For anti-trans activists, it's about cruelty, not politics. They want to harm trans people. - LGBTQ Nation

Anti-trans political platforms have been used to frame trans people as an “other” that is easy to mobilize against. Real harm has emerged, including actions that occur in less visible ways. The change in priorities is described as moving from earlier indifference about bathroom access to later focus on trans girls in sports and support for bathroom bans. After returning to office, executive orders are described as targeting trans people, including claims about “Two Sexes,” restrictions framed as banning “mutilation” of gender-affirming care, and rules intended to keep men out of women’s sports. The impact is portrayed as benefiting supporters politically while imposing costs on trans people’s lives.

"It’s been almost reassuring to think of the anti-trans platforms that politicians have been running on as purely political messaging designed to invoke tribalism. We’re an “other” that’s easy to rile up a base against. But the very real harm that we’re seeing, the depth of it, and the way that it has started to happen in the shadows is a reminder that the politicians might not believe we’re the devil, but they’re puppeteered by true believers in the shadows whose goal is to harm us."

"Donald Trump in 2016 was perfectly happy to have Caitlyn Jenner use whichever bathroom she wanted to in Trump Tower- an offer that she took him up on. He simply didn’t think that trans people in bathrooms were an issue. But by the 2024 election cycle, Trump’s biggest concern in the world was trans girls playing sports, and he thought that bathroom bans were the way forward for America."

"When it did, it was with great bluster that he signed a series of executive orders against trans people, from “ Two Sexes” to banning “mutilation” (by which he meant gender-affirming care), and of course “ Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.” It was a great victory for his supporters and showed his base that he’s a man of his word (at least on issues that will have next to no effect on their daily lives or the cost of their groceries)."

Read at LGBTQ Nation