This story is published in partnership with the Queer News Network, a collaboration among 11 LGBTQ+ newsrooms to cover down-ballot elections across ten states. Read more about us here.
Donald Trump has made anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric — with a particular focus on trans children — as a focal point of his presidential campaign, with races around Pittsburgh following suit.
LGBTQ+ advocates said it’s happening because opponents see the community as an easy target.
“Trans people are a target of the far right and seem to be the most vulnerable,” said Liz Bradbury, board chair of Keystone Equality, a Philadelphia-based LQBTQ+ advocacy group. “Far-right people try to blow up the rights of the trans community as a smokescreen for the bad things that they’re doing.”
Bradbury says that complaining about children’s bathrooms is easier than acknowledging Trump’s current legal woes and targeting marginalized people avoids the real issues that voters care about.
Scapegoating trans people for a political platform is not a new tactic in Western PA.
When Rob Mercuri (R-Allegheny County) first ran for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2020, his campaign ads claimed his opponent supported adding boys to girl’s sports.
The foundation of the claim wasn’t true — trans teenagers who are treated with hormones or puberty blockers have similar athletic abilities to other teens of their aligned gender — yet he went on to win the race.
Now running for Congress, Mercuri supports a “parental bill of rights for education,” similar to other bills passed across the country that give expansive rights to parents to determine what can be taught in their child’s school curriculum.
Parental Rights bills have been used to force children out of sex education, bar teaching literature that includes topics of sexuality or gender and embolden parents
to sue school districts.
In one instance in Florida, the mother of a teen who transitioned sued the school district because she claimed they violated the state’s Parental Rights Bill by affirming the student’s choice.
Mercuri has in the past been funded by the Illinois Family Institute and the PA Family Council, both of which t promote far-right candidates who align with a Christian Evangelical platform..
Mercuri’s platform has company: Devlin Robinson is a state senator for District 37 in Allegheny County. Most recently, Robinson has been running incendiary ads claiming that his opponent, Nicole Ruscitto, is “radical” because of her support for “sex changes” among kids.
The bottom of the ad claims that the information was provided by the Steel City Stonewall Democrats questionnaire.
Ian Price, president of the Steel City Stonewall Democrats, said the attack in the ad against the community is untrue and based on people’s misunderstandings of gender-affirming care.
“Being educated won’t convince everybody, but enough education about what’s going on and whether this is reasonable or not, I think it’s going to slowly shift the majority in favor of allowing people to have health care,” he said.
Price said the hard shift in local politics by Republicans and social conservatives is a consequence of national campaigns against the community. He said he’s seen this gradual movement turn against trans people, specifically, after same-sex marriage became legal in 2015.
Between 2004 and 2008, I saw equality as a wedge issue that Republicans thought that they could use against us,” he said. “Now we’re seeing that again using the lives of trans people.”
Organizations are mobilizing around the topic statewide, with the PA Family Institute releasing a “What’s At Stake” handout claiming if their recommended legislators are not elected “female,” athletes will be forced to play sports with “biological males.”
The handout also states that HB 300 will be passed, making sexuality and gender protected classes from discrimination which would “impact” an individual’s religious freedom. HB 300, also called The Fairness Act, would provide equal protections under the law for the LQBTQ+ people.
According to the Trans Legislation Tracker, 661 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in 43 states were introduced this past legislative session, with 45 of those bills passed into law. In Pennsylvania, this includes nine bills that were introduced regarding gender-affirming procedures, children’s sports, and protections for individuals who refuse to use people’s proper pronouns. None became law.
