A coordinated campaign by U.S. House members is the latest sign Democrats are shaking off Donald Trumps anti-trans shock-and-awe strategy and going on offense for transgender Americans.On Tuesday, 213 House Democrats signed a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) demanding he condemn Republican lawmakers for repeatedly using demonizing and dehumanizing language directed at the transgender community. Related Nancy Mace is now just shouting slurs in a committee hearing The first signature on the letter is Rep. Sarah McBrides (D-DE), the sole out transgender member of Congress.The call to action follows 130 Democrats in Congress filing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court on Monday in two cases considering bans on trans student-athletes. In the brief, out Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) and colleagues highlighted how categorical trans sports bans harm ALL girls, urging the court to let kids play. Insights for the LGBTQ+ community Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more. Subscribe to our Newsletter today Tuesdays letter to Johnson expresses Democrats outrage at the epidemic of slurs denigrating trans people made by multiple House members during this legislative session.We write to you to strongly condemn the rise in anti-transgender rhetoric, including from members of Congress, and to urge you to ensure members of Congress are following rules of decorum and not using their platforms to demonize and scapegoat any marginalized community, including the transgender community, the letter states.The Democrats expressed dismay that repeated violations of decorum havent been addressed by presiding officers, the House chair, or speaker pro tempore as they occurred.Democratic lawmakers including all 12 out LGBTQ+ members of the House and the entire Democratic leadership cited a dramatic escalation in rhetoric demonizing and dehumanizing the transgender community, including calls by members of Congress to institutionalize all transgender people, comments referring to transgender people as mentally ill, and false suggestions by high level political figures that transgender people are inherently violent and must be addressed as a national security threat. The letter did not mention the perpetrators by name, but those members and others expressing public antipathy toward the trans community on and off the House floor and in committee hearings are well known.They include Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who embarked on ascorched-earth campaign against McBride as soon as she was elected, including hundreds of social media posts attacking her. Last November she referred to McBride as an it and campaigned relentlessly to have her barred from womens restrooms in the Capitol.At a USAID hearing in February, Mace asked of a witness about a foreign aid initiative, Does this advance the interests of American citizens, paying for tr***ies in Guatemala to the tune of $2 million? A Democratic colleague objected.The gentlelady has used a phrase that is considered a slur in the LGBTQ community and the transgender community, said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA). He asked to finish without interruption, but Mace interrupted him.Tr***y! Tr***y! Tr***y! she barked at him. I dont really care! You want penises in womens bathrooms and Im not gonna have it!Adding to her reputation for flouting any sense of decorum, in or out of the Capitol building, Mace falsely referred to Charlie Kirks killer as a tr***y on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in September, adding, There are a lot of tr***ies out there that want me dead because Im a rape victim who wants privacy in the bathroom. Mace also freely invoked the word c*nt as the radical lefts favored pejorative for her.They are the most egregious, most vile, violent people on earth, she said of transgender people, repeatingbaseless right-wing claims. They are mentally ill and should be in a straitjacket with a hard-steel lock on it.Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) went after McBride in January, calling her a groomer and a child predator while sharing McBrides deadname on social media, part of a long campaign denigrating trans people as a centerpiece of her MAGA appeal. No doctor, body mutilation, or lifetime of pharmaceutical drugs will ever change your sex/gender. Congressman [deadname] McBride is a child predator and LIAR, Greene wrote.In May, Greene opened her hearing as chair of the DOGE House Oversight Subcommittee by declaring that female athletes should never be forced to compete against mentally ill biological men who parade around in womens clothes.Ahead of a hearing she held in March on defunding PBS and NPR, Greene accused the public broadcasting networks of transing children.They are now part of transing children, brainwashing children about gender, which proved to be one of the most important issues in the 2024 presidential election. That was a big loser for Democrats, she claimed.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.