The GOP is not protecting children from anything. It never has done. The GOP is protecting itself by directing the rage and wrath of its base away from its own incompetence and malevolence so that its base doesn’t see it for what it is: a collection of billionaires and billionaire quislings worsening the conditions for non-billionaires at an accelerating pace.

Trans is just the latest in a long series of distractions that the conservative base keeps stupidly falling for. (My introduction to their bullshit was the crusade against Dungeons & Dragons and the closely-related Satanic Panic. Ever notice how both those aren’t things anymore? Did they really protect children against the harms of D&D given that D&D’s current edition is the best-selling version of that game in history? No, because it was never about protecting children.)