Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has gone on an anti-trans tear, spending over $6.7 million on advertisements that demonize transgender youth, the existence of trans people in public and access to gender affirming care for everyone.
Keep in mind that there are only about 1.3 million transgender adults and 300,000 trans youth between the ages of 13 and 17 in the U.S., a country of over 337 million people. That amounts to 0.6% of this country’s population. The state of Texas has a population of over 29 million, of which only about 92,900 adults and 29,800 youths identify as trans.
It is unfathomable and abhorrent that Cruz is so hell-bent on persecuting such a minuscule portion of the population.
In three campaign ads, titled Boys and Girls, Agony of Defeat and Radical, Cruz targets trans girls and women by implying that they exist solely to prey on cisgender women. This is seen in his verbiage, incessant misgendering of trans girls and women and criticism of Rep. Colin Allred (D-Dallas) for “[supporting] boys playing in girls sports,” “[voting] to allow boys in girls bathrooms,” “boys in girls locker rooms” and “[voting] against the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.”
Cruz claims that his arguments are in support of cisgender women and that he wants to protect them; however, the spread of this rhetoric will harm them. By creating laws that require a birth certificate verification to participate in sports or enter public spaces, people who do not fit the stereotypical image of a cis women or men are subjected to cruel “transvestigations.”
Transvestigations are pseudo-scientific analysis of another person’s appearance and behaviors to find signs that they are secretly transgender and thus evil. Bigoted, deeply transphobic individuals have tranvestigated figures like Michelle Obama, Serena Williams, Imane Khelif and Kyle Rittenhouse.
Khelif, who was transvestigated despite it being illegal to identify as trans or transition in her home country of Algeria, spoke out against the harassment she received in an interview with SNTV. “This has massive effects. It can destroy people, it can kill people’s thoughts, spirit and mind. It can divide people,” she said.
Seeing as his advertisements primarily targeted trans children, they are likely to face increased harassment in-person and online from Cruz’s constituents. Roughly 86% of trans youth experience suicidality and 56% have already attempted suicide. The spread of anti-trans rhetoric will ultimately lead to an increase in transphobia and trans youth suicide rates.
Cruz exhibits far greater misleading rhetoric and criticism towards Allred in his latest transphobic advertisement, Radical. In it, he claims, “Allred is demanding drag shows on American military bases, taxpayer-funded sex change surgeries for men and women in uniform and even taxpayer funds to sterilize minors.”
This is in reference to a letter to House and Senate Armed Services Committee leadership in which lawmakers, Allred among them, called for the removal of sections in the House-passed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) targeting queer service members and queer dependents.
SEC. 595 of the NDAA prohibits drag shows and drag queen story hours, and Allred wants it removed. Drag events on military bases were sponsored by private groups and did not utilize federal funding; SEC. 595’s removal would not require unwanted drag shows, it would allow the groups to host them once more.
Allred favors the removal of SEC. 717, which prohibits tax-funded, medically necessary gender-affirming care for transgender service members and transgender dependents of service members. Trans people experience disproportionately higher rates of depression and suicidality, but gender-affirming care is known to lower those rates.
Gender-affirming care for trans youth, like puberty blockers and hormone therapy, are associated with a 60% lower risk of moderate to severe depression and a 73% lower risk of self-harm or suicidal thoughts for those who receive it.
For youth ages 15 to 17, only about 2.1 per 100,000 undergo gender-affirming surgery, the majority of which being chest surgeries. It was found that 97% of the chest surgeries were performed on cisgender male teens. Trans youth almost never receive sex reassignment surgery despite what conservatives may say; it is already rare enough for them to receive other forms of gender-affirming surgery. So no, children will not be sterilized should SEC. 717 of the NDAA be removed.
As seen above, gender affirming care is not specific to trans people; mammoplasties, testicular implants, and breast reductions in cis men and women are all forms of gender affirming care that are performed on cis people. Restriction on access to gender affirming care for trans people, a mere 0.06% of the population, may end up restricting access to it for everyone.
Misguided and hateful rhetoric towards trans people, as seen in Cruz’s ads, aids in manufacturing consent for the passage of laws that restrict everyone’s bodily autonomy and involve politics in private matters reserved for patients and their doctors.
