Trans People Saw the Nancy Mace Crack-Up Coming Long, Long Ago

Former Major League Baseball player Kurt Schilling was fired from ESPN for making anti-transgender comments in 2016. At the time there was some criticism about “cancel culture.” However, Schilling went on to make comments so racist that even Breitbart fired him. Schilling had previously compared Muslims to Nazis. Later, he went on to make statements that appeared to endorse lynching journalists and expressed support for the insurrectionists of January 6. Then, in September 2023, Schilling reposted an antisemitic tweet that referenced the “Jewish Question” and “Jews in leading roles.”

Elon Musk has gone down a similar path of quirky-but-admired techno-bro weirdo to the world’s richest person, who is obsessed with eradicating people who have zero effect on his day-to-day life. His obsession with trans people started around 2020, when he tweeted, “Pronouns suck.” Following backlash, he addressed the issue, claiming to support trans people while calling pronouns an “aesthetic nightmare.”

After his daughter, who is transgender, legally changed her name and severed ties with him in 2022, Musk increased his anti-trans rhetoric. This included declaring cisgender a slur in June 2023. By 2024, he was openly declaring that “the woke mind virus killed my son” and “the woke mind virus must die” and blamed his child’s transition for his push into conservative politics. During the 2024 presidential election, he was the funding source behind much of the $220 million worth of attack ads aimed at transgender people.