Social media users sick of the right-wing war on transgender people are putting up a token display of resistance by jokingly deadnaming the Gulf of Mexico aka “Gulf of America.”
What is the Gulf of America?
One of Donald Trump’s priorities on his first day back in office was to use his executive powers to rename the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America.”
Of course, he can’t just force the entire world to call a body of water whatever he wants them to, and the order ultimately only applies to the U.S. federal government. But some companies, such as Google and Apple, quickly caved. For users located in the U.S., the body of water is now labeled “Gulf of America” on Google and Apple Maps. For everyone else, it says “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America).”
The fact google maps is like this in Canada is so humiliating pic.twitter.com/P0zY3O3ANT
— Liv (@Liv_Agar) February 11, 2025
Calling out hypocrisy
As utterly inane as this whole situation is, there’s also something deeply amusing about MAGA loyalists jumping to follow their leader and embrace this change. Namely, the part where their obsession in recent years has been screaming out their refusal to call trans people by their chosen names.
“if you immediately started calling the gulf of mexico the ‘gulf of america’ because someone told you it was it’s new name, YOU ARE VERY CAPABLE OF RESPECTING TRANS PEOPLE’S NAMES & PRONOUNS,” @beefcakeink wrote on X (you know, the platform we all called Twitter before Elon Musk renamed that, too).
The obvious comparison left a lot of people on social media saying the exact same thing and pointing out the goofy hypocrisy at play here.
‘Deadnaming’ the Gulf of America
Even gender essentialists who insist on drawing unscientific lines in the sand about what defines a man vs a woman are capable of calling a person by their preferred name. And that isn’t news—nicknames and name changes that have nothing to do with gender identity have always been a thing. But transphobes specifically insist on deadnaming trans people out of spite, something yet again made clear in this scenario.
And if that’s how they would like to act when it comes to actual human beings, everyone else has no problem applying their logic to the things their beloved leader and his allies want to see renamed.
The only good deadnaming will be deadnaming X and the Gulf of America https://t.co/hfYXzatrVT pic.twitter.com/YajT1gxaCY
— 679 Enthusiast (@marionumber4) January 7, 2025
Of course, conservatives also tried to flip this around on supporters of trans rights.
“Stop deadnaming the Gulf of America,” Rep. Mike Collins posted to X on Wednesday as MAGA cheered him on.
Unfortunately for them, part of the reason the joke works so well from the other side is that it’s pointing out the absurdity of showing more respect for a body of water than people. Ultimately, calling a body of water by the name still used by the majority of the world is actually just pretty normal.
Gulf of Mexico vs Gulf of America memes
Trump’s arbitrary renaming of the Gulf of Mexico has spawned plenty of other jokes and memes, too.
— kristina. (@cosmepolitics) February 11, 2025
An interesting proposition
— Jennifer Greenbergpic.twitter.com/wYl00Tl6yo
(@JennMGreenberg) January 9, 2025
— Anonymous (@YourAnonCentral) January 9, 2025
You better believe it pic.twitter.com/aZ9kpU96ex
— Devin Duke (@sirDukeDevin) January 11, 2025
Hear me out…… pic.twitter.com/NOdgcXyIzc
—Spicy
(@SpicyMcCall44) January 25, 2025
— UAE Exotic Falconry & Finance𓅃 (@FalconryFinance) January 28, 2025
this is the one pic.twitter.com/lp3ryJGZdy
— Mithrandir(@monzterstan) February 11, 2025
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