President Trump’s transgender moral panic

Christopher Pepin-Neff and Aaron Cohen

Policy Studies, 2021, vol. 42, issue 5-6, 646-661

Abstract: This article argues that former President Donald Trump acted as a moral entrepreneur when he created a moral panic by sending tweets that established a new national policy that negatively affected transgender Americans. The statement was that transgender Americans could not serve the US military in any valid capacity. The implication of the demonization was a moral panic predicated on the belief that transgender citizens were a burden to the American people, that they were invalid Americans. The policy tool used to facilitate the moral panic was Twitter, which was used to transmit his concerns to the broader public. The moral panic is a legacy of the Trump presidency for the way it sent a message that trans citizens were “others” and validated right-wing arguments against trans people in society. To reach this analysis, this article addresses the theory of moral panics within the context of the policy studies literature, including moral entrepreneurship, policy issues, and policy tools.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1080/01442872.2021.1952971

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