Donald Trump and J.D. Vance Can’t Take Being Called “Weird” For a Week. Try Being Trans

As a trans woman, I’ve been called “weird” for over a decade. Apparently, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance can’t even handle it for one week.

Reacting to the Democratic attack line that quickly emerged Vice President Kamala Harris’ unexpected 2024 campaign for the presidency, Trump went on one of the most “I’m not mad, please don’t put in the newspaper that I got mad” rants of all time this week.

“Well, they’re the weird ones,” the former president insisted Thursday on a conservative talk radio show. “And if you’ve ever seen her, with the laugh, and everything else, that’s a weird deal going on there. They’re the weird ones. Nobody’s ever called me weird. I’m a lot of things, but weird I’m not… And he’s not either, I will tell you. J.D. is not at all. They are.”

“We’re actually just the opposite,” he said, after a string of complaints about the media covering the talking point. “We’re right down the middle.”

What’s so funny about the clip is you can tell that the simple insult has really gotten under his skin. Like, this man is awake at night thinking about how it’s totally normal to be a Filet-O-Fish-obsessed Andrew Lloyd Webber fan who dances to the Village People at Republican campaign rallies. That’s definitely down the middle. Real average American, Joe Schmo stuff right there!

But what’s especially amusing to me is how quickly Trump is crumpling under Harris calling him and his policies “just plain weird,” because I’ve been on the receiving end of odd looks, outright insults, and uncomfortable stares for the better part of my adult life. When I transitioned in Georgia in the 2010s, I went from being perceived as a white man to being some kind of incomprehensible social aberration basically overnight. Let’s just say I had to learn how to be the “weird” one in the room real fast. I was the tall creature in a cheap wig taking a new photo at the DMV. I was the strange-looking person at the doctor’s office. On a daily basis, I fielded a mix of uncomfortable stares, leering looks, and invasive questions. Hell, even the pharmacist who sold me my estrogen laughed in my face once.

For years, people were able to get away with just pointing at me as proof that I was patently ridiculous. And now, after a decade of exhausting culture war nonsense, the tables are beginning to turn. The American political center is finally recognizing that actual weirdness is being obsessed with other people’s choices around gender, sexuality, and reproduction — and they’re saying so out loud on cable news. As well they should! I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time.

J.D. Vance Told His Former Trans Friend “I Hate the Police”

In emails published by the New York Times, Trump’s VP pick espouses decidedly un-MAGA politics.

If being a cis straight white person with a house, a dog, and two kids is so soul-fulfillingly awesome, then why are so many Republican voters spending their one wild and precious life posting anti-trans memes on the internet? Why would J.D. Vance feel the need to acknowledge in the face of white supremacist attacks that his wife is “obviously … not a white person” and then add a “but I just love Usha” to that statement? And why would Trump’s completely normal V.P. pick turn his back on his trans friend and his former political beliefs to cater to the very people who would attack someone like his wife? It doesn’t really add up! It’s almost like vocally anti-trans, anti-woman politicians have an abyss of meaning in their own personal lives that they have to fill up with hatred, but no matter how much they pour into it, it’s never going to be enough so they have to keep seeking more political power as a salve for their own insecurities. (Just a theory! I haven’t spent a decade trying to understand why bigots are fixated on queer people or anything!)

I have drifted a bit back more toward being perceived as “normal” over the years thanks to a mix of rising cultural acceptance and the physical effects of transitioning. But I’m still a tall lady who probably gets regularly clocked as trans, and I still have to wear psychological armor in public a full twelve years after popping my first estrogen pill. If being seen as “weird” were a dealbreaker, I never would have gotten this far. And now? I honestly don’t even think about it much anymore. I just let the stares bounce off me when they come my way.

The secret to staying cool while being strange, it turns out, is that you have to actually like who you are. I suspect Donald Trump and J.D. Vance might have a little trouble in that department. They’re both going to need some thicker skin if they want to get through 100 days of being called “weird.” In fact, they could learn a lot from the people they attack.

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