Stand Firm Against Trans Scapegoating in the Election
by EQNM Staff
The LGBTQ community is no stranger to being used as a pawn to mobilize voters, and the 2024 election season will be remembered for continuing this harmful practice.
Conservatives in New Mexico and across the country have depicted false characterizations of trans people alongside skewed perspectives of the issues that impact us in order to scare their constituents to the polls. Whether that looks like willfully distorting the knowledge of medical experts who provide gender-affirming health care or sparking moral panics around who is on which sports team, their attacks are intentionally designed to hurt and systematically erase us.
“These lies are infuriating, but more importantly, they hurt us and they scare our communities,” says Equality New Mexico Executive Director Marshall Martinez. “This is the worst kind of electoral tricks, and we can't let them win with fear and hatred.”
We’ve recently learned of new scare tactics conservative activists are deploying during the last few weeks leading up to Election Day. You may have heard about some of them, too. When you see this happening, the best way to respond is to avoid engaging with their lies by pivoting back to what we know is true.
Instead of giving any more attention or potentially lending credibility to their claims by acknowledging them or responding, simply do not mention their efforts by name or link to any of their misinformation content. If you want to take a counter-action, make an informed statement of your own by standing up for trans people and our rights.
At Equality New Mexico, we conduct research and equip our community members and allies to handle these types of intense situations. We know it is hard to speak when someone else is spitting vitriol, but we have found the following types of language to be most persuasive.
New Mexicans appreciate our differences, and as a state we have consistently trusted families to decide what healthcare is best for them—not the government.
All parents want their children to be happy and healthy and to have opportunities for success. Instead of being afraid and fearful when our children come out to us as transgender, what is really needed is more resources, education, and acceptance.
In our lifetime, we’ve seen big increases in accepting gay men, lesbian women, and support for marriage equality. This same cultural shift can and will happen for transgender people. For their health and safety, it is important for each of us to work our best to support the transgender people in our lives.
We found in a recent study we commissioned that the majority (65%) of New Mexicans in both urban and rural areas believe we should be working to create more acceptance and affirmation for our trans community members.
We are fortunate to have many powerful champions for queer and trans folks in our state, including our New Mexico House Speaker Javier Martinez. As he has pointed out, we can and will compromise on policy ideas; we can and will compromise on the details of our programs; but we can never compromise on the dignity and humanity of our people. Never.
Elections have become more polarized and hateful in recent years. Now, apparently, conservative activists feel empowered to say anything about us, often without having to prove it. When this kind of lying to voters becomes the norm, it's dangerous.
“These attacks on LGBTQ people, specifically trans people, have just gotten worse and worse,” Martinez says. “They aren’t only lying to win your vote. They’re lying to inspire violence and hatred, too. We won’t stand for it.”