The Republican Party has been on full attack against LGBTQ+ people. It’s hard to know how many transgender people there actually are because revealing one’s identity can be dangerous.
According to a recent study in the American Journal of Public Health, about 1 million out of 332 million people in the U.S. are likely transgender, a tiny minority.
Yet Republicans cannot think of another strategy to gain support other than to attack this group, because scapegoating is all they have to offer. If they didn’t have the LGBTQ+ community to target, they’d likely choose another group — perhaps an ethnic group, or a religious minority.
They’d find someone to attack because the vapid emptiness of their party platform demonstrates they have no solutions to society’s actual problems.
It’s a tried-and-true method of gaining adherents: Use fear to gain power. They’re not creating legislation to educate, feed or help people; their only hope is to generate prejudice to get elected. What’s next when they have taken away all of the rights of this group? What will they do then to maintain power and win elections? It’s horrifying to contemplate. As Desmond Tutu pointed out, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
— Karen Jensen
Fairbanks
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