While watching college football recently, a couple of games involving prominent Texas teams, I was forced to endure attack ads against Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, launched by Republican opponent Ken Paxton, who is well-documented as the most nakedly corrupt candidate on any major ballot in the country this November.
Talarico’s tough. He can take it. But what made the ads a particularly disturbing experience was their cruel and false defamation of transgender people, whose rights Talarico has supported. Talk about divisive. In bold red capital letters, the ads told viewers that Talarico is "FOR THEY/THEM, NOT YOU."
And then I saw that our own Jon Husted is featuring trans kids as bogeymen in his Ohio Senate race against
Democrat Sherrod Brown. His ads claim that Brown has supported gender-altering surgeries for minors. It’s untrue, and it should be a real slam on Husted’s character. He doesn’t care as long as his handlers tell him it’s a win with the MAGA and right-wing Christian bases.
But here’s what presumably non-partisan AI provided to the query, "What evidence is there that trans-oriented children are being pushed into gender-altering surgeries?"
- There is no credible evidence that transgender children are being pushed into gender-altering surgery. Research published in medical journals shows that gender-affirming surgeries seldom happen for children under 18.
- A large study highlighted by NPR in 2024 found that less than 0.1% of U.S. teens received any medical gender-affirming care like hormones or puberty blockers, and that surgeries are even lower.
- Stories or maps claiming that toddlers or young children can receive surgeries are false. These claims usually stem from online disinformation campaigns or political debates.
The italics are mine, and on the point, let me add this from Dannie Dai, research analyst and lead author of a related Harvard study: "Our findings suggest that legislation blocking gender-affirming care among transgender youth is not about protecting children, but is rooted in bias and stigma against trans identities and seeks to address a perceived problem that does not actually exist."
Why did GOP strategists choose the trans issue as a bogeyman, and why has it been so successful with the base? I’ve pondered that often and reached two conclusions.
It’s because people are eeky in general about anything sex-related that’s outside culture’s narrow box, and because proponents of GOP patriarchal power are very much on board with bullying, out to crush any "different" people who are vulnerable. The idea that such folks could be prized or even just accepted is too threatening to their brittle self-concepts.
GOP fear-mongers also like to push the idea that some men dress as women to hide out in female-designated restrooms and harass or attack women. How ludicrous.
Though I can’t speak for trans people who feel they were born in the wrong body, I can speak for the experience of being a man dressed as a female, as I cross-dressed for many years of my life because it excited me to temporarily bend my gender. I had a memoir published about doing so while working for 24 years, immersed in football culture for the Bengals.
And so I can tell you truly, there’s no one more scared or less likely to cause trouble for someone else than a guy in a skirt and high heels. Some of us have learned to handle mainstream society’s disapproval, but none are immune to being petrified by the very real prospect of violence due to mindless rage from the toxic manosphere.
Right, MAGA, I know you’re not listening. Too "woke" for you, and so of course too "woke" for Husted. But even discounting Husted’s robber-baron connection with Ohio’s First Energy scandal, this issue should disqualify him with caring persons from any further “service” in the Senate.
And if any Ohioans not already chained within the MAGA cult are being influenced by this trans fear-mongering, you frankly are being played for fools.
Jack Brennan is a former sportswriter for the Enquirer and the Cincinnati Post who later spent 24 years as public relations director of the Bengals. The Clifton resident is a member of the Enquirer’s Board of Contributors.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Husted attacks Brown on transgender care. What do facts show? | Opinion
