Why are conservatives so transfixed?
Right-wing folks need to have boogeymen. They have to have people they can turn into villains with outright lies and ideally who are vulnerable populations. The lies about Haitian immigrants eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio, is just one recent example of that. But why transgender people?
Sure, they fit the box of a vulnerable population. Often misunderstood. Very tiny in comparison to the overall population. Not fitting mainstream norms—certainly not those of the conservative GOP voting base.
But they are such a small group. And while the right wing has a historical tendency to focus on anything that even hints at so-called “deviant” sexual things, trans folks just aren’t that visible, not like non-white immigrants. They don’t tend to congregate together in large enough groups to stand out. They aren’t potentially disrupting the labor pool or putting a strain on social services (not that immigrants do nearly as much of that as right-wingers say, but it’s more likely).
The reason, I suspect, is a very simple one: It is not longer simple and easy to go after gay and lesbian people. Not to say that they don’t, but haven’t you noticed far less focus being trained on cis-gendered people who love on people of their same gender? Maybe you haven’t, because so many of us think of LGBTQ and think of the T being strongly aligned with the L and the G. But I think the right wing is shifting its focus to demonize transgender people because of the growing visibility of gay and lesbian conservatives.
When there are more and more gay and lesbian people openly supporting conservatives and spouting all their same lies, targeting that group becomes uncomfortable. Notable gay and lesbian pundits and influencers have emerged more and more to parrot the right-wing talking points. This year’s Republican National Convention resulted in the Grindr app crashing multiple times in the host city because of the increased activity.
In short, Republicans in general and far-right-wing folks specifically can no longer believably pretend they don’t have gay and lesbian people among their ranks. We may think of homosexuality or even bisexuality being rare but the fact is that many people even in surveys aren’t willing to self-report those things. Or they haven’t realized it themselves yet. Or whatever. But there are, I think, way more cis-gendered people inclined to sleep with people of their own cis-gender than we traditionally assumed.
And conservatives cannot afford to alienate people like that. They are increasingly out, they aren’t straight, they ally with the conservatives, and they are a decent-sized group. Sure, they aren’t the majority; they aren’t half or probably even a third of the conservative camp. But they are large enough to be noticed and to be influential and they are much larger than the number of transgender people.
To feel attraction to one’s own gender is way more common than not feeling at home in one’s body gender-wise. Much, much more common. And so if one needs to keep harping on the supposed evils of the LGBTQ+ spectrum, what better thing than to de-emphasize the hate toward gay and lesbian and bisexual people and focus it on trans people?
Yes, there are even trans people (see Caitlyn Jenner) who support the conservative agenda. But first, it’s a way smaller level of support than you see from gay and lesbian people and second, there will always be outliers (I recently saw a Black man online proudly declaring himself a Black Nazi). Focusing the spotlight of hate on trans folks loses the Republicans in general and the far right wing very little. And there are, sadly, too many gay and lesbian people who hate trans people just as much as straight conservatives do. Just because two groups are marginalized and historically mistreated doesn’t mean they automatically align with each other.
Now, this doesn’t mean we should expect conservatives to openly embrace gay and lesbian activities. They won’t stop fighting things like same-gender marriage or gay and lesbian couples adopting. I mean, they still attack women’s rights all the time and look at how many (mostly white) women still vote Republican. No, the oppression and abuse will remain in place for gay and lesbian people. But the serious vitriol? The most hateful hate? Yeah, that’s mostly going to the trans folks now—the tiny group of people in the population that the right wing can blow all out of proportion to be the face of “sexual evil” without alienating those gay and lesbian folks who betray themselves by siding with the enemy.