made attacks on transgender
youth and adults an anchor of their culture war political strategies which
have also included laws restricting schools from teaching about race and
sexuality, and efforts to disrupt businesses and private companies from
pursuing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives designed to ensure
greater access to opportunities for people who have long been denied them.
Anti-trans rhetoric has been particularly harsh and dishonest, and used to
mobilize support for maliciously cruel laws denying access to health care.

In 2021, Scientific American published a [ [link removed] ]commentary noting that some
states were “going to war against young transgender people.” The article
made the case that “gender-affirming health care should be a right, not a
crime.” As Vice [ [link removed] ]noted last year, “[ [link removed] ]Hundreds of thousands of trans
kids in the U.S. are currently receiving safe and critical
gender-affirming care, which has been endorsed by major medical governing
bodies, including the [ [link removed] ]American Medical Association, [ [link removed] ]American
Psychological Association, the [ [link removed] ]American Psychiatric Association, and
the [ [link removed] ]American Academy of Pediatrics.

In contrast, the Family Research Council made its [ [link removed] ]cruel and cynical
strategy explicit in 2022, identifying legislative attacks on access to
health care for transgender youth as a way to turn out right-wing voters
and securing electoral victories in that year’s midterms.

Conservative white evangelicals have turned out for Trump in massive
numbers, putting him over the top in 2016 and nearly doing the same in
2020. Right-wing activists are counting on—and investing millions
in—efforts to turn out those pro-Trump evangelicals in even great numbers
in 2024. And they’re using anti-trans rhetoric to do it.
“Transgender-related issues have become perhaps the biggest rallying call
to Christian conservatives, more than [ [link removed] ]abortion rights or same-sex
marriage,” [ [link removed] ]reported AP in February.

Trump is all in. “It’s amazing how strongly people feel about that,” he
said at a rally, saying that when he mentions transgender issues,
“everyone goes crazy.”

Indeed, as the 2024 election campaign has heated up, Trump and his allies
have [ [link removed] ]amped up their anti-trans and anti-equality rhetoric. Trump has
[ [link removed] ]denounced trans people as “sick” and “deranged.” He refers to trans
health care as “mutilation.” He has vowed to “defeat the [ [link removed] ]cult of
transgender ideology.” He promotes a 10-point “Plan to Protect Children
From Left-Wing Gender Insanity.”

The Trump team’s anti-trans agenda points to the larger threat of a new
Trump presidency. In the January/February 2024 issue of The Atlantic,
Spencer Kornhaber wrote that the Trump campaign is “[ [link removed] ]promising a more
repressive and dangerous America.”

As he ramps up his 2024 run, Trump appears to be pursuing a similar
strategy, repeating harmful misinformation and straight-up lying about
the history and science of gender identity.

“We will promote positive education about the nuclear family,” Trump
said in the nearly four-minute video. “The roles of mothers and fathers
and celebrating rather than erasing the things that make men and women
different and unique.”

Trump said he will also ask Congress to pass a bill that establishes
“male” and “female” as the only genders recognized by the U.S.
government, and they’ll be assigned at birth, he said.

Citing passage of legislation targeting trans youth and adults, Kornhaber
observed, “Donald Trump is promising to nationalize such efforts. He
doesn’t just want to surveil, miseducate, and repress children who are
exploring their emerging identities. He wants to interfere in the private
lives of millions of adults, revoking freedoms that any pluralistic
society should protect.”

These are just some of the reasons we need YOU in this
fight. So, find your
favorite way to unwind after reading through this week’s recap, and then
make a plan for how you will fight back this week, this month, this
election cycle.

For members who are interested in sharing the weekly Trumptastrophe
series, [ [link removed] ]you can find all previous editions on our website! This post
will be published by Thursday so you can share with your friends and
family and remind them of the importance of ensuring that Trump is
defeated again this November.

[ [link removed] ]If you’d like to opt-out of this series but still continue receiving
our other email content, you can do so here >>

Thanks for all that you do to defeat Republican extremism.

– People For the American Way

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