Donald Trump and the leading Senate Republican super PAC have spent millions on political ads this election cycle, stoking fears about transgender people in sports and increasing gender-affirming care for immigrants and detainees.
Since August, the Republican Party has spent more than $65 million on television advertising about transgender issues in states with competitive races, according to an analysis of AdImpact data from The New York Times.
Republicans are betting that anti-trans rhetoric will resonate with voters in the race for the White House, as well as the races for the Senate and House of Representatives in what is expected to be the most expensive election of all time, with an expected Spent $10.2 billion in all media and advertisements.
During the last election cycle, it was anti-trans messages did not yield any major victories for conservatives. During the 2022 midterm elections, a wave of Republicans who based their platform on fighting trans-inclusive policies lost their races.
Last month, the Trump campaign unveiled its most aired ad, featuring the tagline “Kamala is for they/them.” The ad focuses on Vice President Kamala Harris’ support for gender-affirming care for all people, including those in prison and immigration detention who rely on government insurance.
In the ad, Harris explains that she supports gender-affirming care for incarcerated people 2019 interview with Mara Keisling, then director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.
That same year, in response to a questionnaire for candidates of the American Civil Liberties Union, Harris noted that she supported policies to ensure federal prisoners have access to surgical and other gender-affirming care.
During the September 10 presidential debate, Trump, in a now-viral moment, criticized Harris’ response to the questionnaire and accused her of supporting “transgender operations against illegal aliens in jail.”
Harris faced criticism from LGBTQ+ voters during her 2020 bid for the exact opposite reason. When she was California’s attorney general in 2015, she fought for it block accessto gender-affirming surgeries for a transgender woman in prison. She later said she took it with her “full responsibility” for the legal documents filed during her tenure as attorney general that sought to suppress that access, and has repeatedly reaffirmed her support for LGBTQ+ people and women to have the freedom to make decisions about their own bodies.
Taxpayers bear a variety of costs associated with keeping federal prisons open, including paying for the medical care of incarcerated people. And under the Constitution, states are required to provide adequate medical care to inmates. In theory, this includes gender-affirming care, although in reality trans people in prison face numerous barriers to accessing it.
This year’s series of ads amplifies anti-trans rhetoric at a time when anti-LGBTQ legislation is at an all-time high and the legality of the ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth, passed in more than half the country, is currently being questioned is in the hands of the conservative Supreme Court. The Supreme Court will hear arguments on a challenge to Tennessee’s ban later this term.
More than half of US states have banned trans students from participating in sports teams that best match their gender identity. Trump has pledged to roll back trans-inclusive Title IX protections and punish doctors who provide gender-affirming care to minors. His running mate JD Vance introduced legislation in the Senate to completely criminalize that care.
Limiting the rights of transgender people has become a rallying cry for Republicans at every level of government, with the party pledging in its 2024 platform to keep “men out of women’s sports” – an attack on trans women.
As the Republican Party races to take control of the Senate by targeting vulnerable Democratic incumbents, it has run ads targeting transgender people in states such as Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin. Many of the ads were funded by the Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC affiliated with Mitch McConnell.
The super PAC has spent more than $500,000 on Facebook ads alone since July, targeting voters in five states on issues ranging from trans rights to immigration and the economy, according to an analysis of advertising data by HuffPost. These advertisements primarily focus on transgender participation in sports and their use of women’s locker rooms, and on minors’ access to gender-affirming care.
In Ohio, the Senate Leadership Fund has taken out an ad against Sen. Sherrod Brown, accusing the Democrat of supporting “biological males” in girls’ sports and “gender reassignment surgery” for minors. However, WKYC, an affiliate of Cleveland NBC, noted that the ad mischaracterizes Brown’s voting record and his comments on trans health care in the Senate.
Brown has not explicitly discussed gender-affirming care for minors, but has stated that politicians have no place making health care decisions for children. He too voted against an amendment in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which would have stripped federal funding from schools that allow transgender people to participate in women’s sports.
Similarly, the Senate Leadership Fund was unveiled in Montana five advertisements about transgender women in sports and the bathroom, while Republicans hope to dethrone incumbent Democratic Senator Jon Tester.
Republican strategists have said that targeting ads on transgender issues is popular with the GOP base. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans in Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin – the Midwest say so turned blue for Biden in 2020 – believe that society should not accept transgender people, according to a September poll from The New York Times and Siena College.
Republican attack ads against Harris and other Democratic candidates in recent weeks have used the images of several prominent LGBTQ+ figures to target transgender people’s participation in sports, drag and their overall existence.
The transgender people featured in the ads have expressed concern and frustration over the non-consensual use of their images.
In a recent campaign mailer, the Texas Republican Party attacked Colin Allred, a Democrat who hoped to dethrone Republican incumbent Senator Ted Cruz, using a half-blurred image of a transgender male wrestler. “Colin Allred failed to protect women’s sports and supported boys competing against girls,” the mailer said.
Mack Beggs, the trans man and wrestler whose image appears in the ad, made headlines in 2017 after winning a girls wrestling state championship despite his advocacy, public outcry and a lawsuit to allow him to compete in the boys division. However, the University Interscholastic League, the group that oversees sports in Texas public schools, assigned Beggs to compete in the girls division.
When Beggs first saw the mailer, he said he was concerned for his family’s safety. “It’s sickening,” he said on Instagram. “But I’m not surprised.”
He told the Houston Chronicle that he had contacted the ACLU to seek legal advice about the party’s use of his image.
Drag queen and environmental activist Pattie Gonia and Jonathan Van Ness of “Queer Eye” also unexpectedly found themselves in the Trump campaign’s “Kamala is for them/them” attack ad.
Gonia, whose non-drag name is Wyn Wiley, denounced the ad on social media last week.
“The Trump campaign did not have my permission to use my name or likeness. Yes, we are reviewing our legal options,” Wiley said in an Instagram post that showed the activist dressed as the Statue of Liberty. “And yes, I’m going to do what queer people always do: turn our pain into something positive.”
Wiley instructed their social media followers to donate to two LGBTQ advocacy groups, Point of Pride and Trans Lifeline.
