A Small, Vulnerable Minority

This morning, the American Booksellers Association, Authors Against Book Bans, PEN America, and dozens of other publishers and organizations issued a statement opposing the January 20, 2025 Executive Order Targeting Transgender, Intersex, Nonbinary, and Gender-Nonconforming Americans. These organizations focused on how the EO would lead to censorship of books and other media about and by people who are trans, nonbinary, and intersex.

Other aspects of the EO are just as frightening. They include the expulsion of gender nonconforming people from the military, denying gender affirming medical care to both minors and adults, and prohibiting gender nonconforming people from using a variety of public facilities, including bathrooms in all federal buildings.

According to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey, 1.6% of people in the United States identify as trans, nonbinary, or intersex. Yet a disproportionate percentage of political advertising for the GOP campaign in 2024 demonized this minority. It was if gender nonconforming people were poised to take over the country when in reality, they are only trying to live their lives in peace. Yes, some may find the presence of a trans or nonbinary person uncomfortable. Others may find the presence of a red MAGA hat uncomfortable. Having to look at other people whose appearance may make you uncomfortable is part of living in an open and diverse — and, yes, free — society.

The reaction against this small minority of people, to the extent of trying to eliminate them and every piece of information about them, has been described as a “panic.” But calling it “trans panic” trivializes what’s going on. Targeting a small, vulnerable minority to rile up a population, blaming that minority for all societal ills and personal disappointments — what is generally known as “scapegoating” — is a tried and true strategy for demagogues and despots.

When Adolf Hitler chose the Jews of Germany as his target — then about 0.75% of the population — he built on a long history of European antisemitism. Most Germans assumed — and today you may, too — that Jews were a huge demographic presence in Germany and were on the verge of taking over and controlling everything. That was far from the truth, but he and his enablers in the media also created a panic that scapegoated this tiny minority.

As we now know, Hitler didn’t stop with Jews. During the Weimar Republic, many German cities contained thriving LGBTQ+ communities, realities portrayed in the popular TV series Babylon Berlin and in my friend Kip Wilson’s award winning YA verse novel The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin. They too ended up in concentration camps, where most died. The institutionalization and murder of disabled Germans in the T4 program predated Hitler’s Final Solution for the Jews. Another award winning film, Never Look Away, depicts the impact of the T4 program, as its main character’s beloved aunt is one of those murdered.

When those in power successfully target a small, vulnerable minority, they never stop at that one. Already, the new regime has moved to exclude persons with disabilities from public life. The tragic collision of a passenger plane with a military helicopter at the end of January was blamed on persons with disabilities as well as “DEI,” which has become a shorthand for black and brown people and women in the workplace. Fact is, once the targeting of a small minority is successful, those in power tend to go after larger minorities until it’s all of us who are the targets.