The Trump administration’s use of an anti-trans slur is a warning of what comes next

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used an anti-trans slur while addressing a large gathering of military leaders, and President Donald Trump then applied the same term to Annie Andrews, a South Carolina Senate candidate who is not transgender. MS NOW opinion writer Imara Jones, a Black transgender woman who has investigated the anti-trans movement, argues that such rhetoric typically precedes concrete action against the targeted group.

Jones points to the Human Rights Campaign's count of at least 399 transgender and gender-nonconforming deaths by violence since 2013, most of them Black trans women. A UCLA study of California hate crimes based on gender identity found that slurs accompanied 53% of incidents. Jones contends that officials' language can signal that harming a group is tolerated.

The administration has already barred trans people from military service, tightened passport rules, and pursued limits on medical care for transgender youth. Another federal restriction on Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program money for such care for minors is set to begin Oct. 13. Jones also cites a May counterterrorism strategy naming groups described as "radically pro-transgender" as priorities, and compares the pattern to Vladimir Putin's 2022 expansion of Russia's ban on "LGBT propaganda."

Summarized by PolitiKool from MS NOW’s reporting. Read the full story at MS NOW →