Republicans think that transphobia is their ticket to electoral success...

[Jessica_Rose ✅]

Republicans think that transphobia is their ticket to electoral success. They're wrong.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/12/republicans-think-that-transphobia-is-their-ticket-to-electoral-success-theyre-wrong/ 🔗

John Gallagher (23 Dec 2025)

Republicans in the House of Representatives can't get much done – except when it comes to attacking the trans community. Then they can still manage to pull out all the stops.

Just last week, Republicans, joined by a handful of Democrats, passed a bill to ban Medicaid from funding any gender-affirming care for minors. That was on top of another bill that they passed to criminalize gender-affirming care for trans youth.

The odds for each bill in the Senate look pretty weak. But getting the measures passed into law is not really the point. The point is to gin up an electoral strategy to rescue the GOP from what's increasingly looking like humiliating mid-term elections.

One appeal that transphobia has for Republicans – besides their natural affinity for it – is that it's a distraction from issues that they don't want to address: Jeffrey Epstein, affordability, and an increasingly erratic president intent on converting D.C. into Pyongyang on the Potomac. Trump keeps echoing his anti-trans attacks, but even he can't escape voter disdain for what Republicans have done to the nation.

However, as with all things MAGA, the cruelty is the point. Even a losing strategy will still inflict untold harm on transgender people, especially trans youth. The move by Robert Kennedy Jr. and his fellow anti-science junkies to cut off any money for trans youth care will increase the risk of suicides. But the Trump administration already addressed that: it ended funding for the LGBTQ+ youth suicide hotline. Instead, the administration wants to channel trans youth into the equivalent of conversion therapy.

If lives are lost, Republicans don't care, even at the cost of their own electoral success.

[Lori Dee ✅]

One appeal that transphobia has for Republicans – besides their natural affinity for it – is that it's a distraction from issues that they don't want to address: Jeffrey Epstein, affordability, and an increasingly erratic president intent on converting D.C. into Pyongyang on the Potomac.

And now the international community is taking notice of his activity in the Caribbean. Many more are joining others who have claimed that what he is doing is piracy and a war crime. Congress has taken notice and is investigating. But they know that if they don't take the House and Senate during the midterms, there is no point in trying to impeach him.

I have said all along that the GOP is a bunch of illusionists. They distract you with their right hand so you don't see what the left hand is doing.