Creating An Existential Threat
How the Trans Community came to the forefront of US Politics
When Toni Morrison wrote her debut novel, The Bluest Eye, it would stare into the face of American society about what race, beauty, self-worth and coming to terms with these aspects of seen through the eyes of an eleven-year-old Black girl in Ohio would mean at a time when racial prejudice was an indelible part of American government and culture. The impact of racial self-loathing and societal beauty standards resonates today in a way that has divided this country even further.
Transgender people have been a part of world history and have played a unique role within the LGTBQA2+ Community since the beginning and contributed to the advancement, the advocacy and the longevity of the community as a whole beginning with Stonewall, NY. This is part of our collective history in the context of America’s understanding of who we are.
We are now at a nexus point where our very existence is being erased as pawns in a political game for control of a nation and the world is watching in shock and awe as this transpires before their very eyes as they are dealing with their own transgender community and how they want to deal with it. Almost no county is immune to finding ways to balance the equality of their own transgender population as it relates to their governments versus public opinion.
A report on "Attitudes to transgender people" commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, published in 2020, found that 84% of the British public described themselves as "not prejudiced at all" towards transgender people and 76% believed that prejudice against transgender people was "always or mostly wrong". Stonewall said the "common anti-trans narratives" do not reflect public opinion.
But then the spotlight changed again with the Cass Review. A review presented by Hilary Cass, examined the existing research on transgender health care interventions for people under eighteen years of age. The NHS, UK’s National Health Service launched the publicly funded review with recommendations based on prejudice rather and empirical evidence and caused more harm than good.
Why is this important?
In any review there needs to be a baseline of representation across ages, genders, and ethnicities. What I found disturbing about the Cass Review is that there is no demographic information regarding the ethnic breakdown of the transgender population that was a part of this review. As of the 2021 Census of England and Wales, there are 5.76 million people or 8.6% of the population that identify as Asian. But there are no reports that accurately ‘estimate’ the total of Asian transgender peoples in Britian.
The Williams Institute did their report of racial/ethnic groups that identifies as transgender in the US in June 2022.
Asian, AIAN and Biracial, Multiracial or Other makes up the lowest percentage and overall number that was able to be counted. As of 2022, estimates for the total percentage of U.S. adults that are transgender or nonbinary range from 0.5% to 1.6% from a Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project form March of 2023.
Asians are literally the silent minority within a silent minority which only punctuates the issue as to why the Transgender community had to become the existential threat for a political movement. Daniel Dae Kim, actor and activist was asked to speak at a U.S. House Committee about the increase in Asian hate crimes and in that hearing and he spoke about a pollster regarding the lack of Asian visibility and statistics.
"I was speaking to a pollster during the recent elections, and I asked him why, when I see polling results broken down by race do, I so rarely see Asian Americans as a separate category. He heard my question, he looked me dead in the eye and said, "Because Asian Americans are considered statistically insignificant. Statistically insignificant, now all of you listening to me here, by virtue of your own elections are more familiar with the intricacies of polling than I am, so undoubtedly you already know what this means-statistically insignificant literally means we don't matter.”
You can see the video here:
There is a commonality that needs to be highlighted here. When a minority group is overlooked in demographic statistics it is easier to capitalize on their obscurity to demonize them and then create the existential threat that people can latch on to as a means of a political movement.
Terry Schilling, a Republican strategist with the American Principles Project whose goal was to promote restrictions on transgender youth primarily through spending groups with 501(C4) along with other advocates and lobbyists. They aimed directly for states like Florida and Texas that has a strong Republican base and ties to White Christian Nationalists and had already had legislations banning transgender girls from playing in intramural sports with dogmatic intent began to vilify transgender children with the notion that, ‘What good, god-fearing parent wouldn’t want to protect their children from this.” And so, it began. A very well-funded grassroots campaign began to take hold and cultivate this notion into the mainstream media and in an interview with CNN, he talked about,
"The women's sports issue was really the beginning point in helping expose all this because what it did was, it got opponents of the LGBT movement comfortable with talking about transgender issues," – April 22, 2022, Sara Murray, CNN
You can read the full article here: https://www.wral.com/republicans-build-momentum-as-they-drive-anti-lgbtq-legislation-nationwide/20247265/
But who is the American Principles Project? “The Advocate has described APP as a right-wing extremist group due to its deceptive campaign advertisements about transgender people, and the Anti-Defamation League said that APP advocates for "anti-transgender hate". - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Principles_Project
The American Principles Project is a member of the advisory board of Project 2025 that was written by the Heritage Foundation who is a conservative think tank dating back to 1973. At a 2022 Heritage Foundation dinner, Trump endorsed the organization, saying it was "going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do ... when the American people give us a colossal mandate. – Alison Durkee. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/07/30/project-2025-explained-what-to-know-about-the-controversial-right-wing-policy-map-for-trump-as-director-steps-down/
It is this very same groundwork that was intricately laid out but needed a scapegoat. Enter the transgender community.
And it was because transgender people were not significant enough to draw attention that they became the perfect target to create the existential threat that has become the framework in creating legislations from banning transgender girls from playing in athletic sports, banning from using the restrooms of their aligned gender, to limiting to completely halting healthcare to youth, and the list goes on.
As Republicans have learned to create a threat, you choose the most significant, marginalized group that there is, then you demonize them and let ignorance and fear do the rest.
Transgender peoples are now the bluest eye.
"Attitudes to transgender people | Equality and Human Rights Commission". www.equalityhumanrights.com. Archived from the original on 20 November 2021. Retrieved 20 November 2021.
"New report tells us how the public actually feel about trans people". Stonewall. 11 August 2020. Archived from the original on 20 N