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His descriptions of ‘gender-affirming’ care are ‘revolting’ and ‘misleadingly […] incite shock, concern and disgust’
A University of Tampa English professor claims President Trump’s highlighting the inanity of men playing in women’s sports and minors getting “gender-affirming” procedures leads to “anti-transgender views” among the public.
Julie Nelson, whose faculty page notes her research interests in “digital publishing, rhetorical theory, and affect and emotion studies,” claims in The Conversation that Trump’s anti-trans “agenda” has “flourished” since his first election in 2016.
A catalyst for his second victory in 2024 was a $21 million GOP “anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ advertising campaign,” she says.
“The White House has denied the existence of trans identity,” Nelson writes, “and states have introduced a deluge of legislation that restricts trans people’s rights and protections, from access to healthcare to passports.”
Interestingly, however, Nelson notes that unlike other topics, the public’s views on transgender issues in large measure align with the president’s.
Nevertheless, Nelson (pictured) invokes the 17th-century “moral panic” of the Salem witch trials, as well as last century’s War on Drugs — examples which “stoke[d] fear against a perceived threat to a society’s values or well-being.”
Moral panics, coined by sociologist Stanley Cohen in 1972, follow a similar pattern: a threat is defined, media exaggerates the threat, public concern increases, authorities respond with laws and policies, and society is transformed.
Research on anti-trans moral panics illustrates their success in propelling anti-trans lawmaking in the U.S. and suggests they are often initiated by people with power, who use their platforms to shape public discourse.
Moral panics elicit a range of negative emotions, but disgust and paranoia are especially potent. Originally a response meant to protect us from disease and spoiled food, disgust has evolved to also express social inappropriateness. Disgust asserts that its object is inherently bad. Since disgust is culturally dependent, it can also be used to marginalize groups of people.
Nelson further refers to the Trump administration’s language on “gender-affirming” care (“the chemical and surgical mutilation of minors” and “child mutilation programs”) as “revolting” and that which “misleadingly […] incites shock, concern and disgust.”
She concludes in part that as a “rhetoric scholar,” she believes Trump uses “allusions to religion and war – using words like ‘desecrate’ and ‘victory,’ respectively,” to assert the country is in the midst of “a battle between good and evil.”
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