America is built on the promise of liberty and justice for all. But if you deviate from prejudiced standards created by those with enough money and status to avoid the repercussions of their unjust actions, it doesn’t apply.

The conservative community relies on fear of the “other” to function. They need a scapegoat for society’s failure to uphold traditional values, which allows them to justify a lack of empathy for their fellow human beings.

One of the main groups conservatives have chosen as the big bad “other” right now, is the transgender community. The manufactured outrage in the name of protecting women and children is pushing society into an intolerant mess. It riles up the conservative voter base, so they can maintain power.

Trans people, a heavily disadvantaged and marginalized group, have become the Trump supporter’s “boogeyman” responsible for ruining traditional American values. To them, women and children need to be saved from these dangerous ideas at all costs, even if it means they’ll be harmed in the process.

To maximize the efforts to remove protections for trans people in the United States, Trump signed an executive order titled: “Defending women from gender ideology, extremism and restoring biological truth to the Federal Government.” It’s full of unscientific statements, fearmongering and a total lack of empathy for trans individuals.

A big talking point in the document is the safety of women, implying that trans women are all predators out to harm cisgender women. Looking at the statistics, trans women are in more danger of being victims of violence than inflicting it. According to UCLA Williams Insititute of Law, transgender people over 16 are victimized over four times more often than cisgender people.

In the name of protecting them, the anti-trans legislation will prevent women from seeking care at women’s health these clinics as the care they offer at clinics often overlaps with trans healthcare. As these clinics lose their funding, the women who were kept “safe” by this order will be left without vital resources.

The cover-up of cis women’s safety is used to criminalize trans and gender-nonconforming individuals with the underlying message: “The trans community needs to stop existing in the United States.”

Another argument is “biological reality”, which dismisses and warps scientific evidence with definitive language such as: “These sexes [male and female] are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.” There’s no consideration of the complex and ever-changing nature of science and how it relates to the endless ways to experience gender.

The widespread acceptance of closed-minded beliefs when it comes to gender is indicative of a society that is moving backward. There’s a fixation on trivial things, such as trans women simply using the restroom, ignoring the fact that there is no empirical evidence of trans women posing a threat to cis women in restrooms. The sentiment is purely based on a mix of ignorance and hate.

According to the World Population Review, only 0.52% of the adult population identifies as transgender in the United States. The small population size allows conservatives to effectively target the trans community as the “other” responsible for all the problems preventing the existence of a conservative utopia. The place where women stay quietly behaved and no one deviates from repressive ideals.

It’s also more difficult to organize and protest unjust actions on a large scale without substantial support which makes it harder for the trans community to resist the uptick in discrimination from Trump supporters.

Education can play a big role in how people think about marginalized groups. The lack of basic empathy for trans people is difficult to combat but debunking the propaganda being pushed right now can be an important step. Often, simply having a sincere conversation with a trans individual can shift hateful views.

Standing up to injustice requires persistence, but it is necessary and possible because the trans community will always have a place in the U.S.