Opinion: The GOP's Transphobia Is As Much of A "Distraction" As Hitler's Anti-Semitism Was. Will Democrats Learn From History?

American liberals dismissed the threat Hitler posed to Jews when he rose to power on a wave of economic populism combined with genocidal rhetoric. Democrats must avoid repeating this history.

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A photo from Auschwitz. Millions of Jews, LGBT people, disabled people, and other minorities were brutally killed in camps like this one. by Julia Taubitz from Unsplash

In 1922, the New York Times published its first story on Hitler. Reading this article in our modern context feels both harrowing and sombering, especially in the shadow of attacks on trans rights under the incoming GOP administration.

Before the Holocaust, many American liberals had little sympathy for the plight of the Jewish people, despite centuries of oppression and hatred. The Times dismissed the genuine threat that Hitler posed to Jews, arguing that his anti-Semitism was merely a distraction to help him gain power for his “real aims” and he did not truly intend to kill Jewish people.

“…Several reliable, well-informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded, and that he was merely using anti-Semitic propaganda as a bait to catch masses of followers….

“…A sophisticated politician credited Hitler with peculiar political cleverness for laying emphasis and over-emphasis on anti-Semitism, saying: “You can’t expect the masses to understand or appreciate your finer real aims. You must feed the masses with cruder morsels and ideas like anti-Semitism.”

Democrats must urgently avoid repeating the sordid history of American liberals minimizing the threats of fascism before it is too late. While I sympathize with the idea that the GOP stokes hatred against minorities to distract from the fact the party has an immensely unpopular policy platform on many other issues, the threat the GOP poses to trans people can no longer be considered a distraction. It's no coincidence that hate crimes against Jewish people are sharply rising at the same time as the massive increase of hate crimes against trans people.

Trans people have understood the true nature of the GOP’s rhetoric and actions against the trans community for a long time. We have watched as trans rights for minors and adults have been mercilessly attacked in more than half the states in the country for the last few years. Many trans people have already moved to blue states or are planning to soon, though even blue states may become unsafe if Congress passes national bans.

The 1922 Times article mentions that many German Jews also understood the threat Hitler posed very early on and fled to safety.

“So violent are Hitler’s fulminations against the Jews that a number of prominent Jewish citizens are reported to have sought safe asylums in the Bavarian highlands…”

We all understand today that these Jewish people made the rational decision. But as Zach Beauchamp argued, the Times article revealed that German society had greatly minimized the threats against Jewish people, which left opposition within the country utterly unprepared for Hitler’s violent rise to power.

“Now, Brown’s sources in all likelihood did tell him that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was for show….But that speaks to how unprepared polite German society was for a movement as sincerely, radically violent as Hitler’s to take power.”

Similar to Hitler in 1922, Republicans have been loudly declaring their intention to “eradicate” trans people out loud for years now. They have clearly stated the intention of healthcare bans for trans minors is to prevent transgender people from existing. It’s blatantly clear to anyone paying attention right now that Republican politicians and public figures genuinely harbor personal hatred towards trans people in a manner highly disproportionate to how Americans feel about the issue.

Look no further than how Nancy Mace is openly calling trans protesters slurs on her social media with little pushback, or how she allegedly instigated a false arrest for “assault” after a foster care advocate had shook her hand and asked her about the rights of trans kids. Republican hatred of trans people is as sincere and radically violent as Hitler’s hatred of LGBT people, Jewish people, and other minorities, and the threat the GOP poses to transgender existence in America cannot be ignored.

By arguing that these proposals are mere “distractions,” Democrats are permitting themselves to vote for them on bills that cause massive harm to trans people—such as the NDAA which received 81 Democratic votes despite the inclusion of a dystopian ban on trans healthcare for the children of military servicemembers.

Arguing that trans issues are a “distraction” seems to be the tactic at least some Democrats, such as Rep. Bobby Scott who denounced the anti-LGBT provisions while still voting “yes” on the bill.

The implicit argument Rep. Scott makes here is that taking a strong stance against these hateful policies would “distract” from “more important” issues, so it’s not worth fighting the GOP to stop them. But this is a massive mistake.

The lives of trans kids are not a distraction, any more than the lives of LGBT people or Jews under Hitler were.¹ Democrats who argue that trans people are only a small portion of the population should remember that less than 1% of Germans and 2% of Europeans before the Holocaust were Jews.

And the term “culture war” only serves to dismiss the threats these bills pose to real people, especially given the context that this congressmember voted to support this “culture war.” Was Hitler merely engaging in a “culture war” against Jewish and LGBT people as well?

If this trend of Democratic compliance continues after Trump is inaugurated, it’s not just trans kids whose lives will be at stake. The GOP is currently planning to include language in funding bills next year that could result in the vast majority of trans adult healthcare becoming unavailable across the country, even in blue states.²

The carnage of such a ban could involve the largest scale of mass death in the LGBT community since the AIDS crisis, and would represent the most wide-reaching coordinated governmental attack on LGBT people in a Western country since Hitler killed millions of LGBT people in concentration camps. I wish this were hyperbole.

The ban would cut millions of trans people off from life saving healthcare, including many people whose bodies no longer naturally produce any hormones. Doctors would be forced to stop providing life-saving care for patients they care deeply about, and made to watch as tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of their patients die by suicide. Some private clinics could continue to offer healthcare, but they would be quickly overwhelmed by massive demand and only able to treat a small fraction of patients. Unlike state bans, we would have nowhere to run to and be forced to rely on stockpiles or unsafe sources of medicine. Even just discussing this possibility requires me to include a suicide hotline number at the bottom of the article.

Do Democrats want their legacy to include rubber stamping the largest-scale rollback of LGBT rights in modern history?

As I’ve detailed extensively in my previous articles, LGBT voters turned out in massive numbers to support Democrats in the 2024 election and helped protect the seats of vulnerable Senators in states where Kamala Harris lost. Democrats who continue to vote in favor of the GOP’s trans eradication policies stand to lose these voters in general elections while motivating their base to organize primary campaigns against Democrats who vote for these policies.

But more importantly, Democrats should realize that on a moral level, they can no longer treat the attacks on trans lives as a distraction if they wish to be on the right side of the history books. Trans people are a small portion of the population, but our lives are not unimportant. Are Democrats willing to learn from history and firmly oppose efforts to ban the life-saving healthcare of millions of their voters? Only time will tell.

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Dial 988 in the U.S. to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The Trevor Project, which provides help and suicide-prevention resources for LGBTQ youth, is 1-866-488-7386. Find other international suicide helplines at Befrienders Worldwide (befrienders.org).

Author’s note: The article has been edited since publication to better reflect the victimhood of LGBT people in the Holocaust. Since LGBT people were major targets of the Holocaust, the main comparisons are intended to be directly between LGBT people in different periods in history—the 1940s, and today.

1. One of Hitler’s first targets were gender health institutes!

2. Funding bills such as these require 60 votes to pass in the Senate, which means Senate Democrats must unite to prevent their passage.