2024 RNC Filled with Rampant Transphobia

To absolutely no one’s surprise, this year’s RNC was filled with both harmful and inherently cringe-worthy transphobic jokes.

The Republican National Convention (RNC) is where Republicans throughout the entire country gather in one city (this year, the unlucky city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin) and confirm their voting ticket for the next election. This year’s convention included the announcement of Ohio’s J.D. Vance as Trump’s VP—a man with a staunch anti-LGBTQ background in politics—as well as a truly unbelievable amount of transphobic jokes. 

On top of the inherent harm that comes from one of the major political parties’ conventions being filled with transphobia and the implications of this for our political system under a potential second term from Trump, most of these jokes were simply bad jokes in an of themselves.

An example of one that was simply boring was Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who when speaking about Trump’s presidency says, “We were richer, inflation was low, and there were two genders.” It’s all the fun things about a Republican joke: boring, wrong, and offensive. 

Another statement that was just plain wrong was one made by Richard Grenell, a gay man and former Acting Director of National Intelligence under Trump, who said, “Donald Trump doesn’t care if you’re gay or straight, Black or white, or what gender you are.”

It’s funny how wrong he is, considering how many anti-LGBTQ+ policies Trump passed while in office, and how many of those policies Biden has had to roll back, including one that allowed healthcare providers to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people. 

Another notable “joke” came from Montana Sen. Steve Daines, who said, “Back in Montana, we know the difference between a bull and a cow.” This wasn’t the only transphobic statement in his speech, but it was the most entertaining, as he appealed to a fake rural background when he instead was born in L.A. and raised in Montana’s fourth-largest city. 

Lastly, Tim Sheehy (pronounced like “she-he”) had the goofiest joke of them all, saying, “My name is Tim Sheehy. Those are also my pronouns. I’ve been a he/she for 38 years,” he continues, “and I can promise you going to elementary school in the ’80s with that name was not fun.” Moving on from the fact that he mispronounced his own last name by calling himself a he/she, he also completely missed the point as to how gendered and pronoun-based bullying is bad.

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