Trump Fans Go On Berserk Frenzy As Pronouns Have Big Night On CNN

Tommy ChristopherApr 10th, 2025, 2:57 pm
 

Pro-Trump conservatives worked themselves into a berserk frenzy as pronouns took center stage on CNN in a pair of seemingly small moments.

Many observers — myself included — place a large measure of credit/blame for President Donald Trump’s victory on his relentless campaign of hatred against transgender people. Trans people became a stand-in for anyone who is not white, straight, male, or white-straight-male-adjacent, and Vice President Kamala Harris was posed as someone who stands for them, not us.

The fruits of that campaign played out on CNN Wednesday night when one moment of grace sparked a social media firestorm, and another moment that would once have been jarring seemed all too normal.

First, there was CNN anchor Anderson Cooper getting gently corrected live on the air over the pronouns he used when introducing attorney Grace Thomas during a town hall with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT):

COOPER: I want to introduce Grace Thomas. She’s a local civil rights attorney. She’s a Democrat. Grace?

GRACE THOMAS: They/them pronouns, actually. Thank you.

COOPER: Oh.

THOMAS: Good evening, Senator Sanders.

To many of us, that just seemed like a nice moment in which a trans person quietly and confidently asserted their identity to an accepting high-profile television personality. Grace lived up to their name with that hopefully edifying correction.

But to an online horde of MAGA howler monkeys, it was an event of great import, and they pushed the moment into a top trending topic:

Another outlet headlined it: “Anderson Cooper gets brutal woke fact check live on-air” — even though both of them could not have been nicer.

There are probably some people who don’t understand why pronouns for a trans person are a big enough deal to warrant any correction at all, who aren’t MAGA howler monkeys, but still succumbed to the nagging feeling that Trump was looking out for them more than the Democrats were.

To them, I would say try your best to imagine what it would be like to have something at the very core of your identity. Question, even innocently, 100 times a day every day. If it helps, multiply the feeling you get when someone says “white male fragility” by 100 times a day.

Now imagine how demoralizing it would be to have someone prominent in your community let something like that slide, versus how comforting it would be for that same person to assert their humanity in a persuasive and non-alienating fashion.

Then barely an hour later on Wednesday’s edition of CNN NewsNight, there was pro-Trump CNN analyst Scott Jennings cracking wise about imprisoning people who list their preferred pronouns.

PHILLIP: All right, we got to get to Scott.

JENNINGS: More than 15 seconds at the coffee creamer bar at the coffee shop? Straight to El Salvador.

Two or more walking side by side on a sidewalk? You’re gone, El Salvador. Recline your seat on an airplane? El Salvador. Disney adults, you’re going too.

And finally, pronouns in your e-mail signature. Out of here. Those are my EOs.

Unfortunately, he dropped this turd right at the end of the show so it’s not really fair to judge the other panelists reactions, but there was a time when this sort of thing would’ve seemed shocking. Now, a casual nod to bigotry is as mundane as an observation about that one sock you see on the side of the road.

There’s a good chance that Jennings, if confronted about this joke, would say in his own defense that he wasn’t referring to trans people, but to what he uses as performative signaling of allyship by others. That’s definitely not what he said, but let’s just say for the sake of argument that that’s the shield by which some Trump supporters try to distance themselves from the ranks of howler monkeys.

Here’s what I would say to Scott and anyone else who thought this was hilarious. First of all, disappearing American citizens to foreign prisons is not hilarious. Ordinarily that our observation would be moved because the absurdity of such an idea would be self-evident and therefore part of the joke. But Jennings literally defended that idea two days ago.

Second of all, I can’t speak for everybody, but I have preferred pronouns listed in my Twitter bio, and I have for quite some time. People like Scott would like to send me to prison in El Salvador because they are either hostile to trans people or hostile to people they believe are being “performative” or “virtue signaling” their support of trans people or both.

The latter premise appears to hinge on the relative sincerity of the gesture, although I suspect that’s not really the issue. As the age-old conservative epithet “bleeding heart Liberal” demonstrates, the crime isn’t in demonstrations of care, the crime is caring at all.

It’s possible that some percentage of the people who list pronouns as a demonstration of cisgender allyship are motivated less by sincerity and more by a desire to receive credit for allyship. But I suspect this is a meaningless distinction since I am positive that in most cases, sincerity would engender even greater hatred from these people.

It is also moot because the effect is the same. We do it to normalize caring about this intensely personal expression. We do it to model a good positive behavior to others. We do it so that trans people, especially trans kids who are at much greater risk of self-harm and violence, feel less alone.

The irony here is that if anyone is being performative, I suspect it is Scott Jennings. I suspect he wants to be seen as a good guy, and indeed, at one point, he possessed sufficient character to suggest that Trump needed to resign in disgrace after January 6.

But shilling for Trump has had an effect on him, and turned him into a reliable source of some of the most repugnant quotes on CNN’s air. I would like to think that deep down, he is better than this.

Watch above via CNN.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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