Republican Assault on Trans People
This is a document meant to highlight a small subset of the ways in which Republicans have and continue to viciously target trans people in an effort to criminalize their existence. It is not and cannot be a complete record.
It is intended to provide allies a fuller perspective of the realities of the situation, and provide examples they can use to shock the conscience of those not paying attention. Slogans like "trans rights are human rights", "trans men are men", and "protect trans kids" are all well and good, but they work on the presumption the listener understands the context of the world around them, and most do not.
Be warned that the examples provided include horrors. They are included because of this reason, and that they are happening to real people in the US right now.
Also keep in mind that this is narrowing the scope to trans people, but they are not the only targeted minority, and that there is similar contempt for cis immigrants, racial minorities, women, the disabled, and pretty much anyone who isn't a well-off Christian white man.
"Transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely"
This is a quote from Michael Knowles, a contributor to the prominent right-wing outlet The Daily Wire, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 2023. "Transgenderism" is a term from hate groups trying to label being trans as an ideology or worldview in the same way as calling being gay "a lifestyle". This is a statement that they want to eradicate trans people from society. They do not accept that trans people exist as an identity that is indelible, or if they do, do not permit them the freedom to continue doing so.
They do not accept trans people as a legitimate category of person. It's part of why they repeatedly will misgender and insist on calling trans women "men". They'll say "men in women's bathrooms" or "men in women's sports" when what is actually being discussed are women in women's bathrooms and women in women's sports.
Knowles himself provides further context on his statements through other recent remarks, explicitly stating that genocide of trans people is acceptable because trans people are not legitimate.
I don't know how you could have a genocide of transgender people because genocide refers to genes ... transgender people is not a real ontological category. It's not a legitimate category of being.
This is the lens through which all other movements by Republicans to target the trans community must be viewed. Issues like regulations around trans people in sports aren't meant as a good-faith effort to determine the best way to carry out divisions, they are there as a foot in the door for accepting the dehumanization of a group of people for the purposes of removing their right to exist.
https://www.readtpa.com/p/on-the-rights-call-to-eradicate-transgenderism
Moving trans women to men's prisons despite judge's ruling
Transgender women incarcerated in the US prison system have been transferred to men’s facilities under Donald Trump’s executive order, despite multiple court rulings blocking the president’s policy
Prisons are required under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (Prea), a longstanding federal law, to screen incarcerated people for sexual assault risk and consider LGBTQ+ status when making housing decisions.
trans people were forced under threat of discipline to hand over their underwear, including bras and boxers, as if they were contraband. They said they’ve also heard accounts of male guards searching trans women in encounters several of the women described as “groping”. Some staff have been emboldened to harass and taunt trans people, Beaty said.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/07/transgender-women-prison-trump
Treatment of trans women in Florida prisons
In court filings and interviews, incarcerated trans women in Florida prisons also reported being subjected to breast examinations to determine whether or not they would still be allowed access to bras.
... her gender dysphoria diagnosis was now considered a serious psychiatric illness. She was told she would have to be moved to a more restrictive facility with fewer work and programming opportunities to continue receiving treatment.
... after spending 10 days in solitary confinement for refusing to cut her hair, a prison barber buzzed her hair short while she was handcuffed.
Safety
A 2007 study from the University of California, Irvine, found that incarcerated transgender people were 13 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than a random sample of incarcerated men. Fifty-nine percent of transgender prisoners reported having been sexually assaulted within a California correctional facility compared to just 4.4% of the incarcerated population as a whole.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/23/us/trans-women-incarceration/index.html
V-Coding
One common tactic among men’s prison facilities is "V-coding," or placing transgender women in cells with aggressive cisgender male inmates as a form of social control. V-coding is so common that it has become "a central part of a trans woman’s sentence." The stories are all the same. Alexis Giraldo, for instance, was housed with a cisgender male prisoner who had status as an employee. The employee, and eventually one of his friends, requested she live with them. They then started raping her daily. Despite her several requests, she was never moved to a different cell.
Sexual violence in prison occurs within an environment that encourages objectifying and dehumanizing transfeminine bodies—especially trans women of color—through mandatory strip searches by male staff. Strip searches tend to be “excessive, abusive, and invasive” and overtly transphobic, creating “highly sexualized and excessively hostile” prison environments. They involve male COs groping “breasts, buttocks, or genitalia” and leering during shower, changing, and restroom times. Orders to strip and then show off body parts, masturbate, or dance for COs are not unheard-of. Trans bodies are often put on display for not just the COs but also the rest of the prison population who gawk, jeer, and shout obscenities at them. Some scholars have suggested that strip-searching itself is not just an act of institutional violence but “a precursor to sexual assault.” It does not take much to go from shouting sexual desires to making sexual advances, especially when the people who just stripped will soon share a cell with those men.
Reverting gender markers on passports
There are many anecdotal reports. The most high profile of which is actor Hunter Schafer, who lost her passport while in Spain. She applied to get it replaced, and when she received it, found the gender marker changed from F to M.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/hunter-schafer-passport-m-gender-marker-1.7465534
Discrimination while traveling
Documents inconsistent in name and gender markers, or with gender markers that don't visibly align with outward gender expression, can lead to delays, harrassment, and abuse while traveling -- issues that already exist for trans people going through security checkpoints regardless.
Every time I have to go through the Gender Tube there’s always a moment of hesitation that I can feel from the TSA agents when they have to decide whether to scan my body as a man’s or a woman’s. Sometimes, I can hear them quietly talking among themselves as they speculate on my genitals. Sometimes they’ll ask me if I have anything in my pockets or some other random inquiry presumably in an attempt to parse my voice, which is equally as androgynous. The worst times are when my chest is flagged as an anomaly and a male TSA agent feels me up. It’s a violation of consent that feels awful regardless of sexuality, I’m sure, but being a butch lesbian with chest dysphoria makes it worse, especially while knowing the history of butches’ bodily autonomy being violated by the state. When I was more feminine presenting, going through TSA was annoying, but didn’t cause me any anxiety. As soon as I cut my hair and started dressing more masculine, though, all of the above started happening pretty much immediately.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/transgender-airport-security-harassment-experiences-tsa/
Life without correctly updated documents
Outing oneself as trans is a security risk. Having documents that don't match your actual identity means anywhere those documents are required means either risking discrimination or violence, or simply not existing in that part of society.
Twenty-two percent (22%) of all respondents reported being verbally harassed, assaulted, asked to leave a location, or denied services when they have shown someone an ID with a name or gender that did not match their presentation.
There are many important reasons to correct identity documents. This became clear to me when a client told me that she simply avoided going anywhere or doing anything that required her to present identification because her state ID did not reflect how she presented. She was forced to opt out of many activities because of her non-matching documents, including do anything that required an ID—like getting a job, enrolling in school, opening a bank account, getting a lease, buying a house, or going through airport security. The result of having non-matching documents, is that many transgender people are excluded from doing basic things that are necessary to function in society. This also puts the transgender population at much greater risk of poverty, unemployment, and homelessness than the general population. The NCTE estimates that one in five transgender people have experienced homelessness at some point.
Denying visas to trans people visiting
The policy, though there aren't yet examples of it being applied, are deterring visitors, including performers.
It mandates that “all visas must reflect an applicant’s sex at birth” and grants officials the authority to deny visas based on “reasonable suspicion” of a person’s transgender identity.
“misrepresenting their purpose of travel or sex” could be targeted for permanent ineligibility.
https://truthout.org/articles/did-marco-rubio-just-ban-trans-people-seeking-visas-from-us-entry/
"To put it super plainly, because I'm trans (and have an M on my passport), I can't tour the States," Larsen wrote.
Removal of trans service members from the military
Within 30 days, the Pentagon must identify service members who have “a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria,” which is the medical term for the severe emotional distress caused by the misalignment between one’s gender identity and birth sex. Those identified by the Pentagon will be disqualified from service and must be removed from their jobs.
The military is the largest single employer of trans people
After poring over hundreds of thousands of health records from between 2000 and 2011, the researchers found that roughly 23 out of every 100,000 patients in the VHA were diagnosed with GID. That is over five times higher than the total population rate of 4.3 per 100,000.
https://thetranscenter.com/blog/military-became-countrys-largest-employer-transgender-americans/
Purging of records and research mentioning trans people
The CDC also removed its Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which monitors health behaviors of students nationwide and included some of the only federal data on LGBTQ youth. The top of the web page for the survey results reads, “CDC’s website is being modified to comply with President Trump’s Executive Orders.”
Eliminating civil rights for trans people (Iowa, New Hampshire)
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill Friday that strikes gender identity from the state's civil rights law, making Iowa the first state to remove civil rights from a previously protected class.
If signed into law, HB 148, which was sponsored by Wilton Republican Rep. Jim Kofalt, would allow transgender people in New Hampshire to be banned from using locker rooms or restrooms matching their gender identity. The bill would also allow schools and organized sports in the state to keep transgender athletes off sports teams consistent with their gender identity. It would also allow people to be forcibly placed in prisons, mental health facilities, or juvenile detention centers with members of their at-birth sex.
Bathroom bans
Florida public bathroom law
A Florida law preventing trans people from using restrooms at public buildings (government, airports, etc.) has been applied to a trans woman washing her hands in a woman's bathroom at the Florida state capital. It threatens up to 60 days in jail.
Odessa, TX bounty law
[the law] creates a private right to sue transgender individuals found in designated bathrooms ... If the challenger succeeds, the transgender individual would be required to pay the cisgender complainant “no less than $10,000,” with no cap on the potential bounty.
Trans people harmed by avoiding bathrooms
Already in 2016, trans people were already made to feel insecure using the bathroom.
Nearly 60 percent of transgender Americans have avoided using public bathrooms in the last year because they are worried about being confronted, harassed, or assaulted, according to a new survey.
8 percent reported having contracted a urinary tract infection or kidney infection as a result of avoiding bathroom use.
Sixty-eight percent of trans people have been verbally harassed and 9% have been physically assaulted when using a public restroom in the past 12 months.
https://transequality.org/issues/resources/transgender-people-and-bathroom-access
Cis people harmed by policing bathrooms
There are several accounts of cis women being harassed, arrested, investigated over their use of the bathroom because someone decided they weren't feminine or pretty enough. This is not at all comprehensive.
A woman in Las Vegas says she remains shaken from her experience last week when another woman berated her in a public restroom for being transgender. The problem is that she's not trans, and, as she puts it, regardless of whether she had been, the entire situation was plainly wrong.
“As soon as I got in, I went straight to a stall,” Jay tells The Advocate. “About a minute or so in, I start to hear a woman being extremely aggressive. At first, I wasn’t hearing exactly what she was saying until I started hearing her say, ‘Trans, figure out your identity at home ... they better not come out of there. .. that’s not allowed ... that’s a boy, [and] they think this is [OK] because it’s being taught in schools.’”
A cisgender woman Walmart employee who says she was verbally assaulted in the female restroom by a man who mistook her for a transgender woman was fired because she reported the incident to the wrong supervisor and created a security risk.
https://www.advocate.com/news/walmart-fires-mistaken-trans-woman
A Black 19-year-old cisgender lesbian from Phoenix is demanding accountability after she was confronted by two male sheriff’s deputies in a Tucson Walmart women’s restroom last week.
“They were flashing lights on our feet and saying, ‘You have to get out of here. You have to come out. We need to talk to you,’” Morton said. “I’m telling them, ‘I’m still using the restroom. I’m sitting down, I’m peeing. What is the issue?’”
When she finally exited the stall, she said she lifted her shirt to prove she was not a man, expecting the ordeal to end. Instead, she said one deputy continued to question her appearance, insisting she “looked like a man.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/cis-woman-confronted-police-officers-115522988.html
Cis woman harassed by transphobe for using the toilet. She handles it very well, but admits on a later video that she was very upset by it and was on the verge of tears, the ending is good though pic.twitter.com/fttCz4njbH
— Katy Montgomerie 🦗 (@KatyMontgomerie) October 29, 2022
Order to ignore Title IX for trans students
President Trump’s executive order effectively barring transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports relies heavily on a new interpretation of Title IX ... The order directs the Department of Education to investigate schools that do not comply and withdraw federal funding.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/us/politics/trump-trans-athletes-executive-order.html
Denying healthcare to trans kids (several states)
26 states have completely or significantly passed bans on trans healthcare for minors. This means forcing girls to undergo testosterone driven puberty, and boys to undergo estrogen driven puberty.
https://www.hrc.org/resources/attacks-on-gender-affirming-care-by-state-map
Threatening to revoke funding from healthcare providers providing trans healthcare to 19 year olds
[The executive order] Directs the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to go through administrative rulemaking and other agency actions to effectively prevent any provider who receives Medicaid and Medicare, or who receives federal research or education funding, from offering gender-affirming care to any individuals under 19, even if the patient is paying out of pocket or with private insurance
Restrictions on all trans healthcare regardless of age (Ohio, Florida)
The feigned concern for children was always an attempt to move the overton window enough to make attacking adults viable.
They would require psychiatrists, endocrinologists and medical ethicists to have roles in creating facility-wide gender-affirming care plans for patients of all ages.
Florida, where a law took effect last year requiring physicians to oversee any health care related to transitioning, and for those appointments to be in person. Those rules have been onerous for people who have received care from nurse practitioners or used telehealth.
Classifying trans healthcare as child abuse and threatening legal action
While declaring April as "National Child Abuse Awareness Month", Trump's White House called trans healthcare "child abuse", "indoctrinating", and a "sinister threat". Texas and Montana have already gone down the route of threatening investigations into parents of trans children.
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/trump-declares-trans-youth-child
Bill introduced to make it illegal for trans people to be within 2500 feet of a school
A theme in anti-trans attacks is to label the existence of trans people inherently sexual or obscene, and thereby an inherent threat to children. West Virginia's bill applies this logic to within 2,500 feet of any school. It was introduced but did not leave committee. It is included as an example of the direction legislation is moving to criminalize the existence of trans people generally.
Over 800 anti-trans bills introduced in 2025 alone
Over 50 have passed
36 bills are national at time of writing