Trump risks backlash with anti-trans ads targeting Harris

WASHINGTON, United States — Anti-trans ads targeting Kamala Harris are flooding the airwaves in the closing stretch of a nail-biting US election, as Donald Trump seeks to win over undecided voters with a divisive strategy that experts warn could backfire.

The Trump campaign and Republican groups have poured tens of millions of dollars into the inflammatory television ads, which have aired in key battleground states and during nationally-broadcast professional football games that draw a strong viewership.

The advertising blitz -- which rights groups say demonizes an already vulnerable transgender community –- suggests Republicans are banking on "culture war" messaging to move the needle in a US election that is still too close to call.

"Kamala supports taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners," a female narrator says in one of the ads.

"Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you," she adds, referring to the pronouns used by some transgender and non-binary people.

The ad ends with Trump's voice, asserting that he "approves this message."

"What is most alarming is the size and scope of these ad campaigns -- comprising some of the GOP's largest TV ad investment," Imara Jones, chief executive of the nonprofit TransLash Media, told AFP.

"These ads, mostly focused on the healthcare needs of trans inmates, are designed to trigger deep fear" among voters, added Jones, who is herself a Black trans woman.

Over the first half of October, the Trump campaign and its allies spent $21 million on ads attacking Harris over "LGBTQ rights," CNN reported, citing data from the media tracking agency AdImpact.

That is nearly one-third of their total spending on broadcast TV ads in that period, AdImpact said.

Nearly all the ads featured clips of Harris from four years ago expressing her support for gender-affirming care for federal prisoners and detained immigrants.

Lost in the discourse is former president Trump's own record –- officials under his administration also offered some inmates an array of gender-affirming treatments, according to US media.

Earlier this month, a Gallup survey of registered voters found that 38 percent of Americans said a candidate's position on