When the key part of your political platform – which is to give massive tax cuts to the already rich - isn't very popular with the public, how do you get them to still vote for you?

If you're wondering why the Republican Party is making so much noise about transgender people this Pride month when they stayed so stony silent over all the abusive Catholic priests, it's because there were no votes in holding the Church to account for their crimes.

Votes are the key to it all. 

Beating up on all the vulnerable minorities that the public doesn't like wins votes. That's why Donald Trump lifted the rock and declared open season on undocumented immigrants, minority faiths, minority racial groups, and LGBT groups, just pick a scapegoat and hand the public some rocks.

It's as cynical as it is dangerous and it's now playing out all over the world. Parties and leaders that are fighting for their political lives will stop at nothing to literally scare up the votes they need to stay in power. Even if it means someone has to get hurt. And since the January 6 insurrection, people are getting hurt and even killed.

So it's important to understand why transgender people are suddenly all over your Twitter feed and your social media and Fox News.

It's not because their numbers are growing. It's not because they have some devilish plan to invade your home and change your children's sex. 

The reason they are suddenly all over the news is that the right went looking for a handy vote getter and when they “threw everything at the wall, to our surprise it was the transgender issue that stuck.”

Genuinely think transphobia has never been worse in my lifetime.

Trans people were a constant punchline in the 90s. But there wasn’t a concerted effort to destroy them on a public policy level. Musk has been one of the biggest accelerants of that hate.

— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) June 2, 2023

It's a surprise to many. Transgender Americans are a tiny minority. It's very possible to go from one end of the year to another without knowingly encountering one.

But if you look at your media feed it can seem as if they're an invasive species intent on turning the nation upside down in pursuit of their nefarious designs. 

It can't be both. They can't be both statistically tiny in number and somehow a dire threat to Western civilization. The math doesn't add up. Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual people represent a far more substantial minority yet even they are listed as 3.5 percent of the population. Only 0.3 percent identify as transgender.

What I'm saying is that people who think they are smarter than you sat down in a room and plotted to win your vote by scaring you senseless about a bogus threat they swear is coming from just 0.3 percent of the population. 

If you have already fallen for this hate campaign then their work is done.

If however, you haven't stopped drinking Bud Light or attacking Target Pride Month displays like a knuckle-dragging lunatic, then their vote-getting campaign isn't quite the success that they hoped it would be.

Getting you to ignore the tax breaks given to the rich requires a lot of theater. Unfortunately, it's a theater of blood. Relentlessly attacking the dignity and rights of people you don't know and rarely encounter takes a toll on their mental health, personal safety, and ability to live free of insult and injury.

Most sinister start to a #PrideMonth in my lifetime. The 'mask off' homophobia in the media is worse than I can remember. The normalisation of transphobia is to blame.

These vile bigots were ALWAYS going to come for the entire community.

Shows how important Pride is. 🏳️‍🌈♥️🏳️‍⚧️

— Jack D 🔻 (@JackDunc1) June 2, 2023

I can't tell you the number of times this year a woman has confided in me that transgender people represent a grave threat to women, single-sex environments, sports, personal safety, and the future.

Have you met any this year I ask? Do you know any trans people I ask? Have you been anywhere this year where a trans person made you feel personally unsafe I ask? The answer is always no. They usually speak of trans people in the abstract, never in the first person. 

The truth is that trans people have far more to fear of the general public than the other way around. Every week it seems another trans person is targeted and killed and the murders of trans people have actually doubled in the past four years. 

Apparently Elon Musk’s daughter has applied to change her name to Vivian, no longer wants to live with him, and doesn’t want the name Musk. She is/has been transitioning, and it all makes Elon’s transphobia much more vile.

— Frederick Joseph (@FredTJoseph) June 21, 2022

Admittedly, there are tense discussions to be had and accommodations to be reached, but right now those discussions are being held in obvious bad faith. Conservatives have weaponized the discussion in search of the votes they have failed to inspire in less dangerous ways. 

Targeting communities is not the same as appealing to them. Placing a red target on someones back – ironically in a store called Target – to get the public to line up to do your bidding is reprehensible.