Donald Trump had recently finished a familiar riff about banning gender transition surgery for children when the former president, speaking to an audience of Evangelical voters, moved on to something new: a policy that would affect transgender adults.
“I will ban all taxpayer funding for sex or gender transitions at any age,” said Trump, receiving thunderous applause at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Washington last month. The Republican leader, who moments earlier had also pledged to reinstate a ban on transgender men and women serving in the military, paused for several seconds to soak in the crowd’s adulation.
It’s the kind of moment — and the type of policy — increasingly common on the GOP presidential campaign trail this year.
Not that this is really relevant to your fantasy of a Glorious Civil War of Separation, but I am a trans woman with a history of winning over conservatives and helping them grow to understanding in the rural Midwest. When I worked at a trucking motel, I led a series of truckers to the conclusion that trans people are just normal people, except this particular one who is the best damn front desk agent they can get for under $200 (for the record, our CDL rate was under $100). Now I work at the single busiest dispensary in the city where I do the same thing because even fascists love weed. Even without any group affiliation, I put myself in danger to do important and successful grassroots work in my day to day life that I could not do if separated from the people who need to see and hear me. I am pushing for change every day in one of the battleground locations for trans rights and have never lived somewhere that was safe for and accepting of me. Separating into a fascist and free state abandons people like me, people who fight where it counts because we were born where minorities don’t get rights.