INTERVIEW: Transgender Activism Worked Against Kamala Harris in 2024
Ads highlighting Harris’ radical positions on sex changes, women’s sports resonated with voters
Voters who “read, saw, or heard” about Kamala Harris’s support for sex-change procedures on minors said they were “more likely” to vote for Donald Trump by a three-to-one margin. That’s one of the major findings from a new poll that flies in the face of transgender activists and their allies in the media.
The poll, conducted by American Principles Project, found that opposition to the radical transgender agenda helped Trump improve his margins among voters where he did not do as well in the 2020 and 2016 elections.
The Radicals Didn’t Know What Hit Them on Election Night
Prior to the election, the radical activists thought the LGBTQIA+ agenda would sink Trump. In a stern warning to Republicans, Data for Progress, a progressive think tank and polling firm, released pre-election figures indicating that voters trusted Democrats more than Republicans when considering issues related to transgender people. The same poll also showed that a plurality of voters, including independents, thought Republicans had a “more extreme stance” on transgender issues. The apologetics for transgender activism remained in motion beyond November 5th.
After Trump defeated Harris in the electoral college and in the popular vote, the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ activist group, went to great lengths to explain away the results. The campaign’s poll released shortly after the election showed that Harris prevailed over Trump among “Equality Voters” by an 84 percent to14 percent margin.
“While the results of this election are deeply disappointing,” Kelly Robinson, the Human Rights Campaign president, said in a press release, “this polling shows that strong majorities of Americans want elected officials to protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination and to stay out of the health care of trans people. It also confirms that once again, anti-trans attacks were not a motivating issue for voters–all they do is sow hate and division toward a community that just wants to be their authentic selves.”
Left-leaning media outlets such as PBS also peddled the idea that transgender issues were not a top concern of voters regardless of where they stood. These same outlets also claim that to the extent ads targeting transgender policies were effective, they were also misleading. For example, PBS quoted Former Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, as saying that the ads portrayed Harris as a far-left extremist that she is not.
Challenging the Media’s Transgender Narrative with Facts
But how well do these arguments square with reality?
The American Principles Project, a nonprofit group devoted to preserving the American family, has produced data in its polling that debunks the transgender narrative. Terry Schilling, the president of APP and a longtime pro-family activist has organized several campaigns on behalf of parental rights. In an interview with Restoration News, Schilling discussed how transgender politics played to Trump’s advantage.
“Fifty-two percent of these voters who knew about or saw ads about how Kamala supported sex change surgeries for minors were more likely to vote for Trump,” Schilling said. “But only about 15 percent of these voters said they would be more likely to vote for Harris. That’s more than a three-to-one margin in favor of Trump. That’s the big, major takeaway here.”
But it’s not the only one.
“Trump really got hurt last few elections with suburban voters,” Schilling said. “But our poll shows 45 percent of suburban voters who saw the ad were more likely to vote for Trump, but only 16 percent were more likely to vote for Harris if they saw it. This was clearly a winning issue for Trump. In fact, it wasn’t even close.”
.@Schilling1776 works tirelessly to expose the horrors of so-called “gender affirming care” on minors.
— Restoration of America (@Restoration_roa) December 4, 2024
“Gender affirming care” is a propaganda term used to cover up the horrors it causes.
He exposes the Trans industry.⬇️ pic.twitter.com/TGatS7meMe
Another major question raised in APP’s poll concerned women’s sports. Voters were asked if the advertisements highlighting the vice president’s support for policies allowing men to play in women’s sports would impact their vote. In response, 47 percent said they would be “more likely” to vote for Trump while only about 15 percent said they would be “more likely” to vote for Harris.
Schilling sees a bit of duplicity at work on part of transgender activists in terms of how they conduct their polls, and the kind of terminology used in their questioning. While strong majorities of Americans support civil rights and are opposed to discrimination, they are also opposed to policies that jeopardize children and harm women’s sports, he explained.
“They’re using a turn of the phrase, and words to confuse people and make it seem like the transgender issue does not hurt them as much as it does,” Schilling said. “But voters have caught on to the LGBTQ movement and they see it’s not about equality. Instead, it’s about trying to force this agenda on your kids. They want drag queen hours in schools, they want sex changes for kids, and men in women’s sports and in women’s private spaces.”
Schilling encourages more Americans to speak forcefully against transgender policies that “engender the most vulnerable members of society.” While that means running up against Hollywood figures and the “loud bullhorns of legacy media,” Schilling remains confident that public opposition against transgender policies in schools and in sports will continue to gather momentum.
“When they say Equality Voters are supporting equality candidates, that’s just another way of saying that Democrats vote for Democrats,” Schilling said. “But there’s hardly enough there for this block of voters to win the popular vote.”
The Human Rights Campaign estimates that LGBTQ voters make up 8 percent of the electorate based on its analysis of exit polls.
Republicans Must Fight the Culture Wars to Win
“Republicans can’t just run on economic issues,” Schilling said. “Where the left is at its craziest right now, is with the transgender issues. If you support protecting children, if you think we should protect their innocence and protect them from these surgeries, and if you don’t think men should be in women’s sports, and you think women should have their own private space, then you’re in good company with huge majorities.”
While Schilling does not deny economics, inflation, and border security, and criminal activity were top tier issues in the 2024 campaign, he also sees palpable evidence that the Democrats’ radical positions on transgender policies impacted swing voters.
“I think the transgender issue was a threshold issue for a lot of voters who saw just how racial Harris’s policies were,” Schilling said. “If you’re so radical you’re going to allow criminals to use tax dollars to pay for their sex changes, then you’re not going to be good in other policy areas.”
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule in a few months on a case out of Tennessee involving transgender policies. After hearing oral arguments earlier this month, some media outlets have concluded the court will likely uphold the state’s ban on “gender-affirming care for minors.”
So what’s “gender-affirming care?”
“Gender Affirming Care" is a monstrous distortion of language that is designed to hide the horrors it causes. pic.twitter.com/ifFMiZfM84
— Restoration of America (@Restoration_roa) May 28, 2024
“If Republicans keep their foot on the gas with this issue, I think it will be solved very quickly,” Schilling said. “Many of these issues are rooted in the federal government and we just need to keep winning elections with the transgender issue, and you’ll start to see Democrats, and Hollywood, and other cultural institutions back off.”
