What is ‘Underground Transgender Mafia’ and is it a real Liz Truss quote? Fact checking the meme

Have you ever heard of Underground Transgender Mafia? We didn’t either, until a fake quote recently attributed to former British Prime Minister Liz Truss went viral this week thanks to a satirical political report. Who posted the fake quote and what are people’s reactions? Read more in our short explanation.

What is ‘underground transgender mafia’?

Our efforts to uncover traces of the real underground transgender mafia have not borne fruit, so we can confidently say that the Underground Transgender Mafia is a slogan used in a satirical post about British conservative politician Liz Truss by X/Twitter account Politics For You (@PoliticoForYou) on September 30, 2024. The post from the account with 29,000 followers, marked “🚨🚨🚨 SATIRE” on the profile page, was viewed more than a million times before receiving a community note, and expected not everyone bothered to check if the quote was real, as long as it sounded plausible.

What probably made the quote even more credible was the recent real quote from Donald Trump, who accused her during his debate with Kamala Harris of trying to conduct “transgender operations on illegal aliens” in prisons.

What are ‘underground transgender mafia’ memes?

When the fake quote went viral on X and quite a few users believed it was real, many took the opportunity to mock Liz Truss for something she didn’t even say. Some of the memes that followed the post cast doubt on Truss’ sanity, as the quote, if real, sounded a bit insane.

Others quickly used the slogan in various meme formats ranging from Dad, Are You In The Mafia to The sopranos to I, For One, welcome our new Insect Overlords from The Simpsons.

The wave of memes is quite reminiscent of two other recent cases where something politicians didn’t even do became a meme thanks to the spread of misinformation, namely JD Vance’s Couch Hoax and Tim Walz Horse Story Hoax.

For the full history of Underground Transgender Mafia, check out Know Your Meme’s encyclopedia article for more information.