Three types of misinformation are being used against transgender people: oversimplifying scientific knowledge, fabricating and misinterpreting research and promoting false equivalences.

In 2023 alone, more than 500 anti-trans bills were proposed or adopted in nearly every state in the United States, targeting everything from drag performances to gender-affirming medical care to school inclusion policies for trans people. Support for these measures has been enabled and propelled by scientific misinformation, which has proven to be a distressingly effective tool in outraging a public that might otherwise be broadly empathetic, or at least uncertain about where to stand. In the following Q&A, law professor Florence Ashley and scientist Simón(e) Sun describe to OpenMind co-editor Corey S. Powell how deceptions in science have been used to disenfranchise trans people and other marginalized groups. (This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.)

Anti-trans sentiment has existed for a long time, but it seems like we're at a moment of particularly intense attacks. Why is that?

Florence Ashley: It’s definitely been getting worse. A lot of people who have been out since the '70s and '80s are saying that this is an unprecedented level of public hate. Even if there's been progress around rights for a lot of people, there's a whole lot more hostility. I am located in Canada, where we're starting to have anti-trans bills that would have been mostly unheard of just five years ago. In the U.S., the fact that the courts are so stacked by Trump appointees at the federal level has been particularly daunting. We are seeing alliances between the anti-reproductive justice and anti-trans movements, which is really concerning.