We explore the effects of in-party and out-party elite and sympathizer cues on social attitudes toward minority rights in contexts where these attitudes are generally presumed to be positive and stable. Our inquiry focuses on Spain and Sweden, both of which recently adopted gender self-determination policies following heated debates. Utilizing a visual vignette experiment distributed to representative samples of 4,000 Spaniards and 4,000 Swedes, we demonstrate that exposure to messages framed around the potential threat of trans individuals suppresses tolerance towards trans individuals and, specifically, increase the perceived threat that they present to women. Against our pre-registered hypotheses, we find that the efficacy of these frequently leveraged anti-trans messages is not conditioned by in- and out-group congruence nor by variation in the elite vs non-elite source of these messages. Our results have implications for understanding ongoing trends in minority conclusion and the role of political actors in shaping and debilitating the liberal components of democratic inclusion.