President Donald Trump used an anti-transgender slur three times in a Truth Social post on Monday, targeting Annie Andrews, a pediatrician running for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina against his endorsed candidate, Sen. Darline Graham. The post gave Andrews a nickname built around the slur, which rhymes with her first name, and claimed she is «in favor of Transgender for Everyone.»
The message drew a swift rebuke from at least one prominent Republican, former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, who called it abhorrent. But the broader response was notably muted. According to right-wing media watchdog Aaron Rupar, Fox News had not mentioned the incident at all as of Tuesday afternoon. The relative silence stands in contrast to the swift backlash Trump generated the same day when he appeared to invite Iran to «take out» two major California cities, a remark the White House has since pushed back on.
The use of the slur against a cisgender woman does not lessen its significance, critics argue. Rather, it reflects what some see as a concerted effort by MAGA leaders to normalize prejudice against transgender people and declare open season on using slurs against them. The incident follows a pattern of escalating anti-trans rhetoric from prominent Republican figures.
After Trump's 2024 election victory, some pundits and think tanks coalesced around the explanation that anti-trans advertising helped swing the race. They pointed to ads claiming «Kamala is for they/them, Trump is for you,» arguing the message resonated broadly with voters. Evidence for this conclusion remains questionable, but the conventional wisdom among Republicans and some Democrats held that negative depictions of trans people fired up the base.
MAGA officials quickly acted as though the election amounted to a mandate on the issue. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) pushed for a bathroom ban on Capitol Hill targeting the first openly transgender member of Congress, Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE). That policy restricting single-sex facilities remains in place nearly two years later. Mace, whose term ends in January and who lost a primary run for governor in June, has frequently used the slur in public.
In recent weeks, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has eclipsed Mace as the GOP's leading transphobe, according to critics. Hegseth, who banned transgender people from serving in the military shortly after Trump's inauguration, has used the slur at the Iowa State Fair, on the campaign trail in Wisconsin, at a Marine base in Virginia, and elsewhere. His increasingly brazen use of the term as the midterms approach could be interpreted by his followers as an invitation to use it themselves.
For most of modern American history, politicians have followed changes in everyday language rather than leading them. Culture establishes or revokes the viability of certain words, and politicians later discover which once permissible vocabulary has fallen out of favor. The word Trump used was once a reliable punch line on late-night talk shows and in movies, but increased transgender visibility in the 2010s brought broader understanding that the term is dehumanizing. The Cambridge Dictionary now defines it as an extremely offensive word.
The episode highlights a broader trend in which slurs against marginalized groups are increasingly deployed by high-profile political figures without significant consequence. While the White House has defended Trump's remarks about California cities, the lack of widespread condemnation for his use of the anti-trans slur suggests such language may be becoming normalized in political discourse.