Intentional Insights

Trumps Transgender Gaslighting

President Donald Trump signed a directive on Friday August 25 following up on his earlier tweets
that 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 Trumps 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 doesnt 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.

Trumps 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 Trumps gaslighting. The issue they face is
whether to address the blatant lies coming from the White House about the decree, or emphasize
fighting Trumps 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 Trumps
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
didnt get any sun today. When Christies spokesperson was shown the pictures, the spokesperson
responded He did not get any sun. He had a baseball hat on.

Christies 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.