Â鶹´«Ã½

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump used contentiousness around transgender people's access to sports and bathrooms to fire up conservative voters and sway undecideds. In his first months back in office, Trump pushed the issue further, erasing mention of transgender people on government websites and passports and trying to remove them from the military.

It's a contradiction of numbers that reveals a deep cultural divide: Transgender people make up less than 1% of the U.S. population, but they became a major piece on the political chess board — particularly Trump's.

For transgender people and their allies — along with several judges who ruled against Trump in response to legal challenges — it's a matter of civil rights for a small group. But many Americans believe those rights grewn too expansive.

The president's spotlight gave Monday's Transgender Day of Visibility a different tenor this year.

"What he wants is to scare us into being invisible again," said Rachel Crandall Crocker, the executive director of Transgender Michigan who organized the first Day of Visibility 16 years ago. "We have to show him we won't go back."

Part of a long-running campaign

Trump's actions reflect a constellation of beliefs that transgender people are dangerous, are men trying to get access to women's spaces or are pushed into gender changes that they will later regret.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and other major medical groups say gender-affirming treatments can be medically necessary and are supported by evidence.

Zein Murib, an associate professor of political science and women's, gender and sexuality studies at Fordham University, said there has been a decades-old effort "to reinstate Christian nationalist principles as the law of the land" that increased its focus on transgender people after a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling recognizing same-sex marriage nationwide. It took a few years, but some of the positions gained traction.

Sports bans and bathroom laws claim to protest spaces for women and girls, even as studies have found transgender women are far more likely to be victims of violence. Efforts to bar schools from encouraging gender transition are connected to protecting parental rights. Bans on gender-affirming care rely partly on the idea that people might later regret it, though studies have found that to be rare.

Since 2020, about half the states passed laws barring transgender people from sports competitions aligning with their gender and banned or restricted gender-affirming medical care for minors. At least 14 adopted laws restricting which bathrooms transgender people can use in certain buildings.

In February, Iowa became the first state to remove protections for transgender people from civil rights law.

It's not just political gamesmanship. "I think that whether or not that's a politically viable strategy is second to the immediate impact that that is going to have on trans people," Fordham's Murib said.

Some think transgender rights go too far

More than half of voters in the 2024 election — 55% — said support for transgender rights in the United States has gone too far, according to AP VoteCast. About 2 in 10 said the level of support has been about right, and a similar share said support hasn't gone far enough.

Nevertheless, AP VoteCast also found voters were split on laws banning gender-affirming medical treatment, such as puberty blockers or hormone therapy, for minors. Just over half were opposed to these laws, while just under half were in favor.

Trump voters were overwhelmingly likely to say support for transgender rights has gone too far, while Kamala Harris' voters were more divided. About 4 in 10 Harris voters said support for transgender rights has not gone far enough, while 36% said it's been about right and about one-quarter said it's gone too far.

A survey this year from the Pew Research Center found Americans, including Democrats, have become more slightly more supportive of requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams that match their sex at birth and more supportive on bans on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors since 2022. Most Democrats still oppose those kinds of measures, though.

"People across the political spectrum agree that in fact, the major crises and major problems facing the United States right now is not the existence and civic participation of trans people," said Olivia Hunt, director of federal policy for Advocates for Trans Equality.

In the same election that saw Trump return to the presidency, Delaware voters elected Sarah McBride, the first transgender member of Congress.