Republicans have bet big on anti-trans ads. Voters hate them

A polling firm has revealed that more than half of registered voters view Republicans’ anti-trans ads as “mean-spirited.”

54 percent of voters agree with the statement that attack ads on transgender people have “gotten mean-spirited and out of hand,” according to polling data released Thursday by left-leaning Data for Progress. 31 percent of Republicans also agreed with the statement, according to the poll.

Another 80 percent of likely voters said they “strongly” or “somewhat” agree both political parties should “spend less time talking about transgender issues and more time talking about voters’ priority issues like the economy and inflation.”

52 percent of likely voters also responded they would vote for a candidate who supports transgender rights over one who does not.

The Republican party has boosted its investment in ads attacking transgender people in the lead-up to Election Day, according to data from AdImpact, an ad-tracking firm, released this month. Donald Trump’s most-aired attack ad against Kamala Harris in recent weeks, according to The New York Times, ends with the statement: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”

The party has also aired several ads in Montana – where Democratic Senator Jon Tester is in a tight race against Republican opponent Tim Sheehy — attacking transgender women in sports, the Times reports.

Trump himself has vowed to ban transgender athletes from competing in sports and has made a series of false claims about transgender healthcare in the US, including the unfounded lie that kids are being offered gender transition surgeries in schools.

Several Republican lawmakers at the state and federal levels have also been outspoken opponents of transgender healthcare.

Many GOP representatives have added waves of amendments to government funding bills that would bar federal spending on gender-affirming healthcare, such as gender transition procedures and hormone therapy, The Independent previously reported.

The US is suffering from an “epidemic” of violence against transgender people amid a rise in anti-trans rhetoric and laws, the Human Rights Campaign said in a November 2023 report.

From November 2022 to November 2023, 33 transgender and gender-expansive people were killed in the US. Now, in just the first ten months of 2024, at least 27 transgender and gender-expansive people have been violently killed.