Why some transgender conservatives still back the GOP despite Trump-era attacks

A new report examines a small but visible group of transgender Americans who continue to identify as conservative, Republican or independent even as the GOP has escalated its anti-trans rhetoric and policy agenda.

Among them is Sandra Kaye, a Texas woman who spent 82 years hiding her trans identity before coming out last year. Kaye, a lifelong Republican, said a left-leaning friend once pressed her on how she could be both trans and a Republican, a question that left her unsettled. Since then, she says, she has shifted closer to the center and now describes herself as an independent, though she still voted in Texas’ Republican primary on March 3.

The report cites a 2022 survey by KFF and The Washington Post showing that 10% of trans U.S. adults identify as Republican. It also points to the Republican Party’s growing anti-trans messaging, including more than $215 million spent on anti-trans ads during the 2024 presidential election and a series of actions under President Trump that erased federal recognition of transgender identities and pledged to crack down on “radically pro-transgender” extremists.

Kaye said she sees the hostility as tied more to Trump than to conservatism itself. “I don’t think the Republican Party itself is anti-trans,” she said. “I think the anti-trans comes from Donny Boy.”

Another trans conservative featured in the report is Kamryn Wilson, a 25-year-old trans woman in Iowa and a member of Young America’s Foundation, a group that promotes conservative ideas on college campuses. Wilson argued that anti-trans sentiment is not central to Republican ideology and said criticism of Trump’s impact on trans rights is overstated.

Wilson said, “The conservative party is not a party that is designed to hate trans people.” She added that she believes the president is mainly targeting “a subset of the trans community” on the far left.

Still, the administration has enacted multiple anti-trans measures, including a ban on trans and nonbinary people serving in the military, the removal of the T from LGBT on government websites and restrictions on passports that list the correct gender marker.

Despite that record, Wilson said she has not personally experienced major harm. “Nothing of note has really happened to my rights,” she said.

The report also describes how both Kaye and Wilson see gun ownership as a core conservative value. Kaye, a former firearms instructor, said she believes strongly in the Second Amendment. Wilson said firearms are essential for Americans to check government power.

In April, the Trump administration proposed a rule that would make it harder for trans people to access guns by requiring them to list their assigned sex at birth on purchase paperwork. An earlier version of the rule, opposed publicly by the National Rifle Association, would have classified trans people as mentally ill and barred them from owning guns.

Barbara Minney, a 73-year-old trans woman in Ohio, also appears in the report. She describes herself as a “conservative/moderate/common-sense transsexual woman” and said she has remained wary of both Democrats and Trump. Minney voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, but did not vote in 2024 because of pressure she felt from Democrats in her life.

Minney said she might have backed Trump again because of his immigration stance. She also said she dislikes the administration’s anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, even while noting that Trump has LGBTQ people in his cabinet.

The article also highlights tension inside the broader trans community over how to define womanhood, bathroom access and gender-affirming care. Minney said she sees herself as different from cisgender women and believes some women-only spaces should be preserved. Wilson said trans people should use bathrooms aligned with their gender, but only once they “pass,” a view that drew criticism from Alaina Kupec, a former Republican and the current leader of Gender Research Advisory Council + Education.

Kupec argued that the issue is too subjective for rigid rules and said regulation would run against small-government conservatism. She also said conservative politics have pushed many trans people away from the GOP because of mounting hostility toward their rights.

Wilson said she faces backlash from LGBTQ+ spaces “all the time, literally every single day,” including being banned from online communities after discussing her politics. Minney said she rarely speaks openly about her views in queer spaces after being called names when she did.

Kupec said some trans conservatives may simply be keeping quiet, but she added that many have left the party because it no longer reflects their values. “I am an independent who used to be a Republican until Republicans went away from their true conservative values,” she said.

The report suggests that for these trans conservatives, distrust of the left, gun rights and long-held political identity can outweigh the Republican Party’s escalating attacks on their own community.