We May Have Just Seen the Tides Turn on Trans Rights

Elon Musk's PAC just backed off from running some anti-trans ads. Is this a sign of what's to come for trans people?

"Be merry! We meet again. At the turn of the tide. The great storm is coming, but the tide has turned." -JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers

It's been a long, exhausting decade to be a trans person in the United States. Politically, we have been made into the personification of the unacceptable bright red line that must not exist in the conservative culture war. They have constantly lied about, smeared, and attacked us at every possible point in the political process in order to convince otherwise disengaged normies to vote for Republicans.

It's been pure bigotry and it has farmed the mere existence of trans people into culture war conservative anger for years now. Every election year of late has featured endless ads with the wildest claims about trans people. Even some Democrats have begun agreeing.

This election cycle has been no different. The world's richest man, Elon Musk, who is father to a trans daughter, has been funding millions of dollars in transphobic ads through his America PAC organization.

The social media account @TeslaTakedown.com has a thread here tracking the PAC's election spending so far:

This is the PAC running "James Talarico is for they/them" TV ads in Texas, and similar style ads against other red state Dems this cycle. If you've travelled anywhere in America's heartland this fall or have watched a football game, chances are you've seen one of these ads.

As a trans person, these ads are utterly demoralizing. Imagine sitting in a room watching a game with all your close relatives and friends. You're all having a great time drinking beers and eating various potato-flavored snacks. Then a commercial break comes up and onto the screen pops an ad that portrays your demographic as utterly evil.

The rancor dies down and the room falls quiet. People shift nervously in their seat, not knowing what to do. You're looking at the floor, wishing it would swallow you whole while feeling the fleeting glances at you from those around you.

Finally the ad finishes. No one says anything. There will be another one in the next ad break.

This is what it's like to be trans in recent election cycles. But there is a very slight glint of sunlight visible now at the end of this long, lonely tunnel.

Buried towards the end of the Tesla Takedown thread, almost as a footnote, there's this anecdote:

Now these are just Instagram and Facebook ad buys, not television, but it's notable that Elon Musk's PAC has pulled back ever so slightly with its attacks on trans people. It shows that, at least in some cases, the folks behind the PAC aren't seeing the returns they hoped for from transphobia.

For the first time since the beginning of this wave of the anti-trans panic, conservatives have pulled back rather than leaning in to their transphobia.

Now don't get me wrong, I AM NOT saying that the conservative transphobia or the trans panic are over. There will be long fights ahead. It will stay bloody until the bitter end, but we may have just witnessed the high water mark of the anti-trans political movement.

The Tolkien quote above was said by Gandalf to Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas after his resurrection in The Two Towers. According to him, the tide had already turned, before the Battle of Helms Deep, or the charge of the Rohirrim, or indeed before Frodo and Sam even reached Mordor.

This line always struck with me. The main action hadn't even happened yet, and Gandalf said they met again at the turning of the tides? Thousands of people would die in the story after this, but enough small events had fallen into place that victory was in distant sight.

That's how I feel right now, this morning, about trans rights in the US. There will be tough times ahead, I have no doubt about that. There will be more bullshit coming for sure.

The Democratic party flirtation with transphobia is annoying and worrying, but the reality is that, if polls hold, we are about to elect the most pro-trans US House and Senate in US history.

The fight is not close to over, and everything still feels dark, but be merry, the great storm is coming, but the tides have turned.

We will win.

Thank you all so much for reading! Apologies for no Friday post last week, I got the double Covid/flu jab on Wednesday and it knocked me out for days. I'll see you all later this week!