LGBTQ+ rights are not disposable
By Jacob Gallegos | April 25, 2025
Over 500 bills that negatively targeted the LGBTQ+ community were introduced across all 50 states in 2024. While only a small number of these bills have been signed into law, the sheer number of bills introduced has stricken fear into the hearts of LGBTQ+ people who simply want to live their lives. The beginning of the 2020 decade has brought about a new wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and while the source is mainly from the conservative side of the aisle, the opposition has been less than ideal.
Culture wars and their political use
The overwhelming majority of the anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been filed by Republican lawmakers to stew a culture war in the United States. Culture wars are a form of conflict that are waged between two different groups to ensure their morals or ideology are dominant in society. These forms of conflict have been present in American politics for decades. For example, the satanic panic of the 1980’s was a culture war that aimed to impose religious values upon mainstream society. These culture wars are mainly concerned with moral or religious values but are often used as a political tool to sway the American public. The satanic panic coincided with former President Ronald Reagan’s tenure, which was highly associated with the values of evangelical Christians. Today, the target of the latest culture war is the LGBTQ+ community, and specifically transgender people who are villainized by claims that gender “ideology” is a threat to children. Transgender people – or those who identity as a different gender than what they were born as – were a significant part of Donald Trump’s 2024 election campaign. They were used as a political tool to smear Democrats, who were supportive of the transgender community in the 2020 election and position them as being a threat to children because of their support for transgender people.
However, while this culture war is primarily being perpetuated by Republican lawmakers, several Democratic lawmakers have decided to participate as well. In the 2024 U.S. senate election in Texas, Senator Ted Cruz attacked the Democratic nominee Colin Allred on transgender athletes participating in sports. Through a campaign advertisement, Allred defended himself by saying, “Let me be clear: I don’t want boys playing girls' sports, or any of this ridiculous stuff that Ted Cruz is saying,” prompting outrage from transgender people in Texas who called the Democratic nominee “spineless”. Similarly, after Trump’s presidential victory over the Democratic nominee former Vice President Kamala Harris, some Democratic officials began blaming transgender rights for their loss. The attacks are originating mainly from one side of the political aisle, but the opposition is not united in stopping them
This kind of culture war is not the first time that the LGBTQ+ community has been attacked, either. Gay and bisexual people were specifically targeted in the 70’s partly by the late Anita Bryant who coined the slogan “save the children” after claiming that the LGBTQ+ community was “recruiting” youth to grow their numbers. Even though Bryant’s claims and concerns were homophobic and not backed by a single shred of evidence, her national campaign swayed public opinion and directly led to a repeal of a nondiscrimination ordinance in Dade country, Florida. Today, the same arguments are made against transgender people. For example, select de-transitioners – or those who began to transition from one gender to another, but reversed course – have recently gone viral for regretting their transition and publicized that they were brainwashed into transitioning, and that gender affirming care should be completely banned for minors.
The claims that a disproportionate amount of people regret their decision to medically transitioning, however, are removed from medical context. Recent studies show that only 1% of transgender people expressed regret for receiving gender affirming surgery, whereas up to 1/3 of people who receive knee surgery can express regret. Gender affirming surgery is also often exclusively considered for transgender people when it is actually more common than some might think. In fact, one of the most common types of gender affirming surgery is for cisgender men who have gynecomastia, or the growth of breast tissue. Breast reduction surgery for men is, in and of itself, gender affirming surgery because it alleviates body image issues and helps men to feel comfortable in their own skin, just like it does for transgender people who undergo gender affirming surgery. Many transgender people choose not to receive gender affirming surgery, but for those who do, it is lifesaving.
While elections are important devices in enacting legislative agendas for practical use, they are also used to enact values and beliefs that a voting bloc holds. Many voters point to the 2020 defeat of Donald Trump as a rejection of the values and beliefs he held and represented. Culture wars and moral panics reflect some of these values and they are not limited to just LGBTQ+ people. Moral panics also affect immigration and abortion in that disinformation is purposefully spread to fuel the political momentum that is needed to limit or outlaw both. Across LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, and supporters of abortion, public opinion is a vital piece of how to look at moral panics.
The public’s opinion on LGBTQ+ people
It is possible that lawmakers in the United States are merely following cues from the public about LGBTQ+ people and transgender people specifically. How do the American people feel about LGBTQ+ people?
The bar graph above visualizes how people who took the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS) feel threatened or supported by LGBT people. The average scores are broken out by political party affiliation, and while there are significant differences between political parties – particularly with Democrats and Republicans – no political party in this sample is associated with feeling threatened by LGBT people in their vision of American society. More recently, a Gallup poll from 2024 asked respondents “Do you favor or oppose laws that ban certain types of gender-affirming care for minors?” to which only 36% of respondents favored. However, other questions like whether transgender people should serve in the military had its support fall from 71% in 2019 to 58% in 2025, a remarkable 13% drop in 6 years. Likewise, polls that ask about whether transgender athletes should be allowed to compete in sports with their current gender identity versus their birth gender have changed from 2018 (current gender identity – 34%, birth gender – 62%) to 2024 (26% and 69%, respectively).
The hard truth
While some views on transgender people have been unaffected by the current discourse, many views have been swayed to demonize transgender people. By swaying the public on transgender people, elected officials can point to public opinion as justification for enacting policies that affect 1% of the population. The public also becomes radicalized and can protest against LGBTQ+ protections, pressuring lawmakers who may not necessarily believe anti-LGBTQ+ to give in and legalize LGBTQ+ discrimination. Gavin Newsom – the Democratic governor California – came out against transgender athletes competing as their identified gender, shocking Democrats and LGBTQ+ people across the state. As a potential presidential hopeful, Newsome possibly made the move to court potential conservative voters and submit to the massive wave of hate against the LGBTQ+ community. He shows how moral panics and culture wars can affect both sides of the political spectrum and not just the right. Some politicians might even grasp onto other parts of public opinion to point out how most people believe in parents’ rights to raise their children.
But the hard truth of the matter is that public opinion cannot be a universal decider on moral arguments. Renowned gender studies scholar, Judith Butler, warned political leaders in the aftermath of the 2024 election: “If you sacrifice a minority like trans people, you are operating within a fascist logic”. Yes, winning federal elections in the face of fascism is important—enormously important—but if doing so requires sacrificing an entire group of people, is that really a victory? Despite a culture war that would tell us otherwise, the LGBTQ+ community’s rights are always worth fighting for.
