Former GOP Executive Director Says Transgender People Belong “In A Camp”

Earlier this year, Jessica Blankenship, one of my favorite Thought Catalog writers, wrote an article called, “Need Someone To Hate Today? Meet Todd Kincannon”.

In the article, Blankenship cites a number of incendiary tweets and statements by Kincannon, the former executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party. Earlier this year, Kincannon wrote that “Trayvon Martin was a dangerous thug who needed to be put down like a rabid dog,” that the Super Bowl “sucks more dick than adult Trayvon Martin would have for drug money.” He then followed this up by claiming that he’s “not really a racist.” Sure thing, buddy. Whatever you say.

He’s also sounded off on Hurricane Katrina victims and once told a veteran of the Iraq War that he wishes the soldier would have “come home in a body bag.” (Support the troops, amirite!?)

Last night, he decided to tear into transgender people, going so far as to say that they should be put into concentration camps. He referred to fellow Thought Catalog contributor Kat Haché as a “goddamn he-she.”

After demanding to see Haché’s genitals in a since-deleted tweet (for someone who has gotten himself caught up in a few sexting scandals over the years, you’d think he’d avoid language like that), Haché called him a “rapey creep.” His response? Call her a “cunt.”

It would be one thing for a random nobody (like me) to troll a group of people like that, but this is a man who is the former executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party. This is the state that brought us Jim DeMint, Joe “You Lie!” Wilson, and Mark “Hiking the Appalachian Trail” Sanford. This is a man that once led the same party that has instilled the following language in his state’s own platform:

“We affirm the wonderful differences with which each gender is created and oppose efforts to blur or disregard the uniqueness of male and female genders. Furthermore, we affirm that one’s gender is fixed at birth and that no citizen should be entitled to special treatment or accorded any special benefits not afforded to others of the same birth gender regardless of how they have altered their anatomy or appearance. We oppose federal, state, county, or municipal laws, regulations or ordinances that require a person to be granted special rights or protections based on his or her “perceived” gender identity.”

To be clear, this means that they oppose including transgender protections in hate crime legislation; they oppose protections that would limit employment, housing, and medical discrimination against transgender individuals. Todd Kincannon isn’t some sort of aberration of GOP, but rather, he’s the embodiment of their attitudes towards race and gender.