The following piece is an opinion and does not reflect the views of The Eagle and its staff. All opinions are edited for grammar, style and argument structure and fact-checked, but the opinions are the writer’s own.
It is no secret that social issues, rather than purely economic and role-of-government debates, have permeated our recent election cycles. In 2024, abortion is the Democratic Party’s primary winning issue and has Republicans fleeing to the center on the matter rather than clinging to their conservative, pro-life base. However, Democrats must be more all-encompassing on the social justice front, amplifying issues beyond just abortion — albeit vitally important — particularly on transgender rights.
The Washington Post reported on Oct. 22 that “Donald Trump and other GOP candidates are increasingly targeting transgender people in the election campaign’s closing days, invoking them as boogeymen at rallies and pouring millions into advertising tying Democrats to transgender rights.” The Republicans’ push to cast Vice President Kamala Harris as a radical is nothing new, and is a simply tired tactic. Further, to adduce that “men infiltrating women’s sports” is an even remotely a pertinent issue on the presidential campaign trail is nothing more than anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric used to distract from the real issues impacting Americans.
Given this recent uptick in anti-trans propaganda, Democrats, and the Harris campaign specifically, have a moral obligation to the transgender community to rebuke these baseless and, frankly, heinous attacks. Not only this, but they owe this devoted voting bloc explicit policy statements on protections for transgender people. Instead, KamalaHQ, the campaign’s primary social media account, decided to use the fact that gender-affirming care was conducted in prisons under the Trump administration as some sort of “gotcha” post on X against the Trump campaign for leaning so hard into anti-trans ads. The X post shows a headline that reads, “Trump campaign has spent millions on anti-trans ads,” paired next to another headline that reads, “Under Trump, US prisons offered gender-affirming care.” The account’s caption was a whopping “oh,” which falls in line with the account’s other quick-witted and, at times, snarky social media strategy. This angle is usually effective and lands well with young people. However, by providing no context, this was a poorly executed and confusing point that should have never gotten the green light to be posted.
This post did not just miss the mark, which is phrasing it mildly. It also reaffirms the concerns that progressives across the nation have — that the Harris campaign would rather placate Republicans and hone in on Trump’s already-known hypocrisy rather than actually stand for important issues. Much less on an issue that concerns an incredibly marginalized community that has been loyal to the Democratic party.
No matter how you twist the original post, which is still up on social media, it either reads as Trump is a hypocrite and not as extreme as he claims to be, which could be illustrated through literally any other example that does not jeopardize a vulnerable minority group. Or, that gender-affirming care is a bad thing. This is a clear example of the campaign undercutting their commitment to trans rights and further stigmatizing gender-affirming care in the process to make some moot point about Trump’s hypocrisy.
This unclear and, to put it simply, bad messaging does nothing to expand the Democrat’s coalition to moderate Republicans, but it does alienate the party’s entire progressive wing that is already hesitant to vote for her over issues like the genocide in Gaza. Rather than campaigning with former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, perhaps the Harris campaign might consider reevaluating which groups have demonstrated consistent support for them. Democrats must condemn the potentially life-threatening rhetoric that is being leveraged against the trans community by the Republican party.
Alice Still is a junior in the School of Public Affairs and a columnist for the Eagle.
This article was edited by Alana Parker, Rebeca Samano Arellano and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks.
