Trump’s Transgender Gaslighting

President Donald Trump signed a directive on Friday August 25 following up on his earlier
tweetsthat he “will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S.
Military.” Whatever you think about the decree, the spin from the Trump administration about it
amounts to gaslighting of the transgender community.

Consider the terms of this order. It prevents any new openly transgender recruits from joining the
armed forces. It also order the military to evaluate the status of currently-serving transgender soldiers
and potentially get rid of them as well in line with Trump’s original tweet. Transgender troops
decried the order, saying it will create “complete inequality,” in the words of one. The director of the
LGBTQ advocacy group Palm Center said that Trump is “pull[ing] the rug out from under a group of
service members who have been defending our country.”

By contrast, the leader of the conservative Family Research Council praised Trump, stating that
“political correctness doesn’t win wars – and the president is ending policies that pretends it does.”
Of course, the same statements could be made – and were made – about allowing women to serve in
the military.
Any reasonable person can see that the decree blatantly discriminates against transgender individuals,
meaning treating them differently and worse than others. Yet the Trump administration explicitly
denied this reality. According to the official briefing the press on the directive, it did not represent in
any way discrimination against transgender individuals. The official stated that Trump will “continue
to ensure that the rights of the LGBTQ community” are protected, and is not going back on his
campaign promise in 2016 to “fight for” that community.

Why make statements that are so clearly false? There is no doubt that the directive discriminates
against transgender people. So what explains the blatant lies?

This type of deception falls into the category of gaslighting, a psychological manipulation that aims
to create doubt about the nature of reality. Often occurring in abusive relationships, gaslighting is so
harmful that victims often report that the impact of this manipulation is worse than the original
offense. It can make you doubt your reality, grow confused, vulnerable, and uncertain, and thus fail
to fend off the manipulations of the perpetrator and even fall into accepting their reality, known as
the gaslight effect.

Trump’s administration has used gaslighting extensively as a psychological weapon. Denying reality
creates confusion and uncertainty, a highly useful outcome since the victims of the gaslighting are
unsure about what to do next. Should they expend their resources demonstrating the obvious truth of
reality, or should they focus on addressing the problem at hand?

In this case, the transgender community is the target of Trump’s gaslighting. The issue they face is
whether to address the blatant lies coming from the White House about the decree, or emphasize
fighting Trump’s discriminatory actions.

The solution is to make the gaslighting tactic itself unacceptable. Political and social science
research shows that trust is vital for healthy democracies. Citizens in a democracy have a basic
expectation of their public officials being trustworthy, in their words and actions. In return, citizens
comply with laws, pay taxes, and cooperate with other government initiatives. By comparison to a
democracy, an autocratic state bears a much higher resource burden of policing to make its citizens
comply with its laws. When political leaders act in ways that destroy trust – as the Trump
administration is doing through misleading statements and outright lies – people will increasingly
stop complying with laws and paying taxes.

While Trump is making short-term gains for conservatives, he is undermining the stability of our
political system as a whole. No one – neither liberals nor conservatives – want the chaos and disorder
that would result from the destruction of trust. All can recognize the terrible dangers posed by such
denial of reality to our democracy.

Even worse, other politicians, such as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, are adopting Trump’s
tactics. For instance, Christie ordered a number of state-run beaches in New Jersey closed on Friday,
June 30, 2017, yet he used a closed state beach in Island Beach State Park for himself and his family
on July 2, 2017. At a press conference later that same day, he was asked about being on the beach
during the time of the beach shut-down order. In a classic example of gaslighting, Christie said “”I
didn’t get any sun today.” When Christie’s spokesperson was shown the pictures, the spokesperson
responded “He did not get any sun. He had a baseball hat on.”

Christie’s use of gaslighting to justify corruption and abuse of power points to the normalization of
gaslighting within our political system. Only by coming together in a nonpartisan manner to call out
such lies and commit to truth can we hope to make gaslighting unacceptable and preserve our
democracy.