Minority Rights in the Midterms: A Democratic Recoil from Transgender Rights

It wasn’t a secret that the attacks on the transgender community were coming. In early 2025, US President Donald Trump, still high on the November 2024 election victory that put him in the White House for the second time, essentially instructed the Republican Party to bring up the issue of transgender rights on the eve of the midterms.

Speaking in the White House on March 13, 2025, Trump said: "I tell the Republicans, don’t bring that subject up, because there is no election right now. But about a week before the election, bring it up because you can’t lose.”

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Throughout the midterm campaign, which has now drawn to a close, it became abundantly clear that the Republicans were listening. GOP campaigns and political action committees (PACs) spent tens of millions of dollars on ads targeting the transgender community in this election cycle, including an ad-buy in early September of more than $100 million by Elon Musk through the America PAC, much of which has been heavily focused on transgender messaging.

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