Anti-transgender ads have flooded TV in Republican states this election season, and they are almost impossible to miss. The goal is to trigger a transphobic reaction from everyday voters and get them to vote against the Democratic candidate in whatever race the ads run in, a goal the ads are failing to achieve this year. But while the ads may be struggling to move voters, conservatives are noticing an unintended side effect of saturating the airwaves with ads targeting transgender people: they are also reaching the children of conservative parents. Now, parents on r/Conservative, a popular conservative forum on Reddit, are lamenting that the ads are teaching their kids that transgender people exist, with one fearing that conservatives are “talking the very things we don’t want into existence.”
“I’m in Texas, and it seems like every commercial break has 4–6 political ads, most of them attacking James Talarico,” the post starts, before lamenting, “My kids didn’t even know what transgender meant until these ads started airing. Now they’re hearing about it constantly, and not because they went looking for it. The anti-Talarico ads seem to talk about these issues more than anyone else does. It irritates me especially when I don’t want to explain what they’re talking about to my children.”
The poster then goes on to explain that they are worried the ads might make their children trans, stating, “Constantly talking about the things we oppose is actually giving them more attention than they would otherwise receive. Again I get the angle, keep these people away from influential positions within our government and advertising it. But we’re practically talking the very things we don’t want into existence.”
See the full post here:
The volume that the parent describes here is real. AdImpact has placed total ad spending in the Texas Senate race at $442 million as of early October, and a large portion of those ads have targeted transgender people. Meanwhile, America PAC, Elon Musk’s super PAC, has pledged $100 million in ads, and much of that money has likewise gone to ads targeting trans people. Trans people have reported seeing the ads in airports, at sporting events and while just spending time with their families—it is no surprise that cisgender people and their children are likewise seeing the ads when they would rather not.
The extreme focus on transgender people stands in stark contrast to what voters actually care about or find salient in their day-to-day lives. Recent polls show that even when voters can pick up to five top issues, transgender issues do not make the cut, ranking dead last. And Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say they care about such issues. Saturating the airwaves with such ads appears to serve only to irritate voters, and now conservatives are even wondering if the ads are introducing the topic to their own children.
For a political party that has made fearmongering over kids learning about trans people in schools a major component of its mission, from banning books to forbidding gay-straight alliances, the move to saturate the airwaves with transgender topics may be seen as puzzling and hypocritical. The ads may indeed be the first introduction many children in conservative families receive to the idea that transgender people exist, and some of these kids are likely to one day realize they are trans themselves. Unfortunately, these ads also serve to ingrain hostility towards transgender people. In states where trans people already struggle to get by, the impact of such abuse may last far beyond election day, no matter who is elected.
These conservatives parents can cry me a river…a long, vast and deep river.
Somewhere way back I pointed to the fact that republicans were doing more to mainstream trans people than we could have ever been able to afford.
How delicious it is to watch the leopards feasting!!