Prominent conservative speakers attending the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland emboldened the attending crowd of mostly Republicans wishing to criminalize the act of trans youth receiving gender-affirming healthcare.
The GOP's latest rollout of anti-transgender legislation has been considered a dehumanizing attack on transgender people as well as largely on the LGBTQ+ community.
Many of these bills mimic Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee's ban on drag shows and trans healthcare as a means to "protect children."
One of the speakers at the annual event gave an impassioned speech against the trans community that social media users characterized as downright "genocidal."
Michael Knowles, the host of The Daily Wire's The Michael Knowles Show argued about a ideological concept used by the far right to demean trans people.
“The problem with transgenderism is not that it’s inappropriate for children under the age of 9," said the former host of Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz’s podcast.
"The problem with transgenderism is that it isn’t true.”
"There can be no middle way in dealing with transgenderism. It is all or nothing."
"If transgenderism is true, if men can become women, then it’s true for everybody of all ages.”
He continued:
“If it is false, then for the good of society, and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.”
“If [transgenderism] is false, then for the good of society... transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely."
His statement calling for the authoritarian measure elicited cheers from the crowd.
You can watch a video, here.
\u201cMichael Knowles tells CPAC that "there can be no middle way in dealing with transgenderism. ... Transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely."\u201d— Right Wing Watch (@Right Wing Watch) 1677947732
Social media users were appalled at Knowles' transphobic statement.
\u201cMichael Knowles is openly calling for genocide against trans people at CPAC. "Transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely."\n\nhttps://t.co/uW6pAw02vI\u201d— Alejandra Caraballo (@Alejandra Caraballo) 1677955206
\u201cWhat exactly do you think "eradication" entails? If you ever wondered how we get from hate speech to genocide, this is it. This isn't some fringe figure, this is a Daily Wire host speaking at CPAC.\n\nThis is how pogroms start.\u201d— Alejandra Caraballo (@Alejandra Caraballo) 1677955206
\u201cMichael Knowles at CPAC: "Transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely." Crowd gives him his loudest applause of the speech.\n\nEliminationist, genocidal rhetoric.\u201d— johnknefel (@johnknefel) 1677945407
\u201c@RightWingWatch As a Straight man I am trying to find where a transgender, gay or lesbian person has made my life any harder or made me change my lifestyle. Hold on I'm still thinking.....Still thinking.....I got nothing.\u201d— Right Wing Watch (@Right Wing Watch) 1677947732
\u201c@RightWingWatch My theory is that Republicans went looking for the smallest, most vulnerable minority possible to start with. They're working their way up to the larger minority groups.\u201d— Right Wing Watch (@Right Wing Watch) 1677947732
Last week, Knowles responded to backlash after making a similar anti-trans remark on The Michael Knowles Show.
He argued:
“I don’t know how you could have a genocide of transgender people because genocide refers to genes, it refers to genetics, it refers to biology."
“And the whole point of transgenderism is that it has nothing to do with biology.”
“Nobody’s calling to exterminate anybody because the other problem with that statement is that transgender people is not a real ontological category."
He added.
“It’s not a legitimate category of being.”
Also featured at CPAC was Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene who introduced her Protect the Children’s Innocence Act which prohibits transgender minors from seeking gender-affirming care.
The healthcare these politicians are discrediting is endorsed by the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the Endocrine Society, the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association.
Greene told the crowd:
"It couldn’t pass last Congress because Nancy Pelosi was the Speaker of the House. She doesn’t believe in gender at all, but we have a new speaker in our Republican majority.
"… and I’m going to be re-introducing my bill… that will make it a felony to perform anything to do with gender!”
The CPAC audience thunderously applauded her announcement.
This year's CPAC also featured panelists Riley Gaines–a former collegiate athlete from Kentucky who complained about competing against a transgender swimmer; and Chloe Cole, a woman who as a youth identified as male but "detransitioned."
Also associated with "transition regret," Cole's case is a rarity in the trans community.
But, the far-right has used Cole's story to perpetuate their belief gender-affirming healthcare for minors is evil.
The Huffington Post interviewed CPAC attendee Donald Ruthig, a 73-year-old retiree from Virginia who recently left the Episcopal Church after its decision to support transgender youth.
Ruthig drove three hours to attend CPAC to “meet people that think the way I think” who are “dedicated to restoring the Judeo-Christian morality that we’re losing.”
Ruthig explained this restoration movement would:
“Stop torturing our children with gender transitions, to stop this whole LBGTQ alphabet nonsense, and start treating people like God’s people created in God’s image."
"We are all alike. We don’t need to partition everybody by their little fetishes.”
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