Published October 26, 2024

During Game 1 of the World Series, I had to change the channel a few times. The anti-trans commercials were too much for me.

We are a tiny percentage of the population, but you’d think we were monsters from another planet here to take over the Earth, and on the verge of doing so.

For example, transgender youth and adults make up an estimated 0.4 percent of the population of Texas. The anti-trans commercials repeat the same talking points we’ve seen for years. They twist the truth, using junk science and sham studies to prop up the aims of some truly awful people who are well financed.

The use of “biological male” is smart when your target audience hasn’t learned much about biology since sleeping through class in school.

And the scare tactics are beyond shameful.

Recommending a list of sources to check doesn’t do much good. People are entrenched. They will believe what they want to believe.

I can tell in the first sentence whether the source of material I’m reading is valid. That’s true of news sites and anti-trans propaganda. But I’ve been in a fact-checking world for all of my adult life, and that’s not as common as I’d like for it to be in this country.

I changed the channel

Thankfully, I got to see some lovely scenes when I switched my TV to Chromecast and saw its photo gallery.

That image credited to April Yablonovitch is stunning. My eyes were drawn to the long shadow. That seemed to fit with where my mind went when I thought about writing this and what images to use.

I saw the walk-off home run

Don’t worry, I saw the grand slam that ended the game and gave the Dodgers a 1-0 lead in the Series. With luck I looked up at just the right time.

But really, I watch baseball only to see if the players will step on their pants.

Anyway, they know what buttons to push, the people crafting these ads. They can easily make people forget they don’t have a plan for anything, really. Not for the economy, not for your health and health care, not for saving the planet, not for food prices and shortages, not for the affordable housing crisis, not for crushing debt, and not for the next pandemic. They know nothing but stoking fear.

By the next cycle, they will likely have moved on from having trans people on the list, along with immigrants, of people Americans should fear most. They will pick another group.

Will it include you or someone you love?

Transgender image via Shutterstock.