A Thin Line

I think that she is talking about not apples verse oranges but rather McIntosh verses Granny Smith.

The Transgender Political Paradox
Here's why Trump won't make trans people his next target.
By Brynn Tannehill
January 11, 2016

A recent rally for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was interrupted by a heckler supporting Republican candidate Donald Trump. This heckler was carrying a sign that read, “Obama is as Christian as Bruce Jenner is a woman.” Afterwards, my editor asked me if I thought that transgender people could become targets of Trump’s ire the way Latinos and Muslims have been.

My first instinct was that transgender people would make a natural, easy political target. Transgender people already are heavily stigmatized. When trans issues come up for a popular vote, things often go horribly wrong, as they did in Houston, Fayetteville, and Anchorage. Why not go after transgender people, then?

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this strategy doesn’t make sense for a lot of reasons, which impact both pro- and anti-LGBT forces.
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From a different perspective, it would be difficult for a candidate to run on a fearmongering platform of “transgender people will take your jobs and kill you.” First, it’s not like we’re getting a lot of job offers to begin with. Second, people aren’t afraid of transgender people in general. We are treated as pathetic jokes, but not as genuine threats.

I think that the public does not see the subtle difference. Look at all the “locker room incidents” they claimed about trans people not some guy pretending to be trans and yes we have been seen as a threat to students and children.

So where does that leave the transgender community? We’re visible enough that people know what transgender is, but they don’t know us well enough to decide we’re OK. We’re demagogued enough that we’re not well accepted, but we’re also rare enough that people aren’t particularly afraid of transgender people turning the country into a Mad Max apocalyptic wasteland. Candidates and organizations aren’t able to stir a great deal of passion (or money) about transgender people either way.

If the candidates including see political advantage in attacking us they will.