Lies feed pervasive attacks on transgender and nonbinary people

Roughly two out of every 100 people in the U.S. identify as transgender or nonbinary.

As 2026 opens, it is a fitting time to consider how disproportionately small that number is when viewed in light of the proliferation of news about anti-transgender talking points and policy initiatives, lethal anti-transgender violence, and recent years’ epidemic of transgender youth suicidality.

The disinformation campaign launched by prominent Republicans against transgender and nonbinary people has become pervasive in public discourse. By repeatedly casting aspersions upon the tiny fraction of competitive athletes who are transgender, a moral panic about “fair play” and locker rooms has been amplified in the absence of scientific evidence to support the validity of the histrionic claims being made.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is threatening to shutter hospitals providing medically approved care for transgender youth endorsed by the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The recently passed House bill criminalizing gender-affirming healthcare for minors is making its way to the Senate for a vote. The Food and Drug Administration is targeting private companies that market body positive products for gender affirming self-presentation with legal threats.

Meanwhile, the abundance of research demonstrating that transgender people suffer disproportionate violent victimization, homelessness, and suicide has remained largely unaddressed.

Moderate politicians’ concern with appealing to wider audiences in these divisive times exacts a cost: to trans kids’ health, safety, and dignity in their schools and communities.

Rather than forging alliances to protect the safety and constitutional rights of transgender citizens, some of the most influential members of the Democratic Party — from Kamala Harris to Pete Buttigieg to Rahm Emanuel to Gavin Newsom — have at least partially capitulated before the political tidal wave of anti-transgender disinformation, complete with all of the red herrings it washes ashore.

When powerful Dems take the bait, they brand the abandonment of their platform’s core values as political pragmatism. In doing so, they weaken the alliances that could bolster the very ground upon which they wish to reestablish their standing.

Yet, despite the political caution that fuels the Democratic Party’s lack of moral courage on trans issues, passive complicity in response to the right’s virulent anti-trans rhetoric has actually not proven to be a winning strategy for them — as last November’s election results reillustrated.

More importantly, by keeping to the intentionally distorted discourse about transgender people — rather than countering sensationalized falsehoods and vitriolic rhetoric with integrity and conviction — politicians end up appealing to and emboldening constituencies who lean into disinformation out of fear. This isn’t only cynical, it’s dangerous. FBI hate crime statistics tell a bleak story of the rise in vigilante violence against transgender Americans, coinciding with a steep rise in political antagonism and targeted scapegoating.

A recent effort led by U.S. Reps. Sarah McBride (D., Del.), Mark Takano (D., Calif.), and members of the Congressional Equality Caucus calls upon House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) to enforce the rules of decorum in Congress by holding those who defame and denigrate the trans community to account. As of this writing, no response has been issued.

The only ethical and effective path forward demands that we fundamentally reframe the political conversation about transgender people in factual terms that are grounded in foundational democratic principles, credible science, and a commitment to the protection of civil rights and civil liberties of all Americans.

There is some hope to be found in the lawsuit filed this week by 19 Democratic states to block the federal government’s efforts to ban gender-affirming care nationally.

Ideally, we would see more leadership on both sides of the aisle to protect the safety, freedom, and human dignity of all LGBTQ+ people, as demonstrated in the introduction of the bipartisan Global Respect Act by McBride and U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R., Pa.) to protect LGBTQ+ people around the world from identity-based violence, torture, and persecution.

Regressive political forces have always sought to isolate and villainize minoritized groups, to paint them as threats to the majority by virtue of whatever marks them as somehow “different” from those in power — and therefore less deserving of the same rights and protections.

Consider that during the civil rights movement in the 1960s, boycotts of segregated lunch counters and department stores were underway in Southern communities when New York U.S. Rep. Adam Clayton Powell famously corrected a reporter who queried if he was advocating for “Negroes” to stay out of segregated national chain stores in solidarity with the boycotts.

“Oh no, that’s not true,” Powell countered. “I’m advocating that American citizens interested in democracy stay out of chain stores.” With that sentence, he turned the conversation inside out to reveal its core: Civil rights and civil liberties are the central pillars of a democratic society — not exclusive privileges to be hoarded by any one set of citizens so as to dehumanize and disadvantage another.

A genuine commitment to our democracy demands that we shift our discursive paradigm from one that impugns the existence of transgender people to one that impugns the de jure and de facto denial of transgender people’s humanity, dignity, civil rights, and personal safety.

It is long past time to reset the terms and reclaim the narrative on the equal protections and constitutional rights of transgender Americans. The political leadership we need in this moment requires the clarity, intentionality, and fortitude to do just that.

Ashley C. Rondini is an associate professor of sociology at Franklin and Marshall College.