Are these Trump campaign ads deliberately misgendering Kamala Harris?

As we get nearer and nearer to November 5, things just keep getting wackier on the Trump campaign trail. Not content to draw the line at his absurd attacks on Kamala Harris for providing “transgender surgery for illegal aliens,” Trump is now apparently going out of his way to misgender Harris in a series of attack ads.

@sash1e

1000 f bombs because IM SO PISSED LIKE Y DO PPL THINK WE R THE #1 ISSUE IN AMERICA HELLO – #fyp #foryou #lgbt #trans #transgender #trending #storytime #gay #taylorswift #queer #politics

♬ original sound – sasha allen

Recently, trans TikToker Sasha Allen relayed his shock and disappointment at seeing one of these ads on TV, finished off with the slogan “Kamala Harris is not the they/them for you.”

Join the frontline of change

Be informed, be inspired, and be part of the conversation that’s shaping a queerer world with our twice-a-week newsletter.

Um…what? Did something happen that we don’t know about? Or is Trump trying to make it seem like Harris, by merely supporting the right of trans and nonbinary people to use binary-free pronouns, is somehow using those pronouns herself?

Obviously attack ads are created to take speech out of context and distort the opposition’s case in the baldest way possible. But this is above and beyond.

“Why are [trans people] such a f*cking scapegoat right now,” Allen says in the video. “We didn’t do anything! Like, okay, sorry, we steal your f*cking girlfriends, what the f*ck do you want!”

Perhaps if Trump’s team was smart they’d be waging war on the true epidemic facing this country: the fact that trans people are, indeed, coming for your girlfriends. But instead, they’re content to call Kamala Harris a “they/them” and call it a day.

Related

New CDC data shows 5% of all youth are trans—but it also shows something worrying

The data comes from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a biannual survey of over 20,000 young people across the country.

We’ve all seen the notorious attack ads from last month claiming that “Kamala Harris is for they/them, Trump is for you.” But this takes it a step further by seeming to imply that Harris herself uses they/them pronouns. Which, again, is hilarious considering how few direct references to trans people there have been in Harris’s campaign or at the DNC.

However, there could be some missing nuance here. While Allen refers to an ad that directly refers to Harris as someone who uses they/them pronouns, most of the attack ads released instead use a confusing mixture of “Kamala is for they/them” or “Kamala’s agenda is they/them,” neither of which make a lot of sense, since these ads are counting on the viewer to be both cis and transphobic for the message to actually land.

That said, the confusion might well be deliberate. To voters who have been taken in by the idea that trans folks present the biggest threat to our democracy, the difference between being “for” they/them and identifying as someone who uses they/them pronouns could be very slim. These are people, after all, who go around bragging about how they “hate pronouns” in general.

Playing off of certain peoples’ fears of and ignorance around trans people is certainly a cornerstone of Trump’s campaign, and along with the recent spate of anti-trans legislation in red states, it’s in keeping with the general Republican trend of pouncing on the most convenient scapegoats during an election year. If Trump was able to run an honest campaign dealing with actual issues, he wouldn’t have to rely on this kind of confusion to get voters to the polls. As it stands, confusion is just about the only thing he does stand for.

Sign up for the INTO newsletter and get your twice-weekly dose of stories that shape the queer experience, culture, and lifestyle.