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  "path": "/opinion/trump-trans-kids-abandons-affordability",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-11T10:45:04.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.advocate.com",
  "tags": [
    "Donald trump",
    "John casey",
    "Lgbtq youth",
    "Politics",
    "Save act",
    "Transgender",
    "_Donald Trump_",
    "_anti-transgender provisions_",
    "_SAVE Act_",
    "_How the SAVE Act would make it harder for trans people, married women, and some men to vote_",
    "Trump uses State of the Union to demonize transgender kids and their families",
    "Republicans rage after Trump appears to soften stance on trans care",
    "_John Thune_",
    "_voiced concern_",
    "_Yale Youth Poll_",
    "_Pew/YouGov survey_",
    "_Data for Progress poll_",
    "_CNN poll found_",
    "_No, supporting trans rights doesn’t cost elections_",
    "_Ronald Reagan say_",
    "_identification documents_",
    "Donald Trump uses the anniversary of the Capitol insurrection to attack transgender people",
    "Trump signs executive order banning federal support of gender-affirming care for anyone under 19",
    "_told NOTUS_",
    "_History bears this out_",
    "_Virginia gubernatorial election_",
    "_asking publicly_",
    "_Project 2025 vowed to roll back LGBTQ+ rights. Here's everything Trump has done so_",
    "Advocate.com/submit"
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  "textContent": "\n\n\n\nWhile millions of Americans are opening credit card bills they can’t pay, buying gas they can barely afford, skimping on groceries that cost too much, and rationing prescription medications their insurance no longer fully covers, _Donald Trump_ took to Truth Social for a reason that has nothing to do with affordability.\n\nFrom his gilded digital, gold-plated soapbox, he declared that he would hold all legislative business hostage until Congress passed a voter suppression bill he’d modified with _anti-transgender provisions_.\n\nNot a post about groceries, or about insulin, or about a gallon of gas. His focus was on re-upping a dated, tired old culture war that has nothing to do with stretching a paycheck..\n\nThe bill in question is the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or the _SAVE Act_. It has already cleared the House, because Trump's lapdog, Mike Johnson, would pass any bill touted by Trump, even if it called for the execution of non-Christians.\n\n****Related:**** _How the SAVE Act would make it harder for trans people, married women, and some men to vote_\n\nAnd now this so-called “SAVE” act sits in the Senate, waiting. In its current form, it mandates documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and dramatically curtails mail-in voting.\n\nThose two provisions alone would disproportionately disenfranchise elderly voters, rural voters, marginalized groups, and low-income voters, some of whom form the backbone of Trump’s own MAGA coalition.\n\nBut rather than acknowledge this glaring irony, Trump has now attached two unrelated anti-transgender provisions to the bill, adding a been-there-done-that social issue to legislation that was already struggling to find its footing.\n\n******Related** : Trump uses State of the Union to demonize transgender kids and their families\n\n\n**Related** : Republicans rage after Trump appears to soften stance on trans care\n\nSenate Majority Leader _John Thune_ supports the principles of the SAVE Act and has promised Trump a Senate vote. However, he has _voiced concern_ regarding the pressure to bypass the 60-vote filibuster, calling such tactics \"not a realistic option\" and \"risky.” Trump doesn’t help him by jamming a transgender issue onto the bill.\n\nBecause polls consistently show that voters have no interest in going after the transgender community, particularly trans youth.\n\nThe _Yale Youth Poll_found that “acceptance of transgender people” ranked dead last among 30 voter priorities, selected as important by just 18 percent of respondents. “Cost of living and affordability,” meanwhile, came in at 88 percent. Not so much a gap as a Grand Canyon-sized disparity.\n\nA _Pew/YouGov survey_ found that 52 percent of Americans, including 51 percent of Republicans, believe lawmakers are already devoting too much attention to transgender issues.\n\nEven in 2024, 80 percent supermajority in a _Data for Progress poll_agreed that “both Democrats and Republicans should spend less time talking about transgender issues and more time talking about voters’ priority issues like the economy and inflation.”\n\nAnd a _CNN poll found_ transgender policies ranked last among all issues surveyed, with 43 percent of Americans saying it was “not too” or “not at all” important to them, the highest “not important” rating of any issue polled.\n\nIn other words, poll after poll, survey after survey, show voters feel they have no business deciding the fate of transgender individuals.\n\n****Related:**** _No, supporting trans rights doesn’t cost elections_\n\nThe American people have made their preference clear. They want help paying their bills. They want relief at the gas pump, in the pharmacy, at the checkout line. And what they are getting instead is a presidential ultimatum about transgender children’s medical care.\n\nTrump has chosen to plant the federal government squarely in the exam room, between a child, their parents, and their doctor. The Republican Party spent decades - as far back as I can remember, from the 1980s - campaigning against exactly this kind of overreach. I listened to _Ronald Reagan say_ time and time again that \"government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”\n\nWhat makes the SAVE Act gambit particularly cruel is its double effect on the transgender community. The bill itself is a mechanism of exclusion, strict voter ID requirements, and gutted mail-in access that will keep marginalized people, including many LGBTQ Americans, further from the ballot box.\n\nThat’s because transgender citizens, whose _identification documents_ do not align with their gender, may face barriers when attempting to vote.\n\nAnd now, by binding anti-trans provisions to the bill’s fate, Trump has set up transgender kids as the convenient scapegoat if legislation stalls. Imagine the attack ads and the talking points. “Congress couldn’t get anything done because of the radical trans agenda.”\n\n**Related** : Donald Trump uses the anniversary of the Capitol insurrection to attack transgender people\n\n**Related** : Trump signs executive order banning federal support of gender-affirming care for anyone under 19\n\nSome Republicans don’t see the point in dragging the trans community in front of voters. Senator Tom Tillis of North Carolina _told NOTUS_ that transgender issues are simply not top of mind for voters. “I think if you take a look at right-of-center, left-of-center voters, they’re more pocketbook issues,” he said. “Is this enough to win an election? Honestly, I think the answer is no.”\n\n _History bears this out_. From Kansas to Kentucky, from Virginia to Wisconsin, anti-transgender campaigns have failed at the ballot box with consistency. In the 2025 _Virginia gubernatorial election_, Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger defeated Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, despite a massive, high-budget campaign by Earle-Sears that centered heavily on anti-transgender advertisements.\n\nFormer Virginia Republican Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling ultimately broke with his own party’s candidate over that strategy, _asking publicly_: “What about jobs and the economy? What about education, health care, and transportation? I think these are the issues Virginians care most about.”\n\nThe lesson keeps cementing itself; nevertheless, the hardliners in the GOP keep ignoring it.\n\nModerate Republicans see it. Independents see it. Even a growing number of conservatives see it. The angry, exhausted politics of vilification, the endless war against people who represent a tiny fraction of the population and pose no credible threat to anyone’s daily life, is running out of steam.\n\nTrans kids are not why your grocery bills are up. They are not why your electric bills are spiking. They are not the reason your health insurance deductible is ballooning past the point of reason.\n\nThey are children, with parents who love them, navigating an already-difficult world. The decision about their care belongs to their families and their doctors, not to a social media post from a president who needs a villain more than he needs a policy.\n\n**Related:** _Project 2025 vowed to roll back LGBTQ+ rights. Here's everything Trump has done so_\n\nI emailed a friend’s trans daughter and asked how she felt about Trump’s latest anti-trans action. “Maybe I’m lucky, but I don’t know a single person who thinks it’s a good idea to single us out,” she wrote back. “It’s because Trump has done nothing good and has no successes to brag about, so he makes us the enemy. Hopefully, Congress sees through this.”\n\nShe’s right. Hopefully, the SAVE Act will stall. The provisions will fester. And while Congress ties itself in knots around a hostage situation of Trump’s own creation, the real work of governing America will go undone. As it has been going undone since January 20, 2025.\n\nTrump is betraying all of us with his sinister campaign targeting trans kids. This isn’t a left, center, or right issue. It’s about showing compassion for kids who only want to be themselves and to be happy.\n\nTrump, the grumpy old man, is neither a compassionate person nor a happy one, and those types of people never win in the end.\n\n\n\n\n_Opinions is dedicated to featuring a wide range of inspiring personal stories and impactful opinions from the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. Visit_ _Advocate.com/submit to learn more about submission guidelines. Views expressed in Opinions are those of the guest writers, columnists, and editors, and do not directly represent the views of _The Advocate _or our parent company, equalpride._",
  "title": "Donald Trump targets trans kids while abandoning Americans’ real needs around affordability"
}