In the current cultural and political landscape, LGBTQ people — and especially transgender and nonbinary people — face an onslaught of attacks, including extraordinary levels of inflammatory, false, dehumanizing rhetoric.
Anti-LGBTQ media figures, political leaders, and others are enlisting classic fear-mongering tactics: propagating malicious harmful lies and bigotry to target a historically marginalized group of people with false, dehumanizing narratives. All in an effort to retract the basic civil and human rights of transgender people, while attempting to consolidate political power and distract from real issues. These current campaigns are spelled out in the extreme-right agenda of Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation’s 2021 so-called “Promise to America’s Children.” They include attempts to: ban essential health care for trans youth and adults; eliminate participation in sports; prohibit access to bathrooms and other public facilities; prevent access to accurate state and federal identity documents; endanger trans inmates by incarcerating them in institutions inconsistent with their gender identity; dismantle basic civil rights including housing and workplace discrimination protections and military service; as well as restricting freedom of expression by suppressing and even criminalizing books, education, and culture by and about LGBTQ people.
Below are GLAAD’s accurate framings of some of the most common of these falsehoods and misleading tropes and their impact on transgender people’s rights and safety. Each link includes further context and guidance for journalists.
“Gender Ideology” and “Transgenderism”
Used in anti-democratic efforts to deny LGBTQ rights globally, these are anti-LGBTQ terms that seek to falsely characterize being LGBTQ as an “ideology,” rather than an innate identity.
Intentional Mischaracterizations of Transgender Health Care
Politicians, right-wing media, and others often use incendiary terms and inflammatory mischaracterizations of trans health care to baselessly raise fear and dehumanize trans people. Poynter notes that these are misleading “claims that clash with leading medical research and practice.”
Misleading Narratives About Transgender People and Restrooms, Locker Rooms, and Single-Sex Spaces
In recent years, the U.S. has seen a rise in discriminatory legislative proposals to prohibit trans people from using restrooms and other public spaces that align with their gender (e.g. forcing trans men to use women’s bathrooms, and trans women to use the men’s room). These efforts are constructed on intentional falsehoods, threatening the health and safety of transgender people, as well as cisgender people perceived to be trans.
Transgender Participation in Sports
Trans participation in sports was a non-issue prior to being adopted as a strategic culture war wedge issue by right-wing political figures and anti-equality groups. Discussing the 2021 national wave of coordinated legislative attacks on trans rights, a Human Rights Campaign spokesperson explained to NBC News: “These bills are not addressing any real problem, and they’re not being requested by constituents. Rather, this effort is being driven by national far-right organizations attempting to sow fear and hate.”
False Claims of “Grooming”
The baseless assertion that LGBTQ people are a threat to children is a common hate-driven disinformation strategy enlisted in attempts to rollback LGBTQ rights and inclusion.
“Trans Terrorism” and Other False Claims in High-Profile Crimes
False assertions that suspects in mass shootings or other violent tragedies are transgender is a common, anti-trans misinformation trope, especially in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. PolitiFact notes: “There’s no evidence of rising LGBTQ+ violent extremism or ‘trans terrorism.’”
So-Called “Transvestigations” of Public Figures
This hate-driven conspiracy theory maliciously targets cisgender public figures with fake “evidence” that they are transgender (with the underlying bigoted implication that being a trans person is a bad thing). This is an example of how transphobic hate harms everyone — as the targets of the harassment are cisgender people.
Derogatory Slur Referring to Transgender People: “Tr*nny”
When used in a derogatory way, “tr*nny” is recognized as one of the most extreme slurs for a trans person, similar to harmful slurs for other historically marginalized groups.
It’s extremely important to understand and recognize the many harmful anti-LGBTQ tropes, dogwhistles, and conspiracy theories focused on fomenting anti-LGBTQ hate — and especially anti-trans hate. Additional information is available via the GLAAD Guide to Anti-LGBTQ Online Hate and Disinformation — an ongoing project to identify some of the most prevalent and egregious terms, tropes, and concepts that are used to harass, attack, and spread malicious misinformation about LGBTQ people.
More Fact Sheet Resources:
- Reporter Guide to Covering Transgender People, Topics, and Legislation
- The Trump Administration’s Discriminatory and Inaccurate Executive Order Targeting Transgender Americans
- Anti-LGBTQ Hate and Extremism (See GLAAD’s ALERT Desk for more)
- Evidence-Based Health Care for Transgender People and Youth
- Glossary of Transgender Terms
