GOP convention riddled with anti-trans rhetoric as Trump admits it makes "great sound bites"https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/09/gop-convention-riddled-with-anti-trans-rhetoric-as-admits-it-makes-great-sound-bites/ 🔗John Russell (10 Sep 2026)
Republican lawmakers, including the president, went all-in on anti-transgender rhetoric on the first night of the party's first-ever midterm convention — dubbed "Trumpapolooza" by some critics.
President Donald Trump closed out day one of the event at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, with a characteristically rambling, nearly two-hour address in which he claimed to be hesitant to bring up trans issues two months before the November 3 midterm elections, but was doing so because he is "petrified" that Democrats will change their position.
Trump also described Republicans' calls to ban transgender women and girls from women's and girls' sports as "one of our great sound bites of all time."
He claimed that attacking transgender athletes' rights is "a 99 to 1" issue, "and I have no idea who the one is."
However, a 2025 Gallup poll found that only 69% of U.S. adults believe that trans athletes should be limited to competing on teams that align with the sex they were assigned at birth.
It also remains unclear precisely how effective the Trump campaign's anti-trans ads in the final weeks of the 2024 campaign were in turning out Republican voters. Research from the conservative American Principles Project indicates such ads made voters more likely to vote for Trump in 2024, PBS reported. But polling has also suggested that voters' main concerns were inflation and economic issues.-----------------------------------
@Sarah B
