The New Scapegoats: How Trans People Became Targets in a 21st Century Witch Hunt
By: The Zeitgeist Editorial Team
We’re living in an era that we like to think is far removed from the horrors of the past—the Holocaust, the witch hunts, the senseless dehumanization. But history doesn’t stay in the past; it’s here, replaying itself, and this time the target is the trans community. Make no mistake, the anti-trans hysteria fueled by religious zealots and power-hungry assholes is nothing short of a 21st-century witch hunt. It’s fascism dressed up as moral crusading. It’s a campaign of hate that hides behind God and family values to justify its endless violence. Well, we’re here to say: fuck your Gods, fuck your values, and fuck the hate you bring into this world. Trans rights are human rights, and we’re tired of pretending this is a debate.
The Fascist Playbook, Reused
When the Supreme Court takes up U.S. v. Skrmetti this December, they won’t just be deciding the legality of gender-affirming care bans. They’ll be deciding whether we, as a society, are okay with treating trans people as subhuman, expendable, and unworthy of basic human rights. Tennessee’s SB 1—a law that bans gender-affirming care for minors and criminalizes healthcare providers—is not about protecting anyone. It’s about control. It’s about finding a scapegoat for a failing society. It’s about using the oldest, dirtiest play in the fascist playbook: blaming a marginalized community for all the problems people are too cowardly to face.
The Movement Advancement Project tells us that 24 states have banned gender-affirming care for trans youth, with six classifying it as a felony. The implications are staggering, not just for trans kids but for any person who dares to live authentically in a society that fears anything outside its narrow-minded bubble. We saw this in the 1930s when Jews were dehumanized by Nazis; we see it now when religious extremists brand trans people as threats to society. Let’s call this what it is—the beginnings of a genocide.
The Global Picture: TRIP’s Warning
The Trans Rights Indicator Project (TRIP), published in Perspectives on Politics (Volume 22 / Issue 3 / September 2024), gives us a broader view of the state of trans rights globally—spoiler alert, it’s grim. In countries where religious extremism dominates, trans people’s rights are actively oppressed, stripped away, or never even acknowledged. The TRIP data shows us that when trans rights are treated as human rights, LGBTQ+ communities thrive. When they’re treated as a political football or, worse, as a moral abomination, they suffer—and sometimes, they die. Religion, in all its sanctimonious hypocrisy, is too often the cover under which violence and hatred flourish.
Don’t come to us with your prayers and platitudes. We don’t need to hear about how your God “loves everyone.” If He did, He’d shut up His followers who are driving kids to suicide and denying them the right to just be. Your churches, your mosques, your synagogues—they’ve been the breeding ground for hatred since day one, and they have no place in this conversation unless they’re ready to take responsibility for the blood on their hands.
U.S. v. Skrmetti: The Stakes Couldn’t Be Higher
If the Supreme Court sides with Tennessee in U.S. v. Skrmetti, it’ll be the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case all over again. Except this time, the target isn’t reproductive rights, it’s the very existence of trans people. This isn’t just about Tennessee. It’s about setting the stage for a federal ban on gender-affirming care if the likes of Donald Trump or his ilk claw their way back into power. The parallels are clear: Just like Dobbs enabled states to strip away abortion rights, a ruling in favor of Skrmetti would make it easier to criminalize trans existence across the board. It’s terrifying. It’s fascism. And we need to call it what it is before it’s too late.
As advocates like Chase Strangio,Co-Director for Transgender Justice with the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV Project and a nationally recognized expert on transgender rights, have pointed out on CBS News, this case is an inflection point for the future of trans rights in America. “The resolution of this case is critical for access to this health care across the country,” he said, per the outlet’s reporting. The choice is stark: either recognize trans people as full human beings worthy of rights and dignity, or drag us into a new age of fear, hatred, and state-sanctioned discrimination.
The Role of Religion and Political Cowards
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) tracks these hate-driven movements, and their findings are damning: in 2023, the number of anti-LGBTQ hate groups rose to 86, the highest ever recorded. The SPLC highlights how these groups, often under the guise of 'family values' or 'religious freedom,' push harmful pseudoscience and demonizing rhetoric, labeling LGBTQ people as threats to children and public health. It’s no different from the Nazi propaganda that dehumanized Jews—only now, it's being directed at the LGBTQ+ community, especially trans people.
These hate groups aren’t isolated; they’re an integral part of the Republican agenda. From the Family Research Council to the Alliance Defending Freedom, these groups create a culture of fear, peddling lies that LGBTQ people are dangerous, and they weaponize pseudoscience to justify violence and discrimination. They claim to protect 'parents’ rights,' but what they really want is to silence, intimidate, and erase LGBTQ people from public life.
Let’s not mince words—Republicans are modern-day Nazis when it comes to the LGBTQ+ community, especially trans people. They’ve built momentum nationwide with anti-LGBTQ legislation that explicitly targets queer and trans rights. From Florida’s hateful “Don’t Say Gay” bill to Alabama’s felony ban on gender-affirming care, the GOP has waged a relentless campaign to strip away the rights of an already marginalized group. The rhetoric they use—calling gender-affirming care 'child abuse' or accusing their opponents of 'sexualizing children'—is nothing new. It’s the same kind of dehumanizing propaganda the Nazis used to justify their genocidal campaigns, now rebranded for the 21st century and aimed at queer people.
The anti-trans hysteria isn’t cultural; it’s a carefully constructed political strategy designed to galvanize the Republican base, win over religious conservatives, and use fear as a weapon against progress. Republicans love to call this a 'parent revolution,' but make no mistake: it’s a hateful crusade, engineered to gain political power at the expense of trans lives. More than 300 anti-LGBTQ bills were pending across state legislatures in 2022 alone, targeting everything from healthcare to sports to basic education about gender identity. The GOP isn’t just legislating policy—they’re legislating hatred, and history has taught us where that leads.
Religious institutions are, without a doubt, complicit in this attack. They’re the ones preaching “protect the children” while actively endangering kids by denying them the healthcare they need. They’re the ones funding these campaigns and lending legitimacy to bigotry. This isn’t about faith. It’s about fear. Fear of anything that doesn’t fit neatly into the boxes they’ve built for the world. And let’s not forget the politicians who use religion as a tool to maintain their power—a bludgeon to keep people scared and obedient. It’s not enough to disagree with them; we need to tear down the systems that let these zealots thrive.
And then there’s the American political right—too spineless to actually do anything meaningful, too cowardly to address real issues like healthcare, housing, or poverty. Instead, they manufacture an enemy. They turn vulnerable kids into symbols of everything they hate about progress and modernity. They’re pathetic, and we’re here to call them out. They’re not protectors of freedom—they’re the architects of a new kind of fascism. And they’re doing it in the name of God.
Human Stories of Survival and Resistance
Behind every bullshit bill, every hateful sermon, every politician trying to score points off a trans kid’s suffering, there are real people—kids, adults, families—who are just trying to live. We need to tell their stories because it’s too easy to get lost in the politics of it all. These aren’t just policies; they’re life and death.
Take the voices in the A4TE—Advocates for Trans Equality's Impact Litigation Program, which brings cases and files amicus briefs in courts across the country to protect the rights of transgender and nonbinary people—trans adults like Miss Major, Elliot Page, and others—who testified to the “lifesaving” power of gender-affirming care. These people aren’t statistics. They’re living proof that trans healthcare matters, that it saves lives, and that denying it is nothing short of an act of violence. These are the stories that need to be at the center of this fight—not the manufactured fears of religious fanatics and cowardly politicians.
Conclusion: Fight Back, or Fall in Line
Let’s be clear: this isn’t a time for quiet resistance or polite debate. The religious right wants a witch hunt? Fine. Let’s bring the fire. Trans rights are human rights, and no amount of scripture or political spin will ever change that. We will resist, we will fight, and we will call out every single complicit coward—from the pulpits to the politicians—until this nightmare is over. In the face of hate, we resist. In the face of oppression, we fight for freedom—not just for ourselves, but for every person who has been dehumanized in the name of fear.
—The Zeitgeist
Bibliography (because we care about our sources)
Chase Strangio. "Chase Strangio." American Civil Liberties Union, https://www.aclu.org/bio/chase-strangio.
Southern Poverty Law Center. "Anti-LGBTQ." SPLC, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/anti-lgbtq.
Katherine Singh. "Supreme Court Set to Hear Arguments on Trans Youth Healthcare." Teen Vogue, September 2024, https://www.teenvogue.com/story/supreme-court-trans-youth-healthcare-us-v-skrmetti.
Myles Williamson. "A Global Analysis of Transgender Rights: Introducing the Trans Rights Indicator Project (TRIP)." Perspectives on Politics, Volume 22, Issue 3, September 2024, pp. 799-818.