Republican parents are pissed anti-trans GOP ads are, wait for it, teaching their kids about trans people

In a magnificently stupid plot twist, Republican parents are feeling even more alienated from MAGA than ever before. The reason? The GOP’s anti-trans attacks—something of a Hail Mary midterm pass at this point—are doing the unthinkable. They’re exposing kids to the existence of trans people, all in the name of protecting children from the trans menace.

Wait… what?!

One parent on Reddit expressed his frustration at MAGA for harping on trans issues to the point of actually amplifying trans existence in the mainstream.

Politics, but make it gay!

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“I understand the angle they’re going for, but dang,” he wrote in response to Texas AG (and Tr*mp pick) Ken Paxton’s relentless trans-based smear campaign against Democrat James Talarico. “My kids didn’t even know what transgender meant until these ads started airing.”

Without knowing it, this man just hit the nail on the head…for all the wrong reasons. “We’re practically talking the very things we don’t want into existence,” he continued.

For trans people, this has long been one of the more violent aspects of the GOP’s anti-trans platform. Before 2014, most Americans had no idea what a trans person was, and trans people suffered for it. After that year’s “trans tipping point,” trans voices started to trickle into the mainstream. We enjoyed a few hard-won years of representation without retaliation. Then, in 2022, a series of sweeping anti-trans measures originating in Texas—under Ken Paxton’s guidance—started a witch hunt that put gender-affirming care providers for trans teens at the center. Now pretty much everyone knows what a trans person is…and we’re suffering for it. Again.

Now it seems we’ve come full circle. Not only are Paxton’s anti-trans attacks not swaying swing voters, they’re actively pissing off their own base. Because some bigots would—shocker!—actually just prefer to not hear or talk about trans people, period!

“Damn they are SO CLOSE to getting it,” one commenter joked. Another brought up the fact that in Texas, Republicans have had it on lock for so long that they’ve actually forgotten how to campaign. “This cycle, you can’t just have an R next to your name and shout ‘tr*nny, tr*nny, tr*nny’ to win voters – as they are starting to realize.”

We’ve known this for a long time, but in case anyone needed further confirmation of the right shooting itself in the ballot in the name of anti-trans causes, there’s plenty. Earlier this week, mysterious pamphlets purporting (falsely) to be from the Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT) were sent out to voters, only to be traced back to GOP money. Last week, even Republican Dade Phelan called BS on the anti-trans rhetoric, asserting that the tactic isn’t actually landing with voters.

“We’re still running transgender ads. It’s just not resonating. $100 million in ads, $125 million in ads, and nothing’s moved the needle here in Texas in a month in the Senate race,” Phelan complained. “The 8 to 10 percent of voters in the middle who are going to decide this election, when they hear stuff about boys in girls’ sports, they don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

Well apparently, they do now—and it’s a problem for transphobic voters. MAGA getting hoisted by their own playbook? Who would have thunk it!

The threat of “transgender surgery for illegal aliens” might have been enough to sway some voters in 2024. But this year, claiming the left wants “transgender for everybody” is apparently just…making everybody sick of hearing the word “transgender.”

Fortunately, there’s a very obvious solution here: stop the anti-trans attacks, and we won’t have to live rent-free in the MAGA mind any longer.

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