Christian Nationalists Claim Ownership of Easter’s Month of Sundays
Wall-to-wall coverage of the convergence of Trans Day of Visibility sends an authoritarian message that dissenters to Christian nationalist totalitarianism will not be tolerated.
Opinion, by Evan Urquhart
A week ago, when Assigned Media first covered the conservative outrage over Transgender Day of Visibility (March 31st) falling on Easter Sunday this year, it was as a fluffy bit of conservative nonsense. We cover these goofy conservative excesses all the time as a diversion, a way to cheerify trans news and lighten up our coverage to make sure it isn’t all gloom-and-doom-y.
That was then. What began with a tweet from a far-right social media personality floating the conspiracy theory that trans people were attempting to replace Easter became an all-consuming right-wing obsession after President Joe Biden recognized TDOV as March 31st, something he’s done every year. Conservatives threw such a long and protracted hissy fit in response that the following paragraph chock full of links to right wing coverage can barely even scratch the surface of their howling.
The TDOV/Easter convergency prompted hysteria-tinged coverage in Fox News (many times over), in the Federalist (at least twice), in the Daily Wire (which also ran opinion columns railing against this by both Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro). It was also covered in the Daily Caller, and many other members of the international right-wing outrage-tainment ecosphere.
The tenor of all this coverage has come to rival last spring’s controversy over a trans woman doing a sponsorship with Bud Light. Both the ubiquity and the frothing rage at trans people for existing is similar, as is the total lack of substance. Lest we forget, TDOV has been on March 31st since it began, fifteen years ago. It has coincided with Easter previously. Easter is a moving holiday pegged to the phases of the moon, which means it will inevitably coincide with other significant dates in early springtime. This is nothing.
Biden, a practicing Catholic, has thoroughly celebrated the Christian holy day. He went to Mass on Saturday, celebrated with his grandchildren at Camp David on Sunday, and presided over the annual Easter Egg Roll with 40,000 people in attendance at the White House on Monday. He also issued a statement on Friday recognizing Trans Day of Visibility, on Friday. There was no conflict with that statement and Easter, no possibility of TDOV overshadowing Easter, no disrespect of Easter or replacement of Easter with TDOV.
The only people who have sought to make Easter about the trans community are conservatives, who are on week two of this non-story.
As with so much of right-wing outrage, the substance of their outrage is completely beside the point. There is no substance. The point, instead, is a raw exercise of the right’s cultural power to terrorize a minority for existing, as part of an ongoing attempt to drive trans people out of public life. The Christian nationalism that is currently driving the Republican party has claimed total ownership of the country, its people. They claim ownership of every day Easter could fall on, and of every other day on the calendar.
It’s not enough for the US president to celebrate Easter on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, because trans people exist. Christian nationalists have been saying, loudly and clearly, that this is the problem.
None of this is new. We’ve been living in this environment of foaming-at-the-mouth hatred for trans people for years now. However, it becomes particularly clear at times like this, when the entire right-wing media melt down over a manufactured scandal that is, in it’s heart, about trans people’s continued existence. The right have noticed that trans people exist.
The right is saying with one voice that they have noticed we exist. They do not like it, and will not tolerate it. That’s it. That’s the controversy. Everything else is an illusion.
Evan Urquhart is the founder of Assigned Media and an incoming member of the 2024-2025 Knight Science Journalism fellowship class at MIT.