• by Les Luchter , November 25, 2024

“The political environment is now one of the lead social determinants of health for trans people,” stated Dr. Scout, executive director of the National LGBTQI+ Cancer Network, following an election season in which Republican-affiliated candidates and groups spent a reported $215 million on anti-transgender ads.

In “Project Lighthouse,” a study of 400 trans people conducted by the Cancer Network and University of Utah psychologist Dr. Lisa Diamond, respondents reported 45% more anxiety, 19% more depression and 30% more feelings of dread in the week after the election than during the month before it.

Their feelings were perhaps justified by another study showing the effect of Republican anti-trans ads: viewers exposed to them were less likely to support policies ensuring trans access to healthcare (-3.7 point backlash), and showed reduced comfortability with accepting a trans friend or family member (-3.1 point backlash) -- even among those who said they currently know someone who is trans (-3.5 point backlash)

That study, based on a randomized controlled trial of 1,981 adults, including 1,354 likely voters, conducted by Swayable on behalf of Ground Media in late October.

The $215 million figure on Republican advertising, which was perhaps best exemplified by a TV spot declaring “Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you,” comes from AdImpact, via Associated Press reporting.

An ad spend of over $200 million buys eyeballs far and beyond what Ground Media could reach with its trans acceptance campaign “Here We Are,” launched last June with the advocacy group GLAAD.

Feauturing13 video vignettes and two radio spots of trans adults and their supportive families, Ground Media reported that Comcast NBCUniversal, TikTok, iHeartRadio, and Paramount were among companies that donated time to run the ads. In Michigan, which eventually voted for Trump, Ground Media said the ads had generated 25 million impressions and 3 million video views.  

The anti-trans Trump ads, meanwhile, largely targeted young men, and heavily during NFL and college football games in key states, according to an investigative report in Uncloseted Media. Ads which focused on trans women playing sports, meanwhile, resulted in a majority of white women voting for Trump, Hogan Gidley, a deputy press secretary during the first Trump administration, told the publication.

The anti-trans ads only added to a problem already well underway due to the proliferation of passed and proposed anti-trans legislation in 2024, says the Cancer Network, noting that over 500 such state laws have been introduced this year.

This situation had already led the group during the summer to release a video supported by the American Cancer Society and pharma firm Genentech titled “How Anti-Trans Legislation Is Affecting Cancer,” with Dr. Scout explaining in a statement that such actions are leading the trans community to “becoming increasingly distrustful of our government and the health care system, which will affect screening and prevention of multiple health risks.”

"I have been treated much more like a medical specimen than a person in many cases,” says Alex from Missouri in the video. “I have been a scientific curiosity."

Project Lighthouse plans to keep questioning its 400 respondents through Inauguration Day while enrolling new participants in partnership with such groups as Equality Florida, Equality Texas and Equality Utah. “We are living through a natural experiment in the health consequences of anti-LGBTQ+ stigma, the effects of which are still unknown.” stated Dr. Diamond.

The way back to better health may require moving – to another state or even country. Some 30% of trans/nonbinary respondents said they expect to move in the future, “even if it takes them away from friends and family.”