Nicki Minaj’s recent public support for Donald Trump and her transphobic comments speak to how transphobia has become a powerful uniting force for the right-wing.
There are several checkpoints on the way to becoming a MAGA princess, and Nicki Minaj seems to have made it her personal mission to reach them all. I’m speaking, of course, about Minaj’s recent interview with Erika Kirk (the widow of assassinated right-wing figure, Charlie Kirk), her public affection for Donald Trump, and her bizarre series of X posts criticising Governor of California Gavin Newsom’s comments in support of trans youth.
Minaj’s right-wing turn is shocking but not surprising. She has had a career that could arguably be characterised by many mixed signals politically, and the denial of trans people’s rights and autonomy is one of the key issues the American right-wing continues to push.
These sentiments and their consequences are by no means limited to the United States. In January 2025, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order that halted all US foreign aid. This decision compromised thousands of people’s access to HIV treatment and gender-affirming healthcare here in South Africa and beyond.
I remember being introduced to Nicki Minaj through MP3 files of Beez in the Trap and Moment for Life that had been compressed and forwarded a million times on my primary school WhatsApp groups in the early 2010s. Her music has soundtracked my life, and I’m not alone in that experience. Minaj is known for her large LGBTQ+ fanbase and has previously identified with and shown support for the community.
Understandably, many fans feel betrayed by her recent remarks, but Minaj’s comments are indicative of more than just a personal change of heart. They reflect a broader, disturbing trend of transphobia becoming the issue that attracts even unlikely supporters to right-wing political movements. How did we get here? How is transphobia being leveraged to further broader political agendas, and what does it mean for someone like Nicki Minaj to be embraced by the likes of Erika Kirk for her transphobic views?
“Imagine being the guy running on wanting to see trans kids.”
On the 10th of December, 2025, Gavin Newsom appeared on The Ezra Klein Show. When asked about his previous misinformed comments on trans athletes, Newsom replied, “I want to see trans kids. I have a trans godson. There’s no governor that signed more pro-trans legislation than I have, and no one’s been a stronger advocate for the LGBTQ [community].”
In response to this interview clip, Minaj posted on X, “Imagine being the guy running on wanting to see trans kids. Haha. Not even a trans ADULT would run on that. Normal adults wake up & think they want to see HEALTHY, SAFE, HAPPY kids.” Her comments received backlash, including from trans pop singer and previous collaborator Kim Petras, who aptly replied to the post, “trans kids r healthy btw.”
Despite previously critiquing Donald Trump, particularly for his policies regarding immigration from her standpoint as a Trinidadian immigrant to the US, Minaj has a history of appealing to right-wing sensibilities. This includes anti-vaccine sentiment at the peak of the COVID-19 lockdown, and expressing her gratitude to the Trump administration for using her music in their promotional material.
Transphobia – A Uniting Force for the Right-Wing
The denial of trans rights is one of the key campaign points of the American right-wing, and when America sneezes, everyone catches a cold. Over the past decade, explicit anti-trans sentiment has become popular with many regressive political movements globally because transness threatens the rigid, outdated and colonial ideas of gender they often promote.
This transphobia’s impact is two-fold: politicians directly threaten the rights and dignity of trans people while simultaneously creating an image of trans people as a menace that can be used to pander to the (overwhelmingly cisgender) public for votes.
Because transphobia has become a key feature of right-wing politics, these movements offer approval and praise to public figures who express transphobic views, even if they hold other progressive stances, and in doing so create a wider audience to reach with their right-wing views.
A good example of this is Harry Potter author JK Rowling, someone who has historically voiced support for the UK’s left-leaning Labour Party but gained much media attention in the 2010s and 2020s for her numerous transphobic views, including denying that the Nazis persecuted trans and gender non-conforming people. Conservative media outlets, like The Dailywire and Breitbart, have both reported positively on Rowling.
Between the transphobia on X and the interview with Erika Kirk, Nicki Minaj has unfortunately become a similar case study.
The Betrayal and Paradox of Nicki Minaj’s Transphobia
It’s strange as a longtime fan of Minaj to watch her political views shift so drastically over her career, but it is equally strange to watch the shift in how she is perceived by American right-wing media and political figures.
Cast your mind back to 2014; Minaj’s single Anaconda was topping the charts and causing controversy. The song and its accompanying music video sparked endless public debates and moral panic, driven primarily by right-wing-leaning media outlets, about how Minaj’s unapologetic show of sexuality was going to encourage hypersexuality in young girls.
The crowd that is now embracing Minaj is the same crowd that would have dehumanised her for her confident sexuality or status as an immigrant a little over a decade ago. This fact seems to go over both parties’ heads.
Pop culture and political movements have never been separate, but in a time where a reality TV star is serving a second term as US president and people are turning to celebrities and influencers for news and political views, the stances of the musicians we hold near and dear matter more than ever. We as queer people, and especially as trans people, deserve musicians who will not push us aside when allyship demands effort.
