Ahead of Election Day in the 2022 high-stakes midterms, right-wing groups spent tens of millions of dollars on anti-transgender ads in battleground states.
America First Legal, an organization founded by former Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller, is behind many of the political ads targeting transgender children that have run in at least 25 states.
Research by the Human Rights Campaign shows that “a significant portion” of ad spending through radio, mail, television, and digital means was directed to black and Hispanic-speaking voters. America First Legal spent $4 million running its ads on black and Spanish-language radio stations in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
The narrator of an America First Legal radio commercial accuses President Biden of pushing children to take sex hormone drugs and have sex reassignment surgery.
“The Biden administration is forcing radical gender experiments on children, changing their names, clothing, identities and bodies,” says the narrator. “They want boys in our daughters’ bathrooms and sports teams.”
Citizens for Sanity, another group founded by former Trump administration employees, spent $20 million on television ads in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania that focused on illegal immigration, crime and other issues.
Both America First Legal and Citizens for Sanity do not mention candidates running for office in their advertisements.
Polls show that transgender issues aren’t usually a top priority for voters, but controversy surrounding transgender athletes competing in women’s sports made headlines this year.
Yale University swimmer Iszac Henig and then-University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas broke records at the February Ivy League championships, sparking debate over whether transgender women should be allowed to compete on women’s teams. In June, the World Swimming Federation, FINA, voted to effectively ban transgender women from women’s swimming competitions.
Another America First Legal-funded radio ad circulated in October promoted allegations of “anti-white bigotry” and accused the White House of putting whites last in line for COVID-19 aid funds.
“When did anti-white racism become OK?” says the narrator. “The left’s anti-white bigotry must stop.”
Miller has been seen as a pusher for an anti-immigrant, white nationalist agenda since his time as Trump’s chief immigration adviser. In 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center said it had received hundreds of leaked emails detailing Miller’s white nationalist ideas.
America First Legal was founded as the conservative version of the American Civil Liberties Union, a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization campaigning for abortion rights and transgender rights.
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