Opinion: The GOP’s efforts at blocking gender-affirming healthcare, other anti-trans bills and negative media coverage share striking similarities to the tactics used by Nazi Germany against minority groups. The GOP bases all of these efforts on nothing.
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In the few months of 2023, 494 anti-trans pieces of legislation have been introduced. Of those, 39 have passed, 363 are waiting on a decision and 92 of them have failed.
The vilification of transgender and LGBTQ+ populations is not a new phenomenon, but its sharp increase within the past few years is concerning when thinking about the future freedoms of these groups.
The Republican party asserts that trans and LGBTQ+ people are inherently dangerous as a result of the social contagion theory. According to the GOP, because these people are currently allowed to exist in public, they are going to “corrupt” children into believing that they are also transgender.
According to the book “Creativity and Morality,” edited by Hansika Kapoor and James C. Kaufman, social contagion theory is “deceptive behavior [that] is acquired, normalized and practiced via a process of enculturation.” This deceptive behavior is often presented in the form of attitudes, emotions or behaviors which “rapidly spread throughout a group from one member to others without rational thought and reason.” The example the book presents is that a child will learn to lie if their parents are frequently lying.
At a surface-level analysis, this theory seems relatively simple and harmless; we can presume even without naming a specific theory that children will learn how to act as a result of others’ behaviors. It is the classic nature versus nurture argument.
However, when leveraged by fascist and authoritarian leaders, this theory is used as justification for the horrific and unjust treatment of certain groups of people, often groups that have already been marginalized and discriminated against before.
One of the largest — and most cruel — examples of this was Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
Hitler and the Nazi Party outwardly worked to define and exclude “outsiders” from German society. These “outsiders” included “Jews, Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Germans viewed as genetically inferior and harmful to ‘national health’ (people with mental illness and intellectual or physical disabilities, epileptics, congenitally deaf and blind persons, chronic alcoholics, drug users, and others).”
This was done through extensive propaganda and legislative initiatives which depicted Jews and these “outsiders” as parasites to Germany. According to this propaganda, these “outsiders” only served to infect the German population by stealing jobs and controlling the economy, corrupting the culture and weakening German blood through “race mixing.” The result of this propaganda and citizen mobilization against Jews and other “outsiders” was an atmosphere of violence and hostility, and ultimately one of the worst human rights violations in history.
Today, the Republican party is working to mimic an atmosphere of violence and hostility against transgender and LGBTQ+ populations through similar tactics of propaganda and legislative initiatives.
The main platform that Republicans are pushing these narratives through is that blocking and removing trans rights “protects the children.” As former President Donald Trump stated, gender-affirming healthcare for minors is “child abuse” and “child sexual mutilation.” Additionally, Republicans and right-wing media continue to push scare tactics stating that transgender people are pedophiles dressed up as men or women going into bathrooms or locker rooms to target and prey on children.
The issue with all of these statements is that none of them are true, similar to the Nazi portrayals of Jewish people and other minorities. Instead, these statements are used to incite fear and increase voter turnout rates for Republican party members and transphobic legislation.
On the claim that the percentage of transgender youth is increasing as a result of social contagion theory, a 2022 study in the journal Pediatrics found this to be baseless. The study found that there has been no increase in assigned female at birth people coming out and/or transitioning and — to no surprise — rates of bullying, victimization and suicide were higher among trans youth compared to cisgender youth. As such, the study argued social contagion theory “should not be used to argue against the provision of gender-affirming medical care for [transgender and gender diverse] adolescents.”
Now that it’s been established that the social contagion theory has no impact on cisgender youth, what children are the Republican party trying to protect? It’s certainly not trans children.
A Journal of the American Medical Association study in 2022 found that transgender and nonbinary youth that received gender-affirming healthcare — including puberty blockers and hormone treatments — had a 60% lower rate of experiencing moderate to severe depression and a 73% lower rate of suicidality over one year.
As mentioned above, trans youth face higher rates of bullying, victimization and suicide, and with that, gender-affirming care may serve as a lifeline.
Put in comparison to other depression treatments, the average success rate of antidepressant medications is only 40-60%. Thus, if an established and more effective means of combating depression and suicide exists, to attempt to ban it is to harm children, not protect them.
But even if gender-affirming healthcare doesn’t serve to aid a person’s mental health, why should trans people not be able to improve the conditions of their lives when everyone else can?
Finally, on the remark about trans people being pedophiles who use bathrooms and locker rooms to target children: There is no evidence to suggest this is in any way true. A study done by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law found that the passage of bathroom bills has no effect on assault and sex crimes that occur in the exceedingly rare instance that they happen.
The ultimate question is, at what point will the Republican party draw the line of who they choose to target? Transgender and LGBTQ+ populations may be the current focus of the party’s attention, but if they continue to target each and every minority group the striking comparisons to Nazi Germany will only grow.
No matter how hard the right tries to discriminate against trans youth, they will continue to exist. Queer youth will continue to exist. And they will not be pushed aside and disappeared by incorrect and ignorant lawmakers.
