Former President Donald Trump made headlines once again for his controversial speech at the National Rifle Association’s annual conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. In his speech, he vowed to investigate and potentially halt gender-affirming healthcare for trans people if re-elected in 2024. Trump’s promise to direct the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to study the effects of gender-affirming healthcare and “trans ideology” on mental health and “violence” was met with outrage and criticism from members of the LGBTQ+ community and advocacy groups.
Trump’s speech came in the midst of an epidemic of mass shootings in the US, where he blamed everything but guns for the rise in violence, calling it a “mental health problem” and a “spiritual problem”. His promise to investigate gender-affirming healthcare and trans ideology only adds to the ongoing discrimination and marginalization of trans people in the US.
Despite Trump’s claims, research has found that gender-affirming healthcare can be life-saving and leads to better mental health outcomes for trans people. In updated treatment guidelines issued last year, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health said evidence of later regret of accessing gender-affirming healthcare is scant in trans patients.
Trump’s speech perpetuated the baseless narrative that there’s been a rise in trans people committing violent attacks, such as mass shootings, in recent years. It ignores the fact that the overwhelming majority of mass shooters in the US are cisgender men, and that trans people are more likely to be victims of violence than cisgender people.
Trump’s ongoing attacks on the trans community are not new. During his presidency, he banned trans people from serving in the military and denied trans people equal access to emergency shelters. The former president opened his re-election campaign with a promise to ban gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth, punish hospitals that provide such treatments, and push for a federal law recognizing only two genders.
In response to Trump’s speech, Geoff Wetrosky, national campaign director for LGBTQ+ advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign, slammed “anti-equality extremist politicians”, “led by Trump”, for attacking trans people rather than addressing the real issues impacting the US, such as the scourge of gun violence, the leading killer of children and teens in America.
