Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.
By Bobby Ross Jr. | Religion Unplugged
Transgender rights emerged as a key factor in the 2024 race for the White House.
President-elect Donald Trump successfully used Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2019 support for taxpayer-funded surgery for transgender inmates against her.
The issue became “a powerful force that — along with voters’ concern about inflation and immigration — worked in Republicans’ favor and against Harris,” as the Wall Street Journal details:
The issue has moved like a wildfire in recent years, roiling high-school and college sports, the Olympics, local school boards and state legislatures. As the 2024 general election approached, it forcefully entered the national political stage, as Republican candidates in places like Texas and Michigan flooded the airwaves with advertising attacking supporters of transgender rights.
In the 2024 election cycle, campaigns and their backers spent nearly $123 million on TV ads referencing transgender athletes, according to ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
It worked. Data from AP VoteCast, a survey measuring attitudes among the electorate, showed that half of American voters overall, and eight in 10 Trump voters, said support for transgender rights in government and society had gone “too far.”
This week, the debate moved to the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti — “the most high-profile case of its term,” according to The Associated Press. Or, as Pieter Valk characterizes it at Christianity Today, it’s “the first meaningful transgender-issue case to reach the highest court in our land.”
This column appears in the online magazine Religion Unplugged.
Shutterstock photo
Faith. Family. Fastballs. 