As progressive philanthropy responds to rising authoritarianism in the United States and around the world, we cannot afford to ignore that anti-trans attacks have become the right’s power tool of choice.
Broadly speaking, progressive funders have treated trans issues as outside of their purviews. Despite how politically relevant trans rights have become, funding for trans issues does not yet reflect its strategic significance. It is not uncommon for progressive funders to avoid trans communities by treating us as a fringe political distraction.
But if we consider why the right has centered trans communities in prime-time speeches, funding and policy campaigns reveals many hard truths that should be of great concern to progressive funders. We start to see that trans communities are ground zero for how political power wins on the right despite shrinking margins, how cracks in our solidarity are easily exploited, and how progressive funders play into a highly funded right-wing strategy.
We cannot protect civil rights if we don’t recognize where the frontline of that legal and ideological battle is being waged.
How Anti-Trans Attacks Threaten Democracy and Civil Rights
Barbara Geddes, an American political scientist and leading scholar of authoritarianism, found that in previous generations, dictatorships were typically established through regime change or violent overthrows. In modern times, “Democratic backsliding orchestrated by a leader who was originally elected in a fair competitive election is now the most common way of establishing dictatorship.” In the United States, authoritarian tendencies have become part of the fabric of mainstream politics at an alarming rate.
It is not a coincidence that this rise in authoritarianism coincides with an exponential increase of political attacks against LGBTQ communities, the bulk of which are targeting trans people and trans youth in particular. In 2024, a new record for anti-trans bills was set, and it is the 5th consecutive record-breaking year. At the time of writing this article in late August 2024, the Trans Legislation Tracker is actively tracking 638 anti-trans bills across the country, 45 of which have been signed into law.
These laws are facing strong legal challenges thanks to the hard work of organizations including Transgender Law Center, the ACLU, TLDEF and Lambda Legal, but the social, legal and political repercussions are massive and broad in their scope.
Prior to 2018, the bulk of anti-trans legislation was focused on so-called “bathroom bills” that sought to limit trans access to public facilities, including restrooms. After 2019 and through to today, there has been a shift toward legislation that targets health care, education and sports – in other words, legislation that tests the roll-back of civil rights in more segments of society and public life.
Recent research from the Williams Institute finds that attacks on LGBTQ rights can be a precursor to democratic backsliding in the United States and globally, and attacks on gender and sexual minorities contribute to the weakening of democratic institutions. Pamela Shifman of the Democracy Alliance agrees, writing that the rise of the anti-gender movement and its threats to bodily autonomy “are the tip of the spear in a campaign against our democracy itself.”
Anti-trans Attacks, Rhetoric and Policy Embolden Far Right Nationalists
Over this last year, I’ve interviewed key democracy funders and heard several leaders express the challenge that progressive funders tend to want to stay out of messy “culture wars” as they treat them as distractions from the “real issues.” However, these “culture wars” are actually the frontlines of social and political power building that are currently dominated by the right and increasingly a site of populist-style messaging that demonizes trans people. As we try to roll back authoritarianism, we can’t ignore the role populism plays in democratic backsliding.
Whether anti-trans policy attacks pass and get adopted into law or not, they serve a number of roles that strengthen the right. They normalize the rollback of civil rights, make inroads with voters they otherwise lack a message for, and unite distinct factions of the far right, including white nationalists and Christian nationalists.
“We have to understand that the volume of the bills actually underscores where the momentum is,” Imara Jones, journalist and trans movement strategist, said. “Usually what I have seen from my reporting on this is that you’ll have certain years where it seems that there are less bills passing, but what’s actually happening is an experimentation about the types of bills that will become the models for the surge in subsequent years.”
Anti-trans attacks build the power and momentum that the right need to enact a broader agenda. They can also stump and confound progressives, exposing weaknesses that are regularly exploited.
Before conservatives united around an anti-trans strategy at the national level, they tested and honed it in state for years, if not decades. Time after time, they learned that progressive policies, even highly popular ones, could be defeated by turning them into a debate about trans people.
Case study – The HERO Act: How Transphobia Helps the Right Leverage Power
On May 28, 2014, The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) Act passed in Houston’s City Council with an 11-6 vote. Introduced by popular lesbian Mayor Annise Parker, the HERO Act was a run-of-the-mill equal rights ordinance. Conservatives were determined to overrule the bill, and this opposition became referendum 1, which put the future of the HERO Act in the hands of the voters.
The LGBTQ community had a period of relative political strength in 2014. The Defense of Marriage Act had just passed the year prior, and national momentum was building that would lead to national marriage equality the following year. Twelve days after HERO Act passed, Laverne Cox graced the cover of TIME Magazine and declared 2014 “the Transgender Tipping Point.”
The HERO Act was popular when it passed. It protected all citizens from discrimination on the basis of 15 characteristics that applied to the vast majority of people, including women, veterans, people with disabilities, people of color and LGBTQ people. Houston’s City Council was keen to put itself on par with all other major cities that already had equal protection laws. In this context, the HERO Act seemed bound to survive the referendum.
The opposition cast the law as a devastating threat to the safety of women and children by claiming that gender identity protections would allow predators into bathrooms. This message was so effective, and the progressive side was so woefully unprepared for this to become a referendum on trans communities, that the referendum won in a 2-to-1 margin. The HERO Act failed to win support from most voters in 10 of the city’s 11 council districts. On top of that, the conservative campaign had far less funding than the progressive side: $400,000 vs. $1.9 million.
Conservatives even learned how to get registered Democrats to turn against civil rights in large numbers. It’s no wonder that after the HERO Act was overturned, conservatives invested billions to scale up their attacks on trans people. It is essential that the progressive movement and funders figure out how to talk about and defend trans rights and authentically harness the potential power of trans justice, feminism, reproductive justice and sexual liberation. The conservative movement is not afraid of wielding that power.
First Trans Rights, Then All Rights
In order for voters to embrace authoritarianism, enough people need to be convinced to vote against their own interests. According to Tarso Ramos, Executive Director of Political Research Associates, “Misogyny is a uniting force of a right-wing alliance between conservative subgroups.”
At the same time, no party can win an election without the support of women voters. How can a far-right alliance that embraces misogyny win over women voters? Trans attacks offer a blueprint for getting women to vote against their self-interests. Despite being the same movement that effectively shut down abortion access in much of the country, the bathroom argument has been salient with women voters.
Conservatives have been extremely strategic in choosing which anti-trans messages to embrace. The bathroom bill rhetoric that evolved into what we have now was directly lifted from the transphobic faction within the second wave feminist movement, which feared that men would “pose as women” and cause harm to women and their movement. Sound familiar?
The highly effective “bathroom playbook” that casts trans people as pedophiles and rapists is meant to speak directly to women who feel anxious and vulnerable. If transphobia can build alliances between radical feminists and the proudly misogynist extreme right, it can certainly make inroads with mainstream women voters. While there are many feminist institutions and foundations that embrace trans communities to varying degrees, the nature of our electoral system allows for a small minority to make drastic policy changes.
Conservatives don’t need to convince many people to win the power they need to carry forth their ambitious policy agenda as defined most recently in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.
Movement Advancement Project’s report “Freedom Under Fire: The Far Right’s Battle to Control America” shows that the current political efforts of the right seek to restrict and control all aspects of a free and democratic society including:
- health care and the right to make decisions about one’s body
- the freedom of ideas and the ability to get a comprehensive education
- the freedom of travel and the ability to be in public places
- accurate legal recognition of people’s identities
- freedom of the press and freedom of expression
- the right to vote and participate in free, fair elections
This conservative vision is being tested on trans communities in every corner of the country and is gaining momentum. It is part of a broader policy agenda that seeks to curb the civil liberties and rights of immigrants, women, people with disabilities and people of color – essentially all groups that have fought for their current rights. It’s no coincidence the right tests radical policies on communities that are highly marginalized and whose institutions are deeply underfunded.
Funding for Anti-Genderism Eclipses Funding for Trans Rights
The anti-gender movement has benefited from investments of political, economic, social and financial capital over a long period of time. The movement is financially backed by a highly motivated network of individuals and organizations.
While precise figures are hard to obtain, the Global Philanthropy Project found that United States–based organizations associated with the anti-gender movement earned an aggregate revenue of $6.2 billion between 2008 and 2017, and the right has invested far more heavily since then.
The movement for trans rights has made enormous strides, but as of 2021, U.S.-based foundation support for transgender and gender nonconforming youth communities totaled just over $36 million and accounted for only 4 cents of every $100 awarded by philanthropy that year.
How can philanthropy respond?
The future of democracy disproportionately depends on whether we energetically and unequivocally stand with and invest in trans communities. How can philanthropy make moves to protect democracy and stand with trans communities?
Here are some ways philanthropy can help:
- Get involved. This summer, Funders for LGBTQ Issues launched a new initiative to fill a gap at the intersection of trans justice and democracy. Funders United for Democracy and Trans Justice (DTJ) is a working group that brings together the collective knowledge, strength, and power of both democracy and LGBTQ-focused institutions. Funders Committee for Civic Participation is the DTJ co-chair and answers the call for new partners in this fight. Learn about DTJ and fill out this interest form to participate.
- Proudly and publicly sign on to the GUTC Pledge! Funders for LGBTQ Issues has spent years building a strategic and robust LGBTQ funding community and has a program dedicated to proliferating trans funding beyond the LGBTQ issue silo. Grantmakers United for Trans Communities (GUTC) has secured public pledges of support – financial and beyond – for trans communities from a wide range of progressive institutions including the Ford Foundation and the American Jewish World Service, and many others.
- Invest meaningful resources in communities that play an outsized role in advancing and protecting freedom and that are consistently targets of the far-right, including but not limited to trans communities. There are a handful of trans-led and deeply trans-inclusive grantmakers out there that can make it easy to get resources where they’re needed most. Consider supporting the Trans Justice Funding Project, Third Wave Fund, Black Trans Fund (housed at Groundswell Fund) or the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, for example. The Trans Futures Funding Campaign is a group of trans funder intermediaries that bring together the collective power and vision of this impressive group of funders.
- Celebrate and invest in visionary and principled women’s funds, women’s organizations and a reproductive justice ecosystem that is deeply and meaningfully trans inclusive.
- Encourage your institution and colleagues to learn about these issues together. Consider providing trainings through Funders for LGBTQ Issues or consultants.
- Encourage your institution and the philanthropic networks you’re in to develop a gender justice strategy if they don’t have one.
The trans movement is small but mighty. It has fought for visibility and accomplished incredible changes in a short period of time. But the trans movement and its funders are stretched thin and struggling against an all-out attack that weaponizes that hard-won visibility.
Philanthropy can do a lot, but it must work in coordination with and on behalf of our most important source of hope: our own trans communities. Will enough funders support and invest in trans communities as fiercely and as persistently as conservatives have in their anti-gender movement?
If we do, we can pull the plug on the most effective power tool the conservative movement has.
If we don’t, the risks are well established.
Drawing on fourteen years of experience in social justice philanthropy, Rye Young is the head of Rye Young Consulting, the Director of the Sprocket Foundation, a Trustee of the Freeman Foundation and a Board member of Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity (URGE), and co-creator and co-leader of DIGG (Donor Intro to Grounded Giving), a donor-organizing and political education program for people with wealth to find their grounding in social justice philanthropy. Rye works with individual donors and philanthropic institutions to align their values with their practices and to invest boldly and strategically in social justice movements. He got schooled in social justice philanthropy at Third Wave Fund where he began as an abortion fund intern in 2008 and eventually served as the Executive Director from 2014-2018.
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