Why is the right so obsessed with trans people?

By Jackie Turner

Trans Justice Project founder Jackie Turner on why the trans community needs our solidarity this Mardi Gras - and beyond.

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Photo by Karollyne Videira Hubert on Unsplash

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People often ask me, ‘why are trans people under attack right now?’ How has a community that most people didn’t even know existed ten years ago suddenly become a flash point for conservative groups around the world? The thing that I need you to understand is that this has nothing to do with trans people, and everything to do with fascism.

Last year felt like a tipping point, with anti-trans campaigns in Australia suddenly gaining real government backing. In 2025 both Queensland and the Northern Territory governments stripped away young people’s access to gender-affirming care. This is life-changing and life-saving health care that helps trans young people have the freedom to be themselves, can allow them to delay the changes of puberty, and ensure that they go through the changes that are right for them.

The Northern Territory government also took the horrific stance of forcing trans women and Sistergirls* into men’s prisons. Prison is an incredibly dangerous place for anyone, but even more so for trans and gender diverse people who face endemic sexual violence, difficulty accessing health care, and very little access to gender-affirming products. Even when we are housed in women’s prisons, trans women are often forced to endure months of solitary confinement - something human rights groups consider a form of torture.

Of course, these attacks didn’t start in Australia. They started with Trump, the right wing think tanks that put him in power, and the global far-right.

How did we get here?

The messaging and strategies used by anti-trans groups globally were developed in the US groups like the Heritage Foundation (one of the key architects of Project 2025). These organisations have spent billions developing leaders, testing messaging, and fine tuning their anti-trans strategies. Since at least the mid 2010’s, anti-trans groups have been working to export these strategies to allied organisations in countries like Canada, UK, and Australia.

Their work has now built a globally connected anti-trans lobby which works collaboratively to spread disinformation, fuel hate, and push back against trans people’s right to exist. It is a broad alliance of the far-right, christian extremists, conspiracy groups, gender essentialists, and medical disinformation organisations.

The anti-trans lobby have also managed to recruit and nurture a number of groups with a progressive veneer to help bolster their cause, create confusion, and divide the traditional base of the LGBTQIA+ movement.

For example, a number of TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist) organisations now partner with far-right groups on anti-trans campaigns, such as the US-based Women’s Liberation Front who have received funding from the Christian nationalist group the Alliance Defending Freedom. Despite calling themselves women’s rights organisations, they are working hand-in-hand with the people who campaigned for Trump and helped to repeal reproductive rights in the US.

In Australia, christian conservatives like the Australian Christian Lobby, work in solidarity with a number of groups that present themselves as women’s rights groups.

But why is the right campaigning so hard on trans people?

Groups like the Heritage Foundation hope that by attacking the rights of trans people they can create the precedents, and build the public support they need, to attack the rights of the broader LGBTQIA+ community, and then the rights of cis* women too .The right-wing calls this a ‘slippery-slope’ issue. They want to recruit you into campaigns against trans rights so that you will help them to build the power they need to strip away your rights as well. It’s a strategy to literally turn back the clock on gender equality.

This is why solidarity with the trans community is so important this Mardi Gras season, because these attacks impact all of us. Whether our opponents are attacking First Nations Treaty processes, access to abortion, the rights of refugees, migrants, and people seeking asylum, or trans health care, the strategy is the same. They want to divide us to destroy the power we have when we work together.

Last year we saw a huge outpouring of support and solidarity with thousands of people taking action in campaigns for trans justice for the very first time. Together we raised tens of thousands of dollars for young people to access health care in Queensland through the private system and organised some of the biggest rallies for trans justice in Australia’s history. We need to keep building this momentum.

However, with One Nation rising in the polls, the collapse of the ‘centre-right’, and new opposition leader Angus Taylor already signalling that he will pursue a more far-right agenda, we have a tough road ahead. We need allies and everyday people across this continent to be standing with us and taking action to stop this political scapegoating from taking hold. That means learning more about our community, volunteering, coming to our protests, donating to our organizations, writing to your local Members of Parliament, and helping to organise events in your community or workplace.

There is no need to wait for an invitation.

I know there can be fear about finding the right words – and that is important – but I have always believed it is more important to speak up and show up, than it is to be perfect.

One of the most important things that people can do right now is talk to others in their families and communities. Our opponents exploit our toxic and fractured information system to spread lies about who we are. The fact is that most people know very little about the trans community outside of the headlines they see online.

Allies are in a prime position to have those hard conversations and help people to understand what it means to be trans, why solidarity matters, and why the anti-trans lobby can’t be trusted.

*A First Nations term for gender-diverse people who have a female spirit and take on female roles.
** Cis is a term for someone who is not trans

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About the author

Jackie Turner (she/her)

Jackie is passionate about community power, developing the leadership of trans and gender diverse people, and building movements that can win.

She is the Director and Founder of the Trans Justice Project, the first trans-led national campaigning organisation. Over the last 10 years as an organiser and campaigner she has led national mobilisations, trained and mentored hundreds of volunteers, and run campaigns across movements for climate and economic justice. She is working towards a future where all trans and gender diverse people are safe, celebrated, and free. You can find more of her work on Instagram, at @jackiemaeturner and @transjusticeau.