Following the murder of Charlie Kirk, right-wingers did what they do best: go on television and threaten the left with violence and retribution, regardless of lacking any information at all as to what motivated the shooter. But Donald Trump Jr. needed to stand out from the crowd, what with being one of the president’s large adult sons and all, so he used his Sept. 11 appearance on “The Megyn Kelly Show” to spew some particularly innovative transphobia.
Sept. 11 is supposed to be America’s Most Sacred Patriotic Day or whatever for bloodthirsty conservatives like Trump Jr., a day where they can really lean into their anti-Muslim rhetoric. Transgender people have lately occupied the most space in the spider-filled brains of people like Trump Jr., but he also apparently knew that he couldn’t entirely avoid talking about 9/11, so he came up with this: “I can’t name, including probably like Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, a group that is more violent per capita than the radical trans movement.”
Yes, you read that right.
Trump Jr. no doubt thinks he’s being clever with the “per capita” part, because since the trans community is relatively small, even a handful of transgender mass shooters will bump up that number. He loves that talking point so much that he trotted it out when Minnesota Democratic Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband were assassinated: “It’s like the radical transgender movement is per capita the most violent domestic terror threat, if not in America, probably the entire world … because you have all these shooters and murderers or attempted murderers in such a tiny population.”
“Adore and defend” by Pedro Molina
This is such an “epidemic,” that after an Aug. 27 shooting in Minnesota that was apparently perpetrated by a trans woman, the Department of Justice is reportedly looking into whether it can declare that trans people are mentally ill in order to ban them from possessing firearms. But the right sure loves their guns more than they hate marginalized people—even the National Rifle Association is against the idea.
Of course, Hortman’s alleged assassin turned out to be a Trump supporter, an anti-abortion zealot, a Christian nationalist, and a Jan. 6 aficionado—so, your basic member of the GOP these days. And it sure doesn’t look like the individual in custody for Kirk’s shooting, Tyler Robinson, is trans, nor has any information come to light to suggest that he allegedly shot Kirk as part of some sort of trans terror cell or something.
Now, Trump Jr.’s theory on how transgender people are the most dangerous humans alive has a few holes in it. The biggest one would be that somehow, a shadowy cabal is hiding the news about how there are probably many “mass killings” committed by trans people, but the public is in the dark because “you’re not allowed to talk about the truth.”
Trump Jr. also thinks trans people have committed “practically every mass shooting in America for the last few years.” If the truth is being suppressed, how would Trump Jr. know this? The actual data shows that transgender people are responsible for less than 1% of all mass shootings, whereas cis males like Trump Jr. commit roughly 98% of all mass shootings.
It’s comical for Trump Jr. to pretend that anti-trans voices are muzzled when his father, has made it his mission to be as openly, flagrantly transphobic as can be.
It’s comical for Trump Jr. to insist no one is allowed to talk about this while he is, of course, literally talking about it. But it’s even more comical for Trump Jr. to pretend that anti-trans voices are muzzled when his father, who literally runs the country, has made it his mission to be as openly, flagrantly transphobic as can be.
Trump’s pushing to ban trans girls from playing sports. He’s ordered the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether doctors who provide gender-affirming care are making deceptive claims. In case Trump Jr. would like a convenient one-stop shop to see what his dad is up to, here are seven of his executive orders attacking LGBTQ+ people generally and trans people specifically.
Trump Jr.’s father also threatened the University of Pennsylvania until they gave participation trophies to cis girls and banned trans athletes. He’s gotten major media companies to give him millions of dollars just because they said something that made him sad. How do you square all of this with the idea that there is some trans cabal running the media and the world and suppressing the news of all the murderous trans people?
The right is never going to grapple with the pervasiveness of right-wing violence and they are always going to try to place the blame elsewhere. Trans people are the current scapegoat for this, but people like Trump Jr. are infinitely flexible in their hatreds, so if this bigotry runs its course, they’ll just settle on some other marginalized community as the “real” villains. This all-consuming, ever-changing hate is all they have to offer.
