Transphobia

Jonathan Kay

Transphobe Jonathan Kay, the Canadian editor for Quillette, was formerly a blogger for the National Post. Transphobic collusion among { National Post | Quillette | Jonathan Kay } manifests in the following disingenuous "debate" - which somehow involves Jonathan Kay defending Meghan Murphy.

[NationalPost.com, 2019-12-02] Speaking of gender: A National Post debate about gender identity and free speech  |  local copy  |  Includes transwoman Mercedes Allen

Jordan Peterson

Likewise, this National Post "free speech" disinformation piece masquerading as a documentary features the notorious transphobic troll Jordan Peterson.

[2019-11-13] Beyond Jordan Peterson: Free Speech on Campus. [Source]

• COMMENT (Persagen).  The associated description [disinformation] - citing Trump - conflates limits on hate speech as state/institution-sponsored "attacks" on free speech ...

• Additional description here [CalgaryHerald.ca, 2019-11-13]:  Beyond Jordan Peterson: A National Post investigation into the state of free speech on campuses

Jordan Peterson's Wikipedia page includes the following statements, conveniently omitted from the descriptions for that transphobic National Post "documentary."

Jordan Peterson: Transphobia

"In 2016, Jordan Peterson released a series of YouTube videos criticizing the Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code (Bill C-16), passed by the Parliament of Canada to introduce "gender identity and expression" as a prohibited grounds of discrimination. Jordan Peterson argued that the bill would make the use of certain gender pronouns into compelled speech, and related this argument to a general critique of political correctness and identity politics. He subsequently received significant media coverage, attracting both support and criticism."

Jordan Peterson: Transphobia: Bill C-16

[Wikipedia: Bill C-16]  On September 27, 2016, Jordan Peterson released the first installment of a three-part lecture video series, entitled "Professor against political correctness: Part I: Fear and the Law." In the video, he stated he would not use the preferred gender pronouns of students and faculty, saying it fell under compelled speech, and announced his objection to the Canadian government's Bill C-16, which proposed to add "gender identity or expression" as a prohibited ground of discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act, and to similarly expand the definitions of promoting genocide and publicly inciting hatred in the hate speech laws in Canada.

He stated his objection to the bill was based on potential free-speech implications if the Criminal Code is amended, claiming he could then be prosecuted under provincial human-rights laws if he refuses to call a transgender student or faculty member by the individual's preferred pronoun. Furthermore, he argued the new amendments, paired with section 46.3 of the Ontario Human Rights Code, would make it possible for employers and organizations to be subject to punishment under the code if any employee or associate says anything that can be construed "directly or indirectly" as offensive, "whether intentionally or unintentionally." According to law professor Brenda Cossman and others, this interpretation of C-16 is mistaken, and the law does not criminalize misuse of pronouns.

The series of videos drew criticism from transgender activists, faculty, and labour unions; critics accused Jordan Peterson of "helping to foster a climate for hate to thrive" and of "fundamentally mischaracterizing" the law. Protests erupted on campus, some including violence, and the controversy attracted international media attention. When asked in September 2016 if he would comply with the request of a student to use a preferred pronoun, Jordan Peterson said "it would depend on how they asked me. ... If I could detect that there was a chip on their shoulder, or that they were asking me with political motives, then I would probably say no.... If I could have a conversation like the one we're having now, I could probably meet them on an equal level." Two months later, the National Post published an op-ed by Jordan Peterson in which he elaborated on his opposition to the bill, saying that gender-neutral singular pronouns were "at the vanguard of a post-modern, radical leftist ideology that I detest, and which is, in my professional opinion, frighteningly similar to the Marxist doctrines that killed at least 100 million people in the 20th century."

In response to the controversy, academic administrators at the University of Toronto sent Jordan Peterson two letters of warning, one noting free speech had to be made in accordance with human rights legislation, and the other adding that his refusal to use the preferred personal pronouns of students and faculty upon request could constitute discrimination. Jordan Peterson speculated that these warning letters were leading up to formal disciplinary action against him, but in December the university assured him he would retain his professorship, and in January 2017 he returned to teach his psychology class at the University of Toronto.

In February 2017, Maxime Bernier, candidate for leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, stated he shifted his position on Bill C-16, from support to opposition, after meeting with Jordan Peterson and discussing it. Jordan Peterson's analysis of the bill was also frequently cited by senators who were opposed to its passage. In April 2017, Jordan Peterson was denied a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grant for the first time in his career, which he interpreted as retaliation for his statements regarding Bill C-16. However, a media-relations adviser for SSHRC said, "Committees assess only the information contained in the application." In response, Rebel News launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign on Jordan Peterson's behalf, raising C$195,000 by its end on May 6, equivalent to over two years of research funding. In May 2017, as one of 24 witnesses who were invited to speak about the bill, Jordan Peterson spoke against Bill C-16 at a Canadian Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs hearing.

In November 2017, Lindsay Shepherd, the teaching assistant of a Wilfrid Laurier University first-year communications course, was censured by her professors for showing, during a classroom discussion about pronouns, a segment of The Agenda in which Jordan Peterson debates Bill C-16 with another professor. The reasons given for the censure included the clip creating a "toxic climate," being compared to a "speech by Hitler," and being itself in violation of Bill C-16. The censure was later withdrawn and both the professors and the university formally apologized. The events were cited by Jordan Peterson, as well as several newspaper editorial boards and national newspaper columnists as illustrative of the suppression of free speech on university campuses. In June 2018, Jordan Peterson filed a $1.5-million lawsuit against Wilfrid Laurier University, arguing that three staff members of the university had maliciously defamed him by making negative comments about him behind closed doors. As of September 2018, Wilfrid Laurier had asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit, saying it was ironic for a purported advocate of free speech to attempt to curtail free speech.

Meghan Murphy

Meghan Emily Murphy is a Canadian writer, journalist, and founder of Feminist Current, a feminist website and podcast. Her writing, speeches, and talks have criticized third-wave feminism, male feminists, the sex industry, exploitation of women in mass media, censorship, and gender identity legislation.

Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Meghan Murphy has written for CBC News,   The Globe and Mail, the National Post,   rabble.ca, the New Statesman, and Quillette, among other media outlets.

Regarding the publications publishing Meghan Murphy's vitriolic rhetoric, Quillette is an infamous disinformation site rife with homophobia, transphobia, anti-theism, misogyny, pseudo-science (including climate change denial); racism; ... [It is therefore not surprising, noting e.g., the following propaganda piece, that Quillette is also favored by the Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.]

Canadian transphobe Meghan Murphy is a trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) with a long history of opposition to transgender activism.

CBC.ca, for example, has provided a platform for the notorious trans-exclusionary radical feminist  (TERF)  Meghan Murphy.

Despite numerous controversies and clashes between Megan Murphy and transgender rights and gender identity rights activists, the CBC.ca   continues [2021-10-12] to include a bio landing page for Murphy, and link to Murphy's trans-exclusionary radical feminist feminist website.

Meghan Murphy: Political views

Meghan Murphy self-identifies as a socialist feminist.

Meghan Murphy: Opposition to transgender activism

Meghan Murphy contributed as an editor and writer for Canadian online magazine rabble.ca beginning in 2011. In 2015, Murphy challenged a photograph of Laverne Cox's nude body in a magazine as being "defined by a patriarchal/porn culture, through plastic surgery" and "a sexualized object for public consumption." In response, a Change.org petition was created in May 2015 by sex workers' lobby group Maggie's Toronto, accusing her of racism and using transphobic language, and demanding that rabble.ca end Murphy's association with the site. The petition was countered by a collective open letter in solidarity with Murphy signed by 22 international feminist organizations and over 215 individuals. The Change.org petition was rejected by rabble. However, in October 2016 Murphy quit rabble.ca after an article critical of the language Planned Parenthood had used to address women, referring to them as "menstruators",had been published and then removed without informing her. Editor Michael Stewart felt that it had used transphobic language and gone against rabble's journalistic policy. In an email to Murphy, rabble's publisher, Kim Elliott, stated that "the piece denied the gendered identity of trans men who menstruate by implying that if a person has ovaries and a uterus, they are by virtue of those biological markers, a woman."

Meghan Murphy: Opposition to gender identity legislation

Meghan Murphy is critical of gender identity legislation. In May 2017, Murphy appeared before the Canadian Senate, together with Hilla Kerner of the Vancouver Rape Relief & Women's Shelter, to oppose Bill C-16, which encoded gender identity and gender expression into Canadian law. Meghan Murphy told the Canadian Senate: "Treating gender as though it is either internal or a personal choice is dangerous and completely misunderstands how and why women are oppressed under patriarchy as a class of people ... The rights of women and girls are being pushed aside to accommodate a trend."

In 2019, Meghan Murphy was invited to speak before the Scottish Parliament regarding gender identity laws and their impact on women's rights. At their public meeting in London, she told Woman's Place UK, "I see no empathy for women and girls on the part of trans activists, that is to say, those pushing gender identity ideology and legislation. What I see is bullying, threats, ostracization, and a misogynist backlash against the feminist movement and much of the work it's accomplished over years." In an interview with The Scotsman regarding her views about transgender rights legislation, Murphy stated the following.

I'm not interested in stopping anyone having surgery or hormones if they feel that's making their lives better, and certainly people should be able to wear what they want and express themselves in ways that make them feel fulfilled and living authentic lives. But once it became about laws and legislation and gender replacing sex it became clear to me that this would have a real impact on women's rights and spaces.

Meghan Murphy has faced criticism due to her opposition to the establishment of transgender rights legislation, which has led to her being called "anti-transgender" by her opponents.

Meghan Murphy: Twitter ban and lawsuit

In late 2018, Twitter changed its policy on hateful conduct and harassment to officially prohibit intentionally calling a trans person by the wrong pronouns or using their pre-transition names. Beginning in August 2018, Murphy stated that her Twitter account was locked more than once after she tweeted about issues involving transwomen. Twitter permanently suspended Murphy's account in late November 2018, after she referred to Jessica Yaniv, a transwoman, as "him." On February 11, 2019, Murphy filed a lawsuit against Twitter in response to her banning. The suit was dismissed in early June 2019, but Murphy stated that she intended to file an appeal.

Meghan Murphy: Public appearances and protests

Meghan Murphy's public appearances have been subject to protests in Canada, notably in Vancouver and Toronto. In both cities, LGBTQ organizations have also criticized public libraries for allowing Murphy to book space for public appearances. Mayor of Toronto John Tory announced that he was "disappointed" in the library's decision to host Murphy's event, and said that the "highest of standards" should be set to ensure that "offensive commentary" is not hosted in city facilities. Official Opposition Culture Critic Jill Andrew,  a queer-identifying member of the Ontario New Democratic Party Black Caucus, also objected to the event, saying "As a proud member of Toronto's queer community, I stand in solidarity with LGBTQ folks, as well as with local writers and members of the literary community who are standing up to oppose the Toronto Public Library's decision" to host "a person who publicly espouses hate speech."

Tory asked City Librarian Vickery Bowles to reconsider the decision to permit Murphy's appearance. In response to the statements by the mayor, Murphy said, "It is unconscionable that the mayor of Toronto would attempt to pressure the Toronto Public Library to cancel this event...What I am saying is not controversial, and certainly is not hateful ... We deserve space for this conversation and our concerns deserve respect." Bowles defended the approval to host the event, noting that "Murphy has never been charged with or convicted of hate speech."

... On January 21, 2020, Joe Rogan said he would "probably" vote for Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic primary, adding, "He's been insanely consistent his entire life." Sanders was criticized by fellow Democrats for touting Rogan's endorsement during the 2020 presidential campaign, including by MoveOn, which referred to Rogan as "someone known for promoting transphobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, racism and misogyny." The Human Rights Campaign called on Bernie Sanders to reject Rogan's endorsement. ...

... Rogan has been an outspoken critic of transwomen fighting cisgender women in MMA matches. ...

J.K. Rowling

Joanne K. "J.K." Rowling CH, OBE, HonFRSE, FRCPE, FRSL (/ˈroʊlɪŋ/ ROH-ling; born 31 July 1965), better known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author, philanthropist, film producer, television producer, and screenwriter. She is best known for writing the Harry Potter fantasy series, which has won multiple awards and sold more than 500 million copies, becoming the best-selling book series in history. The books are the basis of a popular film series, over which Rowling had overall approval on the scripts and was a producer on the final films. She also writes crime fiction under the pen name Robert Galbraith.

J.K. Rowling: Transphobia

In December 2019, J.K. Rowling tweeted her support for , a British woman who initially lost her employment tribunal case (Maya Forstater v Centre for Global Development) but won on appeal against her former employer, the Center for Global Development, after her contract was not renewed due to her comments about transgender people.

On 6 June 2020, Rowling tweeted criticism of the phrase "people who menstruate", and stated "If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives." Rowling's tweets were criticised by GLAAD, who called them "cruel" and "anti-trans." Some members of the cast of the Harry Potter film series criticised Rowling's views or spoke out in support of trans rights, including Daniel Radcliffe,   Emma Watson,   Rupert Grint,   Bonnie Wright, and Katie Leung, as did Fantastic Beasts lead actor Eddie Redmayne and the fansites MuggleNet and The Leaky Cauldron. Actress Noma Dumezweni (who played Hermione Granger in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) initially expressed support for Rowling but backtracked following backlash.

On 10 June 2020, Rowling published a 3,600-word essay on her website in response to the criticism. Rowling again wrote that many women consider terms like "people who menstruate" to be demeaning. She said that she was a survivor of domestic abuse and sexual assault, and stated that "When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he's a woman ... then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside" [Comment: classic transphobic "Bathroom Predator Myth" / meme], while stating that most trans people were vulnerable and deserved protection. Following up into who is at risk in women's toilets, Reuters stated that it was transwomen who were more vulnerable, and that 200 municipalities which allowed trans people to use women's shelters reported no rise in any violence as a result. Rowling's essay was criticised by, among others, the children's charity Mermaids (who support transgender and gender non-conforming children and their parents) and the feminist gender theorist   Judith Butler. Rowling has been referred to as a trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) on multiple occasions, though she rejects the label. Rowling has received support from actors Robbie Coltrane and Brian Cox, and some feminists, such as activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali and radical feminist   Julie Bindel. The essay was nominated by the BBC for their annual Russell Prize for best writing.

In August 2020, Rowling returned her Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award after Kerry Kennedy released a statement expressing her "profound disappointment" in Rowling's "attacks upon the transgender community", which Kennedy called "inconsistent with the fundamental beliefs and values of RFK Human Rights and ... a repudiation of my father's vision." Rowling stated that she was "deeply saddened" by Kennedy's statement, but maintained that no award would encourage her to "forfeit the right to follow the dictates" of her conscience.

Daniel Radcliffe: Response to J.K. Rowling

Additional Reading: J.K. Rowling: Transphobia

In a letter  [local copy (html)] to The New York Times leadership (2023-02-15), more than 180 of the paper's contributors (later swelling to more than 1,000) raised "serious concerns about editorial bias in The New York Times's reporting on transgender, non-binary and gender nonconforming people." What started as a conversation about a paper's coverage exploded into a battle between media workers who see a problem at one of the most powerful media outlets on earth - The New York Times - and a media management that simply won't listen. ...

[ ... snip ... ]

The letters' examples are far from exhaustive. For instance, columnist Pamela Paul - once again, no relation - regularly uses the platform The New York Times gives her to spread misleading anti-trans narratives, as Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (12/16/22) has documented.

In perhaps the clearest display of out-of-touch-ness, the day after the letter went public, The New York Times published a column by Pamela Paul (2023-02-16) defending author J.K. Rowling - who has immense literary fame and cultural power - from charges of transphobia, quoting one advocate saying J.K. Rowling "sees herself as standing up for the rights of a vulnerable group." The vulnerable group here isn't one of the world's most marginalized minorities, but people like J,K.Rowling, who want "spaces for biological women only." Pamela Paul invoked the stabbing of Salman Rushdie in deeming criticism of J.K Rowling "dangerous."

J.K. Rowling has been an outspoken opponent of Scotland's attempt to enact legislation to protect trans rights (BBC, 10/7/22), which was eventually blocked by the British prime minister Rishi Sunak (Guardian, 2023-01-16). That defeat helped lead to Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon's   resignation, which was celebrated by conservative British media (Economist, 2023-02-15; Daily Mail, 2023-02-15; London Times, 2023-02-16).

In other words, J.K. Rowling isn't just saying things trans people don't like, she's actively impeding social progress and helping to end the careers of politicians who offend the established order. Pamela Paul's advocacy for J.K. Rowling is a reversal of journalism's mission: Pamela Paul afflicts the afflicted, and comforts the comfortable.

[ ... snip ... ]

In a letter  [local copy (html)] to The New York Times leadership (2023-02-15), more than 180 of the paper's contributors (later swelling to more than 1,000) raised "serious concerns about editorial bias in The New York Times's reporting on transgender, non-binary and gender nonconforming people." What started as a conversation about a paper's coverage exploded into a battle between media workers who see a problem at one of the most powerful media outlets on earth - The New York Times - and a media management that simply won't listen. "Some of us are trans, non-binary, or gender nonconforming, and we resent the fact that our work, but not our person, is good enough for the paper of record," the letter declared:

Some of us are cis, and we have seen those we love discover and fight for their true selves, often swimming upstream against currents of bigotry and pseudoscience fomented by the kind of coverage we here protest.

The letter was organized by the Freelance Solidarity Project  [Wikipedia: Freelance Solidarity Project] - a part of the National Writers Union.

A similar letter from LGBTQ media advocacy group GLAAD (2023-02-15) and over a hundred other LGBTQ groups and leaders made three demands (summarized in a press release):

1. Stop printing biased anti-trans stories, immediately.
2. Listen to trans people: hold a meeting with trans community leaders within two months.
3. Hire at least four trans writers and editors within three months.

As Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting  (FAIR: 2023-01-16) and many other progressive outlets and groups have noted, there is a campaign in state legislatures, in the courts, in the streets and in the media to roll back rights for transgender people, fomenting a moral panic about teachers and drag queens coming for America's children. States like Florida are already banning certain types of medical care for trans people (Tampa Bay Times, 2023-02-10), and other states have enacted similar laws (NBC, 2023-02-14). States are even looking to restrict drag performances (The Washington Post, 2023-02-14).

This campaign is often portrayed as coming from the far-right, which sees traditional gender roles under attack by a new world order. But liberal and centrist institutions like The New York Times aid and abet this campaign.

"Patient zero"

Invoking the The New York Times' early homophobic response to the rise of the gay rights movement and the AIDS crisis, the letter writers argue that The New York Times has a responsibility to do better. The contributors' letter cites an article (2022-06-15) that

... uncritically used the term "patient zero" to refer to a trans child seeking gender-affirming care - a phrase that vilifies transness as a disease to be feared.

The article quoted "multiple expert sources who have since expressed regret over their work's misrepresentation." (FAIR and the podcast Death Panel, among others, have detailed many other problems with the article).

The letter points to another piece (2023-01-22) about children's right to safely transition and policies about whether schools can or should withhold students' gender transitions from their parents. The piece, the letter says, "fails to make clear that court cases brought by parents who want schools to out their trans children are part of a legal strategy pursued by anti-trans hate groups," which have "identified trans people as an 'existential threat to society' and seek to replace the American public education system with Christian homeschooling" - noting that this is "key context" that was not provided to The New York Times readers.

The The New York Times articles cited in the letter give the impression that we are living in a time of rushed, ill-informed transitions and shady treatments for children that lack oversight. As Samantha Hancox-Li wrote (Liberal Currents, 2023-02-08), this is, in fact, the opposite of the truth, because cisgender minors have easier access to treatments they need than trans youth:

This is the reality of trans care in the United States: not children being rushed to experimental treatments, but explicit segregation, discrimination and the denial of basic care. When a trans kid wants to grow out her hair and change her name, it's national news. When a cis kid wants to do the same thing, it's Tuesday. When trans kids want hormone replacement therapy, we call it "gender-confirming treatments" and publish article after fretting article about how strange and dangerous they are. When cis kids receive medically identical prescriptions, it's Tuesday. We don't even have a name for it. Because what's normal is invisible.

The question before us isn't whether we should allow trans kids access to special experimental treatments. The question is whether we enable trans kids to access essential medical care on the same terms we allow cis kids to.

Gender-affirming care is critical because it has been shown to have enormous mental health benefits for trans youth, including reducing the risk of suicide (JAMA, 2011-02-15; Scientific American, 5/12/22).

Misrepresenting facts

The letter writers note that the coverage of trans issues has fed into the assault on trans rights at the state level. GLAAD said in its letter:

Every major medical association supports gender-affirming care as best-practices care that is safe and lifesaving and has widespread consensus in the medical and scientific communities. Yet The New York Times continues to churn out pieces that anti-trans extremists use to harm children and families. In 2022-11 The New York Times published a story that got the science of gender-affirming care so wrong that the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) had to write a multi-page tear-down explaining how The New York Times misrepresented the facts at every turn.

The letters' examples are far from exhaustive. For instance, columnist Pamela Paul - once again, no relation - regularly uses the platform The New York Times gives her to spread misleading anti-trans narratives, as Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (12/16/22) has documented.

In perhaps the clearest display of out-of-touch-ness, the day after the letter went public, The New York Times published a column by Pamela Paul (2023-02-16) defending author J.K. Rowling - who has immense literary fame and cultural power - from charges of transphobia, quoting one advocate saying J.K. Rowling "sees herself as standing up for the rights of a vulnerable group." The vulnerable group here isn't one of the world's most marginalized minorities, but people like J,K.Rowling, who want "spaces for biological women only." Pamela Paul invoked the stabbing of Salman Rushdie in deeming criticism of J.K Rowling "dangerous."

J.K. Rowling has been an outspoken opponent of Scotland's attempt to enact legislation to protect trans rights (BBC, 10/7/22), which was eventually blocked by the British prime minister Rishi Sunak (Guardian, 2023-01-16). That defeat helped lead to Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon's   resignation, which was celebrated by conservative British media (Economist, 2023-02-15; Daily Mail, 2023-02-15; London Times, 2023-02-16).

In other words, J.K. Rowling isn't just saying things trans people don't like, she's actively impeding social progress and helping to end the careers of politicians who offend the established order. Pamela Paul's advocacy for J.K. Rowling is a reversal of journalism's mission: Pamela Paul afflicts the afflicted, and comforts the comfortable.

Pushed to the margins

[ ... snip ... ]

J.K. Rowling - who rose to fame as the author of the Harry Potter series - is known for writing about magical subjects and fantasy worlds. But J.K Rowling's latest book bears more than a passing resemblance to reality - and, critics say, not in a good way. The Ink Black Heart is the sixth installment of J.K. Rowling's thriller series Cormoran Strike, which J.K. Rowling penned under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The 1,024-page tome started raising eyebrows as soon as it hit stores on Tuesday (2022-08-30).

Observers noted that the plot appears to mirror J.K. Rowling's own experience of taking heat and losing fans for expressing transphobic views in recent years. J.K. Rowling has said publicly that The Ink Black Heart was not based on her own life, even though some of the events that take place in the story did in fact happen to her as she was writing it. "Although I have to say when it did happen to me, those who had already read the book in manuscript form were like - are you clairvoyant?" J.K. Rowling wrote in a Q&A on Robert Galbraith's website. "I wasn't clairvoyant, I just - yeah, it was just one of those weird twists. Sometimes life imitates art more than one would like."

[ ... snip ... ]

J.K. Rowling has made her own opinions known, particularly in regards to the transgender community, over the last several years. J.K. Rowling faced backlash in 2019 for publicly supporting   Maya Forstater - a researcher who had lost her job over transphobic tweets. The following year, J.K. Rowling posted several controversial tweets, including one opinion piece that mocked the term "people who menstruate" ("I'm sure there used to be a word for those people," she tweeted. "Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?") - and published a long statement expressing her concerns with "the consequences of the current trans activism."

[ ... snip ... ]

Critics have decried The Ink Black Heart as "hilariously self-persecuting" and "beyond parody," with some drawing attention to the real-world problems facing transgender people, deriding its length ("500 pages longer than Dune, 300 pages longer than Infinite Jest, and 100 pages longer than the Bible," wrote one) and calling for people to boycott J.K. Rowling's work.

Lark Malakai Gray - co-host of the queer Harry Potter podcast "The Gayly Prophet" - told NPR over email that he finds the situation "deeply embarrassing" for J.K. Rowling. "She has published a 1,000-page self-insert fan fiction where she's the victim - it's the kind of behavior that you'd expect from a petulant teenager, not a grown adult with immense wealth and power," Gray added. "I have no idea what she expected, but seeing the internet fill with jokes about The Ink Black Heart has been an absolute joy after all the harm she [Rowling] has caused my community over the past several years."

Rowling's transphobic comments have lost her many fans

J.K. Rowling's transphobic stance has alienated many in her fanbase - which includes a large number of LGBTQ people - as well as a slew of prominent Harry Potter cast members: Actors Daniel Radcliffe,   Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint are among those who have condemned J.K. Rowling's comments, and expressed their support for the trans community.

[ ... snip ... ]

Transphobic Persons - Canadian politics

Robert J. Anders

• MP Rob Anders Criticized Over "Bathroom Bill" Comments.  Transgender community not happy with Calgary politician.

• [Vice.com, 2017-05-29] Andrew Scheer Will Oppose Transgender Rights, Fight Gun Regulations, Fund Homeschooling.  Everything You Want To Know About Where the New Conservative Party Leader Stands on the Issues.

Other notably transphobic persons

Brittany Aldean

Brittany Aldean (née Brittany Kerr), former American Idol contestant and wife of American country music singer, songwriter and record producer Jason Aldean. In 2022-08 Brittany Aldean posted an Instagram video in which she stated, "I'd really like to thank my parents for not changing my gender when I went through my tomboy phase", followed by a longer post in which she stated an opposition to sex changes for minors. These comments received support from other country singers such as RaeLynn and Whitney Duncan, while Cassadee Pope and Maren Morris criticized the remarks as indicative of transphobia. In response, Jason Aldean's public relations firm The GreenRoom dropped him as a client on 2022-09-01.

Transphobia in the Trump Administration

Transphobia in U.S. State Governments

Idaho

[ ... snip ... ]

The Alliance Defending Freedom in part helped kick off the trend of anti-trans legislation. In Idaho - which in 2020 became the first state to enact a ban on trans kids' sports participation - the lawmaker who spearheaded the bill said the group played a pivotal role in reframing and advancing the legislation. Idaho State Representative Barbara Ehardt (R-ID) told Imara Jones  [Wikipedia: Imara Jones] of TransLash Media that when she [Barbara Ehardt] felt she hit a dead-end when trying to draft the bill, she reached out to Alliance Defending Freedom. "Then they decided that they were going to get more serious about this legislation. And then we completely changed it. And this is where you see what, of course, many are using now in these other states," Barbara Ehardt said. The law was blocked by a federal judge and never went into effect, but Ehardt - a Republican - has said that it provided a model. "I've been pleased to see how many other states this year have followed and many of them using the exact legislation or maybe slight deviations of what we did here in Idaho," Barbara Ehardt told NPR in 2021-05.

[ ... snip ... ]

Iowa

North Carolina

Texas

• Greg Abbott  (48th Governor of Texas)

In 2017, Texas' failed bathroom bill  [see also: bathroom bills  |  Discrediting the Transphobic "Bathroom Predator" Myth] did not actually reference transgender people anywhere in the text, though the legislation aimed to keep trans people from using bathrooms that match their gender identity. North Carolina's infamous 2016 bathroom bill [Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act], which was passed and subsequently repealed after The Associated Press   predicted it would cost the state more than $3.76 billion in boycotts, also never used the word transgender.

• Ken Paxton  (Attorney General of Texas)

Employees at the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) in 2022-06 received a sweeping request from Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton's office: Compile a list of individuals who had changed their gender on their Texas driver's license and other department records during the past two years. "Need total number of changes from male to female and female to male for the last 24 months, broken down by month," the chief of the DPS' driver license division emailed colleagues in the department on 2022-06-30, according to a copy of a message obtained by The Washington Post through a public records request. "We won't need DL/ID numbers at first but may need to have them later if we are required to manually look up documents."

After more than 16,000 such instances were identified, DPS officials determined that a manual search would be needed to determine the reason for the changes, DPS spokesman Travis Considine told The Washington Post in response to questions." A verbal request was received," Travis Considine wrote in an email. "Ultimately, our team advised the AG's office the data requested neither exists nor could be accurately produced. Thus, no data of any kind was provided." Asked who in Ken Paxton's office had requested the records, Travis Considine replied: "I cannot say."

The behind-the-scenes effort by Ken Paxton's office to obtain data on how many Texans had changed their gender on their drivers license came as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Texas Governor Greg Abbott and other Republican Party leaders in Texas have been publicly marshaling resources against transgender Texans.

In 2021-10 Greg Abbott signed a bill banning transgender youths from participating in sports that align with their gender identity at K-12 public schools; this year (2022) Greg Abbott ordered the state to investigate the provision of gender-affirming care as potential child abuse. Texas state lawmakers have already proposed more than a dozen anti-LGBTQ measures ahead of the next session in 2023-01 - including criminalizing gender-affirming care, and banning minors at drag shows.

Public records obtained by The Washington Post do not indicate why the Texas attorney general's office sought the driver's license information. But advocates for transgender Texans say Ken Paxton could use the data to further restrict their right to transition, calling it a chilling effort to secretly harness personal information to persecute already vulnerable people. "This is another brick building toward targeting these individuals," said Ian Pittman - an Austin, Texas attorney who represents Texas parents of transgender children investigated by the state. "They've already targeted children and parents. The next step would be targeting adults. And what better way than seeing what adults had had their sex changed on their driver's licenses?"

Alexis Salkeld Garcia, 34, of Austin - a trans woman who changed the gender listed on her driver's license from male to female a year and a half ago - said the attorney general's office inquiry made her feel "terrified." "It's very specifically targeted, and the one person I don't want knowing about my gender status is Ken Paxton," said Alexis Salkeld Garcia - a software engineer who worries state officials might try to switch the gender listed on her driver's license back to male. "I don't want a cop pulling me over and knowing I'm trans. That is why I changed my gender marker extremely quickly" after transitioning, Alexis Salkeld Garcia said.

Ken Paxton's office did not respond to requests for comment.

The records obtained by The Washington Post, which document communications between the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) employees, are entitled: "AG Request Sex Change Data" and "AG data request." They indicate that Ken Paxton's office sought the records a month after the Texas Supreme Court ruled that Ken Paxton and Greg Abbott had overreached in their efforts to investigate families with transgender children for child abuse. Ken Paxton's office bypassed the normal channels - DPS' government relations and general counsel's offices - and went straight to the driver license division staff in making the request - according to a state employee familiar with it, who said the staff was told that Ken Paxton's office wanted "numbers" and later would want "a list" of names, as well as "the number of people who had had a legal sex change."

During the following two months, the employee said, the DPS staff searched its records for changes in the "sex" category of not only driver's licenses but also state ID cards available from birth, learner's permits issued to those age 15 and up, commercial licenses, state election certificates, and occupational licenses. The employee spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation for describing internal state discussions. DPS staff members compiled a list of 16,466 gender changes between 2020-06-01 2020 and 2022-06-30, public records show. In the emails, DPS staff members repeatedly referred to the request as coming from the attorney general's office as they discussed attempting to narrow the data to include only licenses that had been altered to reflect a court-ordered change in someone's gender.

DPS staff members did spot checks on the data, examining records that included names of specific individuals, according to records and the state employee familiar with the inquiry. But it was hard to weed out driver's licenses that had been changed in error, or multiple times, or for reasons other than gender changes. "It will be very difficult to determine which records had a valid update without a manual review of all supporting documents," an assistant manager in DPS' driver license division wrote in an email to colleagues on 2022-07-22. On 2022-08-04 the division chief emailed staff members, "We have expended enough effort on this attempt to provide data. After this run, have them package the data that they have with the high level explanations and close it out." On 2022-08-18 a senior manager emailed to say a data engineer had "provided the data request by the AG's office (attached)."

Last month (2022-11) The Washington Post made a request to Ken Paxton's office for all records the Texas attorney general's office had directed other state offices to compile related to driver's licenses in which the sex of the driver was changed, as well as related emails between Ken Paxton's office and other state agencies. Officials indicated that no such records existed. "Why would the Office of the Attorney General have gathered this information?" Texas Assistant Attorney General June Harden wrote in an email to The Washington Post, later adding, "Why do you believe this is the case?" If they did, June Harden said, any records were probably exempt from release because of either attorney-client privilege or confidentiality. Marisol Bernal-Leon - a spokeswoman for the Texas attorney general's office - later emailed that the office "has reviewed its files and has no information responsive to your request" for either records it had requested from DPS or emails between the attorney general's office and DPS.

Separately, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) provided The Washington Post with a half-dozen documents spanning three months that referenced the request by Ken Paxton's office. When The Washington Post shared copies of the records that had been provided by DPS, Texas Assistant Attorney General Lauren Downey noted that "none of the records provided by the Texas Department of Public Safety are communications with the Office of the Attorney General. Our response to your request was accurate." Lauren Downey did not reply to questions about why the DPS emails refer to the request as originating from the attorney general. Ken Paxton's office has yet to respond to another public records request for any records of its contact with DPS concerning driver's license changes via means other than email, including phone calls, video meetings and in-person exchanges.

The earlier attempt by Ken Paxton and his allies to direct state agencies to identify parents of transgender youths and investigate them for child abuse has mostly been blocked by the courts. Last year (2021) lawmakers in the Republican-dominated Texas state legislature failed to pass a measure that would have criminalized gender confirmation care, which major medical associations have deemed science-based medical care. Afterward, state Representative Matt Krause (R-TX) - chair of the state House committee on general investigating - contacted Ken Paxton, who issued a legal opinion that gender-affirming care for minors could be considered child abuse. Days later, Greg Abbott   directed the Texas child welfare agency to investigate parents facilitating such care for their children - sparking several investigations within days, according to public records.

After Greg Abbott issued the directive, agency staff members were told not to communicate in writing about it, including emails and texts, according to public records. Some of the families sued, winning a temporary statewide injunction in Doe v. Abbott - blocking the investigations until the lawsuit reached the Texas Supreme Court in 2022-05. The Supreme Court of Texas overturned the injunction on procedural grounds but found that Ken Paxton's legal opinion was not binding and that Greg Abbott did not have the authority to direct state child welfare staff members to initiate child abuse investigations of families with transgender children. "Neither the Governor nor the Attorney General has statutory authority to directly control DFPS' investigatory decisions," the court ruled.

But Ian Pittman, the attorney who has represented Texas parents of transgender children, noted that lawyers for the attorney general's office later argued against what the Supreme Court of Texas had determined: that Republican leaders "had political tools but they could not direct the department in that way." He said they appeared to be "ignoring direct Supreme Court statements."

The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal also sued to stop the investigations on behalf of PFLAG - an LGBTQ advocacy group with more than 600 members in Texas. A county judge in Austin, Texas ruled in their favor in 2022-09, blocking Texas from investigating PFLAG members. That covered most of the dozen families the state admitted to investigating but not necessarily all, said Shelly Skeen, a Dallas-based senior attorney at Lambda Legal working on the PFLAG and Doe v. Abbott cases. Shelly Skeen called the attorney general's inquiry into driver's license records "a gross violation of privacy" intended to "target one group of people to fire up their base while transgender people are just trying to live their lives." "The constitutional issues that this raises are equal protection and due process under the 14th Amendment as well as discrimination based on sex," Shelly Skeen said. "If you do not have access to identity documents that match who you are, you are outed every time you show an ID," Shelly Skeen said, "and this is what leads to the discrimination, harassment and violence that transgender people face."

Smith Puerto of Austin, Texas - who identifies as transgender and nonbinary - changed their Texas driver's license from female to male about a year ago. Smith Puerto, 34, who works in client services at a tech company, has been training with their wife of five years to foster an LGBTQ teen and figured they had a better chance applying as a male, although there were risks. "You definitely out yourself," by changing the documents, said Smith Puerto, who has had surgery, takes hormones and said they often pass as male. "In a state like Texas, you don't always want people to know you're different," Smith Puerto said, calling the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's inquiry "horrifying". "It's scary to know what Ken Paxton would want to do with that data," they said. Smith Puerto, who moved to Texas from Ohio nine years ago, said they worry Ken Paxton and other Republican leaders who have attacked the rights of transgender children are preparing to target transgender adults like them when the legislature reconvenes. "It's a constant conversation between my wife and I," Smith Puerto said. "Every session we hold our breath, kind of watching what horrendous bills get filed, and wonder how much longer can we stay here."

Salkeld Garcia - who also takes hormones and had gender confirmation surgery - demonstrated against anti-trans legislation at the Capitol (Austin, Texas) last year (2021) and called the prospect of what lawmakers could do next year (2023) "very nerve-racking." "In Austin we have a vibrant trans community, a beautiful queer community," Salkeld Garcia said. "But it's also scary, because it feels like you have a big fire burning all around you and you don't know where it will spread or if it will burn you."

This past summer (2022) Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton requested employees at the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to do a sweeping search of its database to provide him with names of individuals who, over the past two years, changed their gender on their driver's licenses and other records. To some, the search appears to be a clear request to find out who in Texas is a transgender person. Ken Paxton, a staunch conservative, has taken several actions in recent years targeting trans Texas residents.

The revelation of Ken Paxton's actions became known following a report from The Washington Post - which made a request for communications at DPS regarding Texas state government moves against trans people. "Need total number of changes from male to female and female to male for the last 24 months, broken down by month," an email from the head of DPS' driver license division said to employees. "We won't need DL/ID numbers at first but may need to have them later if we are required to manually look up documents."

More than 16,000 results were found in the initial search, but it was determined that a manual search would be necessary in order to ascertain why a person's gender status was changed. The matter doesn't appear to have gone beyond that step, the Post's findings suggest. "Ultimately, our team advised the AG's office the data requested neither exists nor could be accurately produced," DPS spokesman Travis Considine told the publication. "Thus, no data of any kind was provided." Travis Considine - who said the command for the search came from a "verbal request" by Ken Paxton to the division - also didn't know why the state attorney general made the request in the first place.

The action by Ken Paxton - along with Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX) - is the latest in a series of actions that Ken Paxton and Greg Abbott have taken specifically targeting transgender Texans. Greg Abbott, for example, signed a bill into law earlier this year (2022) banning trans youth from participating in public school sports that match their gender identity. Greg Abbott also ordered state agencies to investigate parents of children who receive gender-affirming care - doing so based on a scientifically flawed, non-binding legal opinion from Ken Paxton that wrongly asserted such care amounted to child abuse. Ken Paxton has also taken his anti-trans crusade to the federal government, suing the Biden administration several times in order to block policies that protect LGBTQ people and expand their rights.

Trans residents and activists - as well as their allies - blasted the action by Ken Paxton, noting that his request was a disturbing and alarming intrusion of people's privacy using state resources. "It's very specifically targeted, and the one person I don't want knowing about my gender status is Ken Paxton," said Alexis Salkeld Garcia, a transgender woman in Texas who changed her gender listing on her license a year and a half ago, speaking to The Washington Post about the matter.

"Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is creating a list of transgender Texans. Nothing good ever comes out of the government creating a list of people from a marginalized community," opined Alejandra Caraballo - a trans activist and instructor at Harvard Law School on Twitter. "What could Ken Paxton possibly need this info for - beyond harassment and persecution?" asked Democratic strategist Sawyer Hackett.

Shelly Skeen - a Dallas-based senior attorney with the LGBTQ legal organization Lambda Legal - disparaged Ken Paxton's actions, describing them to LGBTQ Nation as being politically motivated. Ken Paxton's request to DPS is "a gross violation of privacy meant to target one group of people to fire up his base while transgender people are just trying to live their lives," Shelly Skeen said.

On 2022-02-22, in the final days before crowded Republican primaries, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that affirming a transgender young person's gender identity could be considered "child abuse" under Texas law. In essence, Texas is trying to criminalize the love of devoted parents and eradicate the survival opportunities of Texas young people.  [Documents: Texas Governor Greg Abbott's 2022-02-22 letter to DFPS Commissioner Jaime Masters, with appended letter from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to Texas State Representative Matt Krause.  |  local copy]

In response to an inquiry from Texas House of Representatives   Matt Krause, Ken Paxton issued a nonbinding opinion from the Office of the Attorney General  [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Attorney_General] that gender-affirming medical treatment, "when performed on children, can legally constitute child abuse." Greg Abbott then issued a directive to the commissioner of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to launch investigations into any instances of what he refers to as "these abusive procedures." Under threat of criminal prosecution, he called on any licensed professionals - including doctors, nurses, and teachers - to report families who affirm their transgender children for potential investigation.

These opinions from Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton set off a wave of panic among transgender youth, their families, their medical providers, and allied communities across the country. Even though neither document is binding on either the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services or the courts, the Texas political leadership has made parents terrified to send their children to school, to take them to the doctor, and to remain in the state. And even if no legitimate investigation can be born of these political acts by Abbott and Paxton, they have already transformed life for transgender Texans and their families. There is a precariousness that comes with knowing you are being surveilled and that your care and love for your child can be the very thing that leads to government efforts to remove them from your home.

[ ... snip ... ]

This latest escalation from Texas' leading lawmakers comes in the middle of a national crisis of legislative attacks on transgender young people. So far in 2022, over 100 bills have been introduced across the country, many of them similarly targeting health care for transgender minors. Just 24 hours after Ken PaxtonPaxton and Greg Abbott's announcements in Texas, the Alabama House passed a bill that would make treating a transgender adolescent with gender-affirming medical care a felony. Similar bills are pending in Ohio, Oklahoma, Idaho, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Tennessee. Last year [2021], the Arkansas General Assembly passed a ban on gender-affirming health care for minors, overriding Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson's veto within 24 hours. Thankfully, a U.S. District Court judge blocked the law before it could go into effect, but the case is on appeal, and young people and their families are worried about their futures in their home state. When Asa Hutchinson, a Republican who signed many other pieces of anti-trans legislation that year [2021], vetoed the bill that would ultimately become law, he explained in a subsequent The Washington Post editorial.

It is undisputed that the number of minors who struggle with gender incongruity or gender dysphoria is extremely small. But they, too, deserve the guiding hand of their parents and the counseling of medical specialists in making the best decisions for their individual needs. >

H.B. 1570  [Arkansas House Bill 1570 (2021)] puts Arkansas as the definitive oracle of medical care - overriding parents, patients and health-care experts. While in some instances the state must act to protect life, the state should not presume to jump into the middle of every medical, human and ethical issue. This would be - and is - a vast government overreach.

The same politicians touting small government and parental rights are now advancing severe intrusions into the family. Because ultimately this is not about small government or parental rights, but about control - control over people's bodies, autonomy, families, and survival. There is a long history in this country of separating families. It was not an aberrant policy of the Trump administration but a central legacy of this country [United States] that continues in multiple forms today. From deliberately ripping apart enslaved families to forcibly removing Indigenous children to separating immigrant families at the border to removing transgender children from their homes, this is a long, interconnected, and enduring practice. It is incumbent upon us not to be swayed by rhetoric of safety, care, and protection and to instead rise up in solidarity with those feeling the cruel physical and emotional impacts of being terrorized by the state.

[ ... snip ... ]

Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Monday [2021-10-25] signed a bill that would ban K-12 transgender students from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity - the first such bill to become law in the state, after dozens of similar bills were introduced and debated over three special legislative sessions. The bill is the first piece of anti-trans legislation in Texas to actually become law in recent years. The state's effort to restrict trans Texans' bathroom usage failed to reach the governor's desk in 2017 after a similarly intense special session. Texas is now the ninth state this year to pass legislation restricting how trans athletes can join school sports. LGBTQ+ advocates are worried about the direct aftermath of the bill, which could subject trans students in interscholastic sports to scrutiny and harassment, as well as the potential for similar bills targeting trans youth to become law in Texas if another special session is called.

[ ... snip ... ]

Even before the passage of Texas' law targeting K-12 sports, the debate over anti-trans bills has caused increased bullying and mental health crises across the state, advocates say. ... Advocates have repeatedly warned that rhetoric surrounding the bills, which characterizes trans girls as boys and in Texas has devolved into arguments over what "transgender" and "cisgender" mean, could also spur violent and potentially deadly attacks against trans people - although more research is needed to understand a direct link. ...

[ ... snip ... ]

In a statement that could also signal the future of anti-trans bills in Texas, Abbott supporters at a Kingwood Tea Party meeting on Tuesday night [2021-10-26] that laws targeting trans youth will be advanced in "every single session that we have." The governor's office declined to comment and Abbott's campaign office did not respond to a request for comment.

Other bills previously introduced in Texas across this year's special sessions have aimed to classify gender-affirming treatments like hormones and surgeries as child abuse and ban puberty blockers provided by a physician. Some of those bills died in the House or were reintroduced in the third special session but did not move forward.

Two issues are top of mind for advocates if the governor again lists bills targeting trans youth as a priority: efforts to restrict people's ability to update gender markers on birth certificates and bans on gender-affirming care for minors. "We have also seen that his supporters have expressed desire for the sports ban to also begin to encroach into collegiate level sports," Schelling said via text, referencing a reported Q&A during the Kingwood Tea Party meeting. "I wouldn't rule anything out."

Although many states have introduced bills targeting gender-affirming care for trans youth, nearly every anti-trans bill that has actually made it into law this year has been about sports. Arkansas' law criminalizing gender-affirming care for minors was temporarily blocked by a judge in July and is still working through the courts, as the state appealed the injunction in September 2021. In contrast, birth certificates have been at the core of debate surrounding the new law on K-12 sports in Texas - and some lawmakers, like Republican state Sen. Charles Perry, have previously introduced bills that would keep minors from updating their birth certificates to match their gender identity.

[ ... snip ... ]

Texas has appealed a judge's order that blocked Texas from investigating the parents of a 16-year-old transgender girl for providing her with gender-affirming medical treatments that Governor Greg Abbott  [Travis County, Texas] to halt Texas' probe of the family. Greg Abbott last month [2022-01] directed the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to conduct such investigations, citing a non-binding legal opinion by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that concluded some medical treatments used to help transgender youth transition away from their birth gender could constitute child abuse.

[ ... snip ... ]

Greg Abbott, a Republican running this year [2022] for a third term in office, is named as a defendant in the court challenge - along with DFPS and its Commissioner, Jaime Masters  [local copy].

[ ... snip ... ]

Anti-trans rhetoric in Texas has grown louder in the past few weeks. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton - who broke bread with Amber Briggle's family years back - issued an opinion that likened gender-affirming surgery - a procedure that gives transgender people a body that aligns with their gender identity - to child abuse. Days later, Texas Governor Greg Abbott doubled down with a letter calling on professionals, including teachers and doctors, to report parents who give their children gender-affirming care. The letter added that there would be similar reporting requirements for the general public, and consequences for those who don't report those parents.

The letter and the opinion don't hold legal ground, ACLU says

But Adri Pérez  [local copy], a Policy and Advocacy Strategist at the ACLU of Texas  [American Civil Liberties Union  |  LGBT rights in Texas], emphasized that neither Texas Governor Greg Abbott's letter nor Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opinion are legally binding. No one has a legal duty to report someone receiving gender-affirming care, they added. "They have no legal effect, and they cannot curtail anyone's constitutional rights," Adri Pérez told NPR. "The attorney general and the governor can share their opinions, but it is just their partisan opinion that have been created to target transgender kids and their families." But the message is clear, said Emmett Schelling  [local copy  |  ACLU of Texas profile  |  local copy], the executive director of the Transgender Education Network of Texas. "The state leadership has said, 'We would rather see dead children ... instead of happy, loved, supported, thriving trans kids that are alive and well,'" Emmett Schelling told NPR.

Texas, among other states, has seen lawmakers propose dozens of anti-LGBTQ bills.  More than 40 proposed anti-LGBT bills in Texas targeted trans and nonbinary youth in 2021. As states pushed to criminalize gender-affirming care, the American Medical Association  [Wikipedia: American Medical Association] sent a letter to governors in 2021-04 urging them to oppose state laws that would ban gender transition-related care. The American Academy of Pediatrics released a statement Thursday [2022-02-24] expressing its ongoing support for gender-affirming care for transgender youth.

Anti-LGBT bills take a toll on the mental health of trans kids

In 2022-11, the Texas Legislature   passed a bill barring transgender girls from playing on girls sports teams and barring transgender boys from playing on boys sports teams. The law went into effect in 2022-01, making Texas the 10th state to enact similar legislation. And as conversations mounted, The Trevor Project  [Wikipedia: The Trevor Project] - an organization dedicated to suicide prevention for LGBTQ youth - received more than 10,800 total crisis calls, texts and chats from LGBTQ youth in Texas looking for support between 2021-01-01 and 2021-08-30. More than a third of those crisis contacts came from transgender or nonbinary youth.

[ ... snip ... ]

The Texas House of Representatives passed a bill that bans transgender women and girls from participating in female school sports after three previous attempts failed, all but assuring Republican Governor Greg Abbott will sign it into law. Texas is now poised to join seven other states that passed similar laws this year, part of a national campaign in which Republican legislators introduced such bills in 32 states. Conservatives say the law, which applies to public school teams through high school, are protecting fair competition. "We need a statewide level playing field," bill sponsor Texas State Representative Valoree Swanson (R-TX) said during the debate.

Equal rights activists have said there is no evidence that transwomen and girls are dominating sports. Ricardo Martinez, chief executive of the LGBTQ rights group Equality Texas, called passage of the bill a "hateful, targeted attack on transgender people." Political analysts say the campaign is meant to animate hard-core Republican supporters. "There's no evidence that there's a problem. This is red meat for the base," said Robert Stein, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston.

While the Texas Senate passed a companion bill, three previous House versions of the legislation stalled in the public education committee, which has a Democratic chairman. Republicans then created a new version of the bill and sent it through a select committee they control, enabling it to pass the full House late Thursday. The bill has gone back to the Senate for procedural approval and is expected to reach Greg Abbott's desk.

Texas Republicans have passed a very conservative agenda this year, including new laws that make it more difficult to vote, all but ban abortion, and do away with the need for a permit to carry a concealed handgun. "Like a lot of other things in Texas politics right now, this is selling mainly to very ideologically driven voters in the Republican Party. These are the voters that show up for Republican primaries," said James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas.

Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee and West Virginia have passed similar transgender sports legislation, and South Dakota's governor signed an executive order. Some of these face legal challenges. Idaho passed a similar law last year that has been blocked by a federal court, and a federal court in July ruled that an 11-year-old West Virginia trans girl must be allowed to try out for the girls' track and cross-country teams at her school.

"Erasure" Anti-Transgender Tactic

Over three special legislative sessions this year [2021], Texas legislators introduced 47 proposed bills that aimed to restrict transgender kids' access to sports or gender-affirming care, plus three bills that would block birth certificate updates for minors. The word "transgender" didn't appear in any of them.

Proponents of the bills in Texas, which brought triple the number of anti-trans bills this year of any other state, also rarely reference trans people during debate, even though the legislation is about what trans kids can and cannot do. Instead, they use language that categorizes trans girls as boys by using sex assigned at birth to define gender identity.

More anti-trans bills were introduced in state legislatures in 2021 than in any previous year on record.   The 19th reviewed the text of 102 bills in seven states that were primarily designed to restrict access to sports or gender-affirming care for trans youth, like hormones and puberty blockers, and only seven bills mentioned the word "transgender." Only eight passed, primarily those focused on sports, although legal battles in several states have barred most from going into effect.

While Texas introduced the most anti-trans legislation in 2021, six other states considered at least seven bills. In Iowa (10 bills) and Montana (seven bills), the word transgender is not mentioned. In Tennessee, 12 bills were introduced, and only one - which would block state-approved textbooks that mention LGBTQ+ people - acknowledges trans people.

In West Virginia (seven bills) and Arkansas (seven bills), the only reference to transgender people is to cite a 2019 study on how gender-affirming treatment affects muscle mass in sports competitions. Missouri is a notable exception: Two failed bills, out of nine in that state, referenced trans men and women.

Lawmakers' arguments in support of these bills stress that girls must be protected from losing opportunities in sports against "biological men." That idea displays deep-seated assumptions about gender, as transwomen are portrayed as a threat to cisgender girls' academic and economic opportunities. As this argument has been repeated across the country, trans people and LGBTQ+ advocates tell The 19th that their existence is being called into question.

This approach isn't new, but advocates say it has evolved in recent years.

In 2017, Texas' failed bathroom bill  [see also: bathroom bills  |  Discrediting the Transphobic "Bathroom Predator" Myth] did not actually reference transgender people anywhere in the text, though the legislation aimed to keep trans people from using bathrooms that match their gender identity. North Carolina's infamous 2016 bathroom bill [Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act], which was passed and subsequently repealed after The Associated Press   predicted it would cost the state more than $3.76 billion in boycotts, also never used the word transgender.

In 2018, residents in Anchorage, Alaska, weighed a similar measure  [2018 Municipality of Anchorage, Alaska, Proposition 1] to restrict bathroom access. The question needed 2,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot, and the American Civil Liberties Union circulated a competing "decline to sign" in support of trans people.

The ACLU discovered that 150 voters signed both petitions, many unwittingly, they told reporters at LGBTQ+ outlet INTO. That was in part because canvassers for the ballot measure asked questions like: "Do you want men in your little girl's bathrooms in elementary schools?"

LGBTQ+ advocates say the decision to exclude the word "transgender" in policies that directly shape trans lives has been intentional and strategic.

Scott McCoy, the interim deputy legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, believes that the decision to avoid the word "transgender" as it was done in Alaska's bathroom bill is partially a tactic to deceive voters. "They're totally mixing the issues. When a transwomen uses the women's room, that's not a man going into the women's room," he said.

"I think it's a lot more simple than we want to admit," said Emmett Schelling, executive director for the Transgender Education Network of Texas  [TENT;  website]. "If we refuse to name, or even recognize the existence of something, then ... understanding is negated." By not acknowledging transgender people's existence in legislation or rhetoric that affects them, Schelling said, proponents of these bills make it impossible for them to also acknowledge potential harms. "Like, 'I'm not saying that they're not happening, I'm actually going a step further and I'm saying, 'You don't exist, so it can't happen.' There is something deeply disturbing about that," he said.

While most of the bills in Texas didn't advance, one that became law, House Bill 25, bans K-12 trans kids from playing in sports that match their gender identity. Republican Texas State Representative Valoree Swanson introduced the bill, and when she was pressed by lawmakers about negative effects the bill could have, she denied that the bill had anything to do with trans youth. It was, she said, not about gender at all but about "biological sex."

Swanson referred to transgender women as "biological men" in committee hearings and debates throughout the year's special sessions. She said in an 2021-10-14hearing that Texas' regulatory body for high school athletics was unable to provide lawmakers with a current count of trans athletes in the state. During that hearing on the athletic ban, Texas State Representative Mary González (D-TX), a Democrat, asked Swanson: "So you're okay with creating an invisibility which we know creates mental harm of people of different gender identities?"

[ ... snip ... ]

Within that right-leaning content, words like "biological male," "women's sports," "biological men" and "gender identity" are frequently used to describe trans people - instead of the word transgender. Advocates fear this kind of language drives violent and potentially deadly attacks against transwomen of color.

[ ... snip ... ]

Gillian Branstetter  [Press Secretary, National Women's Law Center] believes the language truly took hold during the Trump administration, when the United States Department of Health and Human Services in 2018 led an ultimately unsuccessful effort to define gender "as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth," The New York Times   reported at the time.

[ ... snip ... ]

"I think they've just really effectively reframed their argument in a way that allows people to have these kinds of transphobic perspectives because they've removed the word transgender from all of this, so they're like, oh, no, but it's really about boys playing girls."

In 2014, the Alliance Defending Freedom released an internal style guide  [local copy] advising against the use of the word "transgender" - according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which republished the document in 2018, and labels Alliance Defending Freedom an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group. Alliance Defending Freedom spokesperson Ellie Wittman  [local copy] said Alliance Defending Freedom no longer uses that style, but did not comment further.

Still, current actions by Alliance Defending Freedom suggests it has not changed policy with regards to use of "transgender." A website sponsored by Alliance Defending Freedom and other groups to generate anti-trans legislation offers "model policy " that avoids the word "transgencer."

The Alliance Defending Freedom in part helped kick off the trend of anti-trans legislation. In Idaho - which in 2020 became the first state to enact a ban on trans kids' sports participation - the lawmaker who spearheaded the bill said the group played a pivotal role in reframing and advancing the legislation. Idaho State Representative Barbara Ehardt (R-ID) told Imara Jones  [Wikipedia: Imara Jones] of TransLash Media that when she [Barbara Ehardt] felt she hit a dead-end when trying to draft the bill, she reached out to Alliance Defending Freedom. "Then they decided that they were going to get more serious about this legislation. And then we completely changed it. And this is where you see what, of course, many are using now in these other states," Barbara Ehardt said. The law was blocked by a federal judge and never went into effect, but Ehardt - a Republican - has said that it provided a model. "I've been pleased to see how many other states this year have followed and many of them using the exact legislation or maybe slight deviations of what we did here in Idaho," Barbara Ehardt told NPR in 2021-05.

Although advocates say the rhetoric surrounding these bills has ramped up this year, they also stress that trans people have always been up against erasure. Kasey Suffredini, CEO for the LGBTQ+ coalition Freedom for All Americans, said anti-LGBTQ+ activists have used the same tactic against lesbian and gay people. "This isn't a new tactic," Suffredini said in a statement. "During the freedom to marry fight, opponents of marriage for same-sex couples would avoid referring to lesbian, gay and bisexual people as just that, instead describing them as 'people with same-sex attraction.'"

Johnson reflected that beyond legislation, trans people have long faced erasure within their relationships - a nearly universal experience that many trans people face even as that same erasure is being codified by the state. "None of this is new," Johnson said. "How many of us are erased, attempted to be erased by our family and our friends and our co-workers and the societies in which we live in? This is a thing that we all face day to day."

Additional Reading

Republicans have made it clear that their number one legislative and cultural priority is the "eradication of transgenderism from public life," as was stated by Daily Wire host Michael Knowles at the Conservative Political Action Conference this year (2023). While Michael Knowles later claimed he did not mean killing transgender people, he made it clear that transgender people have no place in public life in any way shape or form and that the full force of government should be used to achieve this aim.

More anti-transgender bills have been filed this year (2023) than in the past four years combined, and by the time the year is finished even more will have passed into law. These laws are designed to make life for transgender people functionally impossible: to make it impossible to go to school, to get medical care, to get accurate government IDs, to be protected from harassment and discrimination in the workplace, to go out in public without violating laws against drag, to participate in sports - banning them from the military, banning them from all types of media, and even making it illegal to use a public bathroom. The laws go so far as to write the existence of transgender people out of law - to effectively unperson them as a class.

The rhetorical war on trans people has become apocalyptic in its language. Even tolerance of transgender people is framed as something that will end not only the United States but civilization as we know it. Pundits who make millions of dollars a year speaking to audiences on Twitter and YouTube describe "gender ideology" (i.e., trans people) as the greatest evil since Auschwitz and Josef Mengele's experiments. They frame how transgender people should be treated as "It's us or them": If they are not destroyed soon, we, the real Americans, will be.

There is more than a hint of the attitude that "we have tolerated these people for too long, even as they destroy our nation from within and pollute our culture." There's incitement to violence to protect women and children, even as party-affiliated militias (whether the Sturmabteilung or the Proud Boys) engage in campaigns of intimidation. Such sentiments and statements would not seem out of place uttered by Joseph Goebbels in 1933 or Tucker Carlson today.

There's a pattern to how states target disfavored minorities with the intention of driving them out, or underground. It starts with rhetoric demonizing a minority, designed to start a moral panic, and with laws meant to "encourage" the targeted minority to leave by making life as dangerous, unpleasant, and untenable for them as possible.

Over time, as the situation deteriorates, many choose to leave no matter what the personal cost because anything is better than this: whether it was Blacks fleeing the American South during the Great Migration, or the 60 percent of German Jews who left the country between 1933 and 1939. Modern-day Republicans are not even hiding the fact that the goal of their anti-LGBTQ policies is to encourage them to flee. When a poll found that over half of Florida's LGBTQ parents were considering leaving Florida because of Governor Ron DeSantis' (R-FL) desk' policies, Ron DeSantis' press secretary, Christina Pushaw, responded on Twitter with an emoji of a hand waving "Bye!"

We can already see the beginnings of this pattern with the trans community in the U.S. People like the Shappleys, the Texas family who were the most vocal advocates for their children, are packing up and leaving red states even if they don't have homes or jobs waiting for them elsewhere (parent Kimberley Shappley; trans daughter Kai Shappley). Their calculation is the same as it was for Jews in the 1930s: It doesn't matter if we end up in a homeless shelter far away, it is still safer than living under this fascist government. Other trans people and families of trans children are emigrating, believing that the more distance they put between themselves and their former homeland, the safer they'll be.

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• [NBCNews.com, 2022-07-07] Texas trans activist, 11, flees the state after years of advocacy.  Kimberly Shappley said she’s moving her family out of Texas to protect her 11-year-old daughter, Kai, who has become a prominent trans rights activist.

• [CTVoice.com, 2022-11-20] Profiles in Courage – The Shappley Family.

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Jewish emigration was the goal of Germany prior to 1942. Often lost in the history of Kristallnacht was that Germany rounded up approximately 30,000 Jewish men at the same time and sent them to concentration camps. However, the vast majority were released within a few months, if they signed agreements to leave Germany and never return. This spurred another wave of terrified Jewish immigrants liquidating their assets and going to whatever country would take them. All too often, no country would.

The terror, hopelessness, and despair within the trans community over the laws and policies forcing them to leave or detransition is palpable. We see young trans people choosing between the futures they hoped for and survival. For some it is too much, and all signs point to a dramatic rise in suicides. Yet still, it will not be enough to achieve the GOP goal of eradicating transgenderism, just as all the things done to German Jews still left 40 percent of them in place at the start of World War II. Some people are too poor, too young, too old, or too sick to flee. Others gamble that things will get better: that the fever will pass and people will come to their senses. Some believe that they can bleed off their wealth over time to ride it out: that their upper-middle-class status will shield them until the storm passes. Others believe that being the right sort of person will save them, whether it was "I served in the Kaiser's army" in 1939 or "I voted for Trump twice" in 2023. A small number believe that they will be able to stay and fight. Thus, there will always be some left who are still there after every effort has already been made to drive them to leave semi-voluntarily. Unfortunately, fascist forces have convinced themselves, and their base, that unless this number is reduced to zero, unless this malign influence is eradicated utterly, the country cannot survive.

The Christian fundamentalists behind this push to purge transgender people frequently use an analogy about dog poop in brownies to describe why even the slightest contamination with LGBTQ ideas is unacceptable to God. This mindset leads to the conclusion that there cannot be a trace of "transgenderism" left in the U.S., and this means using all means available to ensure not a single transgender person remains in public life, except for closeted or detransitioned people living in fear, the way gays do in Saudi Arabia. It is irrationally optimistic to hope that they will pull back from this goal because they realize they have gone too far: That would require them to pull back on their most deeply held religious views.

When fascist governments decide that they have hit the point of diminishing returns with efforts to drive out the undesirables, they move on to a final solution, whatever it may be. The GOP has already introduced laws and policies across half the country that could accomplish most of what German laws did between 1933 and 1939. Most have not passed yet, but it appears only a matter of time before they do. The number being introduced and passing is accelerating, as are their scope and severity. Whereas bathroom bans and eliminating health care for adults was almost unthinkable mere months ago, we're now seeing it pop up across red states. Other previously unthinkable things, like Russian-style anti-LGBTQ propaganda laws, book bannings, and threats against internet service providers, are ubiquitous.

The GOP knows, however, that it is running out of laws it can pass to make people leave voluntarily, and it knows some people will try to stick it out the same way people did in Germany. For example, the state Supreme Court blocked Tennessee's anti-drag law on free speech grounds. It's going to need a next step to eradicate transgenderism, and what the step will be is now coming into focus.

We first glimpsed it when Tucker Carlson proposed stripping trans people of not only their right to own guns but of guns entirely. Calls for stripping trans people of guns only increased after it emerged that the Nashville shooter was transgender, though the shooter does not appear to have been targeting Christians or have had any political motivations, as was initially claimed by conservative media.

The Supreme Court of the United States has decided that the Second Amendment is a nearly inviolable civil right, which means that there are very few ways to take guns away from people. One of the only ways to strip a person of their guns is declaring that the person "has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution." This suggests that at least some conservatives are looking to use courts to label transgender people "mental defectives" en masse.

Further evidence of this came during speeches at the recent NRA convention. The overwhelming narrative is that mass shootings and gun violence are caused by "mental illness" (and not the 400 million guns in civilian hands). Former Vice President Mike Pence called for mass institutionalization of the mentally ill to prevent violence. Donald Trump was explicit as to whom the others meant when they called for mass institutionalization of the "mentally ill," alleging that everyone knows that hormone replacement therapy makes transgender people dangerously psychotic. He also put internment camps ("tent cities") forward as a way to deal with homeless people.

Still, the emerging narrative appears to be coordinated: Trans people are dangerously mentally ill and should have their guns taken away to be institutionalized for the sake of society, and for their own good. The message is that "transgenderism" is why people are committing mass shootings at schools, and this creates a legal framework for mass institutionalization.

As one veteran civil rights lawyer pointed out to me, you can drive a semi through the hole that "protecting women and children" blows in what's known in legal terms as "intermediate and rational basis scrutiny." We can also see the collapse of the courts as a defense against civil rights abuses, whether it's the Dobbs decision (Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobbs_v._Jackson_Women%27s_Health_Organization), or deciding that innocence is no bar to executing prisoners. For instance, would Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk or the Fifth Circuit stop Texas from executing an emergency public health declaration that a diagnosis of gender dysphoria is grounds for declaring individuals mental defectives or institutionalizing them if they argued that the safety of women and children was in imminent danger?

You may think I sound overwrought. But there are indications that preparations might already be in progress for mass actions against transgender people as a class. Texas and Florida have been drawing up secret lists of known transgender individuals, and state officials refuse to answer what purpose these lists might serve. Missouri, after effectively banning health care for all trans people in the state, set up a government web page "where people can report trans individuals and the people who help them," but did not specify what it intends to use this information for. Florida politicians are laying the rhetorical groundwork to make involuntary institutionalization of trans people seem like an act of mercy and compassion: They claim that trans people are begging them for help and their actions are intended to give trans people the help they want and need.

This would be a one-way ticket to unspeakable horrors. It is nearly impossible for people to regain self-agency through the legal system. The "help" would be conversion therapy, conditioning, and indoctrination, and the confinement likely under terrible conditions. "Curing" transgender people who have already undergone gender-confirming surgeries could require "agreeing" (under extreme duress) to try to reverse those surgeries.

If this sounds familiar, it really, really should.

For anyone who reacts with "it couldn't happen here," I would remind them of Masha Gessen's rules for surviving autocracy: namely, "Believe the autocrat," and "Your institutions will not save you." You would have to disbelieve their stated goal of "eradicating transgenderism." You would have to deny that the U.S. is capable of doing horrible things, like the internment of Japanese Americans or the Tuskegee experiments. Or believe that the court system built by Republicans would consistently block the actions of Republicans. One could easily imagine the U.S. Supreme Court coming down on the side of states' rights and finding that individual states have the right to set their own laws for determining mental competency and what constitutes a threat to public health.

There's no guarantee the GOP will move on to the next step required to eradicate transgenderism. Maybe this is a bridge too far for the courts. Maybe a few moderate Republicans will balk at such brutal government overreach (though very few have done this so far). Maybe protests and boycotts would sway them (though corporations have failed to punish red states for targeting the trans community). But it is becoming increasingly clear that they will try, opposition has done little to slow them down, and now they're hinting how they intend to close the deal.

Taking away the freedom of families of transgender youth to seek critical health care, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed into law today (2023-03-02) a ban on all forms of gender-affirming care for transgender people under 18 - putting the government in charge of making vital decisions traditionally reserved to parents in Tennessee. The law takes effect on 2023-07-01.

Under the new Tennessee law, trans youth already receiving gender-affirming health care as of 2023-07-01 will be forced to lose access to such care after 2024-03-31, in Tennessee. Youth not receiving medical care by 2023-07-01 will be unable to begin receiving care in Tennessee.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Tennessee, and Lambda Legal issued the following response:

"We will not allow this dangerous law to stand. Certain politicians and Governor Lee have made no secret of their intent to discriminate against youth who are transgender or their willful ignorance about the life-saving health care they seek to ban. Instead, they've chosen fearmongering, misrepresentations, intimidation, and extremist politics over the rights of families and the lives of transgender youth in Tennessee. We are dedicated to overturning this unconstitutional law and are confident the state will find itself completely incapable of defending it in court. We want transgender youth to know they are not alone and this fight is not over."

All three organizations have promised legal action against Tenessee SB 1  [Tennessee Senate Bill 1 (2023-2024) (TN SB0001 | 2023-2024 | 113th General Assembly)], and similar restrictions in Alabama and Arkansas have been enjoined by federal courts. Tennessee is the fourth state in this legislative session to - following anti-transgender bans signed into law in Utah, South Dakota, and Mississippi.

Any person at risk of being affected by these restrictions on gender-affirming care should reach out to the ACLU  [← link to form].  [The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and the United States' guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution of the United States and the laws of the United States.]

So far this year (2023), Republicans have filed over 300 anti-transgender bills at the state and federal levels, and we haven't even reached the end of 2023-02. This list doesn't even include Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Indiana Representative Jim Banks' introduction of a transgender military ban even more draconian than the one the Trump administration attempted to implement, which at least had a grandfather clause for people already serving. The American Principles Project - a religious conservative think tank and whose goal is to ban all transition-related health care (even for adults) - is making a full-court press on Republican candidates to use transgender people as the number one talking point during the 2024 election cycle  [2024 United States presidential election].

The most common type of anti-transgender bill, by far, involves bans on gender-affirming care. Most of these bills target people under the age of 18, but increasingly the bar is being raised to 19, 21, or even adults under the age of 26. Texas has just introduced a bill to ban all treatment, regardless of age. It seems likely that at least 10 to 13 bills will pass this year (2023).

The chart below shows where these bills are being introduced, and the frequency by type. The data comes from the ACLU  [Wikipedia: American Civil Liberties Union], and the chart was reproduced here with permission from Allison Chapman.




Mapping Attacks on LGBTQ Rights in U.S. State Legislatures. In the last few years states have advanced a record number of bills that attack LGBTQ rights, especially transgender youth. The ACLU is tracking these attacks and working with our national network of affiliates to support LGBTQ people everywhere.  [Source]

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How U.S. state lawmakers are targeting LGBTQ rights  [Source]

Accompanying each of these anti-transgender bills are hearings that follow an utterly demoralizing pattern. Republican legislators first welcome "experts" (who have never treated trans youth) from fake medical organizations. One frequent witness is a lapsed plastic surgeon who runs a Botox clinic out of a strip mall next to a Pizza Hut. Then they feature a parent or two who had a kid come out as trans and have grown estranged from their (now adult) offspring because they continue to refuse to acknowledge or respect who they are. Finally, there's a handful of detransitioners who make the rounds, the same way ex-gays did a decade or two ago, being shuttled about by the same organizations that paid Norma McCorvey  [Wikipedia: Norma McCorvey] to oppose abortion.

Almost all these individuals have been flown in from other states by conservative organizations like The Heritage Foundation and the Alliance Defending Freedom. The lineup rarely changes: It's typically a sample of the same 10 or 15 quacks and the same four or five detransitioners at every hearing. The pattern only really changes when there are two hearings going on in different states at the same time. What doesn't change at all are the half-truths, lies, and deliberate omissions used as talking points at every one of these hearings.

[ ... snip ... ]

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• [Truthout.org, 2023-03-02] NYT Responds to Criticism of Anti-Trans Bias by Silencing Its Own Reporters.  The New York Times' coverage reflects its commitment to a flawed version of objectivity that equates balance with accuracy.

[ ... snip ... ]

The New York Times' Editorial Bias Bolsters Anti-Trans Legislation

In 2023-01 Popula's   Tom Scocca   found that - during the previous eight months - The New York Times published more than 15,000 words questioning the morality of trans kids' access to gender-affirming medical care. This figure didn't include some 11,000 words The New York Times Magazine   afforded to Emily Bazelon's article "The Battle Over Gender Therapy," which was riddled with anti-trans talking points, such as the false claim that transitioning might be a way for young people "struggling with serious mental-health issues ... to shed aspects of themselves they dislike."

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• [Tom Scocca, Popula.com, 2023-03-06] The Times’ front-page scare stories about trans youth add up to 13,945 words.  A Revised Measurement of the Paper's Fixation: Trans Kids Are a Bigger Problem Than Climate-Change Obstruction.

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Emily Bazelon's article - among two others published by The New York Times - was cited in 2022-07 by Arkansas' attorney general (Tim Griffin) in an amicus brief supporting Alabama's (COMMENT: Arkansas' ? → ) Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act - a law that would make it illegal for medical professionals to provide certain gender-affirming health care (such as puberty blockers and hormone treatment) to trans minors.

In 2022 alone, lawmakers introduced 315 anti-LGBTQ bills in the United States, according to a 2023-02 report by the Movement Advancement Project.

"There is a campaign in state legislatures, in the courts, in the streets and in the media to roll back rights for transgender people, fomenting a moral panic about teachers and drag queens coming for America's children," wrote   Ari Paul in an article for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). "This campaign is often portrayed as coming from the far-right, which sees traditional gender roles under attack by a new world order. But liberal and centrist institutions like The New York Times aid and abet this campaign."

The New York Times' Responses Muffle the Alarms

Charlie Stadtlander, The New York Times' director of external communications, issued the newspaper's first response to the critical letters. Charlie Stadtlander's written statement - which appeared to conflate the two separate letters - distinguished between the "advocacy mission" of GLAAD and the newspaper's "journalistic mission." Writing for The Nation, Jack Mirkinson   observed that The New York Times aimed "to distance itself from what it clearly believes to be an activist mob that doesn't understand what Real Journalism is all about." Although Charlie Stadtlander's statement referred to "the co-signers of the letter," it failed to acknowledge that the letter's primary authors were journalists whose reporting The New York Times regularly publishes.

The New York Times' second response - issued by its executive editor - Joseph Kahn - acknowledged the role of The New York Times journalists even as it dodged the specific criticisms their letter had raised. Instead, Joseph Kahn wrote: "We do not welcome, and will not tolerate, participation by The New York Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums." As Ari Paul summarized, "The writers offered documented criticism, and Joseph Kahn dismissed it - prohibited it - as an attack and a protest organized by an outside group."

The New York Times sought to muffle the alarm sounded by its own reporters, a response that merits deeper examination for at least three reasons.

[ ... snip ... ]

To say that it was a decision for me (Hanna Phifer) to put my name on the open letter to The New York Times condemning The New York Times for its continuous anti-trans rhetoric suggests that it required more thought than it actually did. I received an email at 11:02 on a Saturday evening from a friend who was one of the organizers of the letter, and I replied at 11:04 pm that "I would absolutely love to sign the letter."

Like many people, I've watched in horror the rising transphobia that has manifested in innumerable ways across the United States over the past few years. According to the ACLU, there have already been 321 bills introduced in state legislatures this year (2023). Political figures have become the face of such tyranny, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with his support of legislation like the Parental Rights in Education Act - or what many would come to refer to as the "Don't say gay" law - which prohibits grade school educators from speaking about both sexuality and gender identity in the classroom.

But conservative lawmakers can't claim monopoly over transphobic attacks. Comedian Dave Chappelle has spent nearly a decade going on transphobic tears in his stand-up routine - most recently with the support and backing of corporate giant Netflix.

A day after the open letter went live, The New York Times ran an article with the headline "In Defense of J.K. Rowling." J.K. Rowling - author of the famed Harry Potter children's book series - has tarnished her legacy in many people's eyes with her recent turn to   [TERF: trans-exclusionary radical feminist]. The The New York Times prompted the organizers of the open letter to tack an update onto the letter, expressing disappointment over The New York Times of this piece.

The New York Times is not alone in its obscene coverage of transgender people. Other prestigious publications like The Atlantic,   The New Yorker, and New York Magazine have played their part in pushing forward narratives that put the lives of trans people in danger. ...

snip

In a letter  [local copy (html), captured 2023-02-20] to The New York Times leadership (2023-02-15), more than 180 of the paper's contributors (later swelling to more than 1,000) raised "serious concerns about editorial bias in The New York Times's reporting on transgender, non-binary and gender nonconforming people." What started as a conversation about a paper's coverage exploded into a battle between media workers who see a problem at one of the most powerful media outlets on earth - The New York Times - and a media management that simply won't listen. "Some of us are trans, non-binary, or gender nonconforming, and we resent the fact that our work, but not our person, is good enough for the paper of record," the letter declared:

Some of us are cis, and we have seen those we love discover and fight for their true selves, often swimming upstream against currents of bigotry and pseudoscience fomented by the kind of coverage we here protest.

The letter was organized by the Freelance Solidarity Project  [Wikipedia: Freelance Solidarity Project] - a part of the National Writers Union.

A similar letter from LGBTQ media advocacy group GLAAD (2023-02-15) and over a hundred other LGBTQ groups and leaders made three demands (summarized in a press release):

1. Stop printing biased anti-trans stories, immediately.
2. Listen to trans people: hold a meeting with trans community leaders within two months.
3. Hire at least four trans writers and editors within three months.

As Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting  (FAIR: 2023-01-16) and many other progressive outlets and groups have noted, there is a campaign in state legislatures, in the courts, in the streets and in the media to roll back rights for transgender people, fomenting a moral panic about teachers and drag queens coming for America's children. States like Florida are already banning certain types of medical care for trans people (Tampa Bay Times, 2023-02-10), and other states have enacted similar laws (NBC, 2023-02-14). States are even looking to restrict drag performances (The Washington Post, 2023-02-14).

This campaign is often portrayed as coming from the far-right, which sees traditional gender roles under attack by a new world order. But liberal and centrist institutions like The New York Times aid and abet this campaign.

"Patient zero"

Invoking the The New York Times' early homophobic response to the rise of the gay rights movement and the AIDS crisis, the letter writers argue that The New York Times has a responsibility to do better. The contributors' letter cites an article (2022-06-15) that

... uncritically used the term "patient zero" to refer to a trans child seeking gender-affirming care - a phrase that vilifies transness as a disease to be feared.

The article quoted "multiple expert sources who have since expressed regret over their work's misrepresentation." (FAIR and the podcast Death Panel, among others, have detailed many other problems with the article).

The letter points to another piece (2023-01-22) about children's right to safely transition and policies about whether schools can or should withhold students' gender transitions from their parents. The piece, the letter says, "fails to make clear that court cases brought by parents who want schools to out their trans children are part of a legal strategy pursued by anti-trans hate groups," which have "identified trans people as an 'existential threat to society' and seek to replace the American public education system with Christian homeschooling" - noting that this is "key context" that was not provided to The New York Times readers.

The The New York Times articles cited in the letter give the impression that we are living in a time of rushed, ill-informed transitions and shady treatments for children that lack oversight. As Samantha Hancox-Li wrote (Liberal Currents, 2023-02-08), this is, in fact, the opposite of the truth, because cisgender minors have easier access to treatments they need than trans youth:

This is the reality of trans care in the United States: not children being rushed to experimental treatments, but explicit segregation, discrimination and the denial of basic care. When a trans kid wants to grow out her hair and change her name, it's national news. When a cis kid wants to do the same thing, it's Tuesday. When trans kids want hormone replacement therapy, we call it "gender-confirming treatments" and publish article after fretting article about how strange and dangerous they are. When cis kids receive medically identical prescriptions, it's Tuesday. We don't even have a name for it. Because what's normal is invisible.

The question before us isn't whether we should allow trans kids access to special experimental treatments. The question is whether we enable trans kids to access essential medical care on the same terms we allow cis kids to.

Gender-affirming care is critical because it has been shown to have enormous mental health benefits for trans youth, including reducing the risk of suicide (JAMA, 2011-02-15; Scientific American, 5/12/22).

Misrepresenting facts

The letter writers note that the coverage of trans issues has fed into the assault on trans rights at the state level. GLAAD said in its letter:

Every major medical association supports gender-affirming care as best-practices care that is safe and lifesaving and has widespread consensus in the medical and scientific communities. Yet The New York Times continues to churn out pieces that anti-trans extremists use to harm children and families. In 2022-11 The New York Times published a story that got the science of gender-affirming care so wrong that the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) had to write a multi-page tear-down explaining how The New York Times misrepresented the facts at every turn.

The letters' examples are far from exhaustive. For instance, columnist Pamela Paul - once again, no relation - regularly uses the platform The New York Times gives her to spread misleading anti-trans narratives, as Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (12/16/22) has documented.

In perhaps the clearest display of out-of-touch-ness, the day after the letter went public, The New York Times published a column by Pamela Paul (2023-02-16) defending author J.K. Rowling - who has immense literary fame and cultural power - from charges of transphobia, quoting one advocate saying J.K. Rowling "sees herself as standing up for the rights of a vulnerable group." The vulnerable group here isn't one of the world's most marginalized minorities, but people like J,K.Rowling, who want "spaces for biological women only." Pamela Paul invoked the stabbing of Salman Rushdie in deeming criticism of J.K Rowling "dangerous."

J.K. Rowling has been an outspoken opponent of Scotland's attempt to enact legislation to protect trans rights (BBC, 10/7/22), which was eventually blocked by the British prime minister Rishi Sunak (Guardian, 2023-01-16). That defeat helped lead to Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon's   resignation, which was celebrated by conservative British media (Economist, 2023-02-15; Daily Mail, 2023-02-15; London Times, 2023-02-16).

In other words, J.K. Rowling isn't just saying things trans people don't like, she's actively impeding social progress and helping to end the careers of politicians who offend the established order. Pamela Paul's advocacy for J.K. Rowling is a reversal of journalism's mission: Pamela Paul afflicts the afflicted, and comforts the comfortable.

Pushed to the margins

[ ... snip ... ]

[ ... snip ... ]

There has been deep dismay about the The New York Times'   persistently skeptical coverage of trans identity - which has come at a time when trans people's right to exist in public is under attack across the United States. Last week (2023-02), the opposition to The New York Times's seeming institutional animus toward trans rights burst into widespread public view, when thousands of The New York Times contributors and over 30,000 supporters signed an open letter  [local copy (html), captured 2023-02-20] urging The New York Times to rethink its coverage of transgender persons and issues. (Full disclosure: I added my name to the letter. -- Jack Mirkinson, an interim senior editor at The Nation, and cofounder of Discourse Blog.)

In response to the letter, the The New York Times dismissed the letter - and a separate one sent by the LGBTQ rights group GLAAD - as coming from people with an "advocacy mission," as opposed to its own "journalistic mission." The New York Times's executive editor - Joseph Kahn - then sent a furious note to his staffers, some of whom had signed the letter from journalists, warning them, "We do not welcome, and will not tolerate, participation by The New York Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums."

[ ... snip ... ]

There are clear echoes of this kind of blinkered loftiness in Joseph Kahn's acid references to "advocacy groups" in his staff memo about the paper's trans coverage.

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Abe Rosenthal (A. M. Rosenthal; Abraham Michael Rosenthal) - who led The New York Times from 1969 to 1986 - is perhaps most frequently remembered now for something he adamantly refused to do: cover the LGBTQ rights movement, particularly the AIDS crisis, with the scope or respect it deserved. (The epitaph on Abe Rosenthal's tombstone - "He kept the paper straight" - now seems like a sick joke.) Instead, The New York Times under Abe Rosenthal kept queer people at arm's length.

The New York Times even refused to use the word "gay" in its pages until 1987-06 - doggedly sticking to the more clinical "homosexual." And The New York Times underplayed the spread of HIV/AIDS, waiting nearly two years after its first, now-legendary item broaching the subject to run a story about AIDS on its front page.

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Thirty years after Abe Rosenthal's admission, The New York Times is still trapped in the same bunker when it comes to LGBTQ issues. The New York Times is still at pains to distance itself from what it clearly believes to be an activist mob that doesn't understand what "Real Journalism" is all about. The New York Times is still so instinctively appalled at the notion that its critics might be right that it is choosing the path of aristocratic contempt.

Trans people are currently experiencing a punishing, traumatic assault on their very right to be alive. But if history is any guide, they will eventually win the battle to be treated as full human beings. What will The New York Times do at that point? There is a good chance that we will get a new series of hand-wringing stories about how The New York Times fell short at a moment when so many people desperately needed The New York Times to step up. There is also a good chance that The New York Times will attempt to explain its behavior by saying that anti-trans panic was just in the air back then, part of the intrinsic way of things. But just as with its coverage of queer life and AIDS in the past, people will know better.

[ ... snip ... ]

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• [Reblogged, 2023-01-08, Truthout.org] State Legislatures Are Now Targeting Health Care for Transgender Adults.  Legislators in at least 7 states have prefiled bills that would restrict or even criminalize gender affirming care.

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Lawmakers in at least eight states used the last two months of 2022 to prefile anti-transgender bills ahead of state legislative sessions convening this month (2023-01) - setting up another year of statehouse battles over trans rights, while targeting health care for trans adults in new ways. Most states moving early on anti-trans bills focused on banning gender-affirming care for trans youth, while others have proposed banning care for adults, according to data from the Equality Federation, a coalition of state LGBTQ+ organizations, and a review of state bills by The 19th.

So far, efforts to restrict health care for transgender adults - either directly or through insurance exclusions - stand out as the new ground being broken ahead of 2023 legislative sessions. Education will be another crucial policy arena to watch after so-called "Don't Say Gay" laws  [Florida Parental Rights in Education Act] - and other bills impacting LGBTQ+ students - went into effect across the United States last year (2022).

Identifying which states are prioritizing anti-LGBTQ+ legislation - regardless of whether those bills ultimately fail - is important because a pattern has emerged in the past few years: those same states have also made new and exploratory efforts to implement anti-trans policies outside of their legislatures - Texas and Florida are key examples. Actions from Texas' governor (Greg Abbott), and Florida's state-appointed medical board (Florida Governor Ron DeSantis) enabled swifter restrictions and put greater political pressure on providers of gender-affirming care for trans youth.

Forty-three states will convene their legislative sessions in 2023-01. Here are the states that got a head start on anti-trans legislation before the new year (2023).

South Carolina

Republicans in South Carolina have introduced a bill to ban gender-affirming care for anyone 21 years old or younger. The state further proposes that requirements already typical for trans adults seeking gender-affirming care are codified into law. Under the current version of the bill, trans people over 21 trying to get gender-affirming care in South Carolina would need a referral from their primary care doctor and a psychiatrist who finds that such care would treat their gender dysphoria. A referral from a primary care doctor or letter from a mental health professional is already standard for many adults seeking gender-affirming care, especially to get those procedures covered by insurance. Although South Carolina's proposal wouldn't change much, it still comes as some trans adults worry that their health care will be increasingly targeted by state-level restrictions.

Lawmakers in South Carolina - where both chambers of the state legislature are Republican-controlled - have proposed blocking public funds from being "used directly or indirectly" for gender transition procedures, without specifying whether such a restriction applies to procedures for only trans youth. The same bill also mandates that teachers and school employees out transgender students - or any student suffering from gender dysphoria - to their parents.

Texas

Lawmakers in Texas, another state where Republicans hold a trifecta of power in the governorship and in both legislative houses, filed 10 anti-trans bills in the last two months. The bills are focused on gender-affirming care, in addition to one bill that aims to prohibit schools from letting trans students play sports that match their gender identity. Republican lawmakers have proposed making gender-affirming care for minors a prohibited practice for physicians, marking it as a second-degree felony, and labeling the prescription of puberty blockers and hormone therapy to minors as child abuse.

Like in South Carolina, lawmakers in Texas have proposed a bill that would prohibit state funds from being used for health benefits covering gender-affirming treatments - without specifying age requirements for that restriction. One bill slated for Texas' legislature to take up later this month (2023-01) stands out, since it bars gender-affirming care for minors while carving out an exception for youth who had already begun hormone treatment or puberty-blocking medication prior to the bill's potential effective date.

Arizona

A prefiled Arizona bill directs school district employees to address all students under 18 years old using pronouns that match their sex assigned at birth - effectively ordering the misgendering of transgender or nonbinary children unless a parent provides written permission. The Republican Party controls both chambers of the Arizona state legislature - although the state has just elected a Democrat for governor - and some GOP lawmakers in the state put up resistance against their own party when debating anti-trans bills last year (2022).

Oklahoma

Oklahoma - which convenes its GOP-controlled legislature in 2023-02 - will consider a bill to ban gender-affirming care for anyone under 21 years old - an effort that failed in the state in 2021. Notably, Oklahoma lawmakers have also brought a bill that would ban physicians from administering any gender-affirming care to transgender adults who are under 26 years old and ban them from referring their patients to receive such care. The legislation also aims to keep gender-affirming care from being covered through the state's Medicaid program. Such a prohibition has precedent, as multiple states exclude trans health care coverage from their Medicaid policies.

Doctors found guilty under Oklahoma's proposed bill - if it became law - would be guilty of a felony for administering medical care to adults. The far-reaching legislation seeks to block care at a higher age than most other states have considered. "We haven't seen these types of bills in previous years. This is a startling new evolution of what these bills can be," said Vivian Topping, director of advocacy and civic engagement of the Equality Federation.

Oklahoma lawmakers also prefiled a bill setting terms on the use of names and pronouns. Like the bill in Arizona, Oklahoma's proposed bill effectively asks school adults to misgender trans and nonbinary students by default until informed otherwise by a parent. It also sets terms on the use of names, saying that minors must be addressed by names found on or derived from their birth certificate unless parents provide written consent. Following the format of Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill  [Florida Parental Rights in Education Act], Oklahoma's legislation would also ban classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through sixth grade.

Missouri

In prefiled bills that seek to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth, Missouri lawmakers aim to penalize any adult who "coerces" a minor into undergoing gender-affirming care. The bill would classify this as child abuse or neglect - a felony in the state. The proposal is unclear on how it defines coercion of gender-affirming care for minors. Republicans have also reintroduced a bill from 2020 that would report parents to the state for obtaining such care. The Missouri state legislature - which is controlled by Republicans in both chambers - has also proposed a ban on public funds being used in gender transition procedures for minors.

Tennessee

Tennessee's bill to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth makes a point to tie the provision of such care to Planned Parenthood clinics - which are key resources of hormone therapy and other treatments for many transgender adults. Republicans control both of the Tennessee state legislature's chambers, and Tennessee's GOP governor (Bill Lee) - who has previously signed anti-trans bills into law - called for an investigation last fall into gender-affirming care for minors at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Tennessee lawmakers are also backing an effort to block state funds from being used in health plans or insurance policies, offered through the government, that provide gender-affirming care - without specifying if the policy only applies to minors.

Utah

Lawmakers in Utah - home to a Republican trifecta - have prefiled bills to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth. Republican Governor Spencer Cox of Utah last year (2022) vetoed a bill that aimed to bar transgender students, especially trans girls, from competing in school sports that align with their gender identity.

Virginia

One bill has been prefiled in Virginia to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth, ahead of the Virginia's legislative session. The state is one of few on this list with divided party control of its state legislature.

Kentucky

Kentucky - which began its new legislative session this week (2023-01) - has one school bathroom bill in committee that would allow families to sue if their child encounters a trans student while using the restroom.  [Discrediting the Transphobic "Bathroom Predator" Myth  |  Anti-Transgender "Wedge" Tactics]

Montana  |  New Hampshire

Other states are still drafting bills restricting gender-affirming care for trans youth, although they have yet to formally introduce the legislation. Montana lawmakers are in the process of drafting multiple such bills, and New Hampshire lawmakers are still drafting one, currently on file as LSR0071.

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Vivian Topping (director of advocacy and civic engagement of the Equality Federation) - as well as Corinne Green, policy and legislative strategist for the Equality Federation - don't want trans people to panic in response to the legislation ahead for 2023 and the evolution of more bills that are targeting adults. "We are still really early in the year," Vivian Topping said. "Who knows what happens with these bills as we move forward. The one thing that we do know is that when we have shown up in the past, when we have shown up in state capitols, which trans people and those who love us always do, we have been able to beat these bills."

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• [Reblogged, CommonDreams.org, 2023-01-07] Right-Wing Media Ramping Up LGBTQ Attack.  Claims about the "grooming" of children are meant to "create a culture of fear for all LGBTQ people and their allies, a clear attempt to force them back into the shadows and further out of public life."

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Last summer (2022) - while waiting for coffee at a diner in what I'll just call a small town - I overheard three older men complaining about how schools are forcing children to swap genders. A server responded, "You're not even allowed to talk about this anymore." I thought to myself, "A, you're talking about it right now, and B, where's my coffee?" The exchange has stayed on my mind: How on earth are so many people convinced that children's lives are being turned upside down by the acceptance of LGBTQ rights in America? And why do they believe they are the ones being silenced, when they clearly aren't?

The main reason is that hostility against LGBTQ "grooming"  [LGBT grooming conspiracy theory] - the false idea that schoolteachers and Drag Queen Story Hours at libraries are attempting to train children to be gay and trans, rather than simply acknowledging the existence of gay and trans people, and discouraging hatred and bigoted violence against them - has become a big feature of the social conservative movement. One notable player in that is Chaya Raichik, who runs an anti-trans Twitter account called "Libs of TikTok  [Wikipedia: Libs of TikTok]," which boasts 1.7 million followers.

Fox News - arguably the most influential purveyor of the "grooming" narrative - has shown Libs of TikTok consistent support in the past (e.g., Fox News: 2022-04-20,   2022-06-09,   2022-06-27,   2022-11-21), frequently airing clips from the account (Media Matters: 2022-04-01). While Chaya Raichik's identity had been revealed by The Washington Post (2022-04-19) months ago, she has recently chosen to come out from behind her self-imposed Twitter anonymity - and Fox News was happy to offer a platform.

'Risk of ostracism'

Chaya Raichik recently appeared on Fox News'   Tucker Carlson Tonight (2022-12-27) - using her face and name for the first time - to crank up hateful rhetoric that the LGBTQ community was "evil" and a "cult". (Video of the interview was made available on the subscription-only Fox Nation streaming service - 2022-12-28.) Chaya Raichik is clear about spreading a message designed to stir fear about LGBTQ people coming for your children. Her goal, she told the New York Post (2022-12-31), is "dismantling and destroying gender ideology [sic] in America."

The Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post - which at this point is sort of the print subsidiary of Fox News - doubled down on Chaya Raichik's appearance on Tucker Carlson's show, making her out to be a David taking on the LGBTQ Goliath. "Sometimes in life, you're called to do something that isn't in your nature, compelled nevertheless because you believe it's the right thing to do" - a New York Post op-ed (2022-12-29) declared of Chaya Raichik - because "the risk of ostracism, threats of physical harm and attacks on your character don't measure up to the guilt you'd feel by ignoring your instinct to act."

Laser-focused on trans issues

In the past few years, the right-wing media have become laser-focused on transgender issues - not always attacking trans people individually, but instead claiming that children are being "groomed" to adopt "radical gender ideology," and that rights for the trans community are infringing on the rights of children, women and Christians.

For example, The Wall Street Journal (also owned by the Murdoch family) has run numerous pieces worrying about "the wildfire spread of transgender identity" (8/17/22) and how transgender patient rights could infringe on the rights of conservative Christians who wish to discriminate against them (8/25/22), as well as invoking anti-trans positions as a purported defense of women's rights (3/26/19). The Wall Street Journal also ran multiple opinion articles defending Yeshiva University's resistance to allowing an LGBTQ club on its campus (2022-08-29, 2022-10-02).

The New York Post has painted a picture of parents who fight to protect their children from a supposed trans "gender cult" (2021-12-22,   2022-05-11), as well as blasting the use of public money for drag queen story hours (2022-06-11).

Chaya Raichik is far from the only one in right-wing media hawking the myth that LGBTQ people are using public resources to push a sinister agenda on children. There's Matt Walsh  [Matt Walsh] of the The Daily Wire, and Christopher Rufo at City Journal (2022-09-22,   2022-10-12). And, to a certain extent, Chaya Raichik's comments aren't new. Anita Bryant fought against gay rights in the 1970s under the banner of "Save Our Children over the years on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Tucker Carlson remains one of the top-viewed cable pundits in the United States (Forbes: 2022-12-15); as Tucker Carlson's obsession with demonizing trans people increases, he elevates more fringe transphobes and normalizes their bald bigotry. Many transphobes try to smuggle their hatred through customs by attacking gender fluidity as a threat to women (FAIR.org: 2022-12-16), a sort of pseudo-feminism for the far right. But Chaya Raichik attacks all LGBTQ people in her statement - in the same forum that has invoked white supremacist ideas like the "great replacement theory" (Great Replacement conspiracy theory; The Washington Post: 2022-07-20), and "white genocide" (White genocide conspiracy theory; Hatewatch: 2018-10-02), suggesting that Chaya Raichik wants LGBTQ people to be added to the long list of very bad people.

Doing real damage

The influence of Chaya Raichik and other right-wing pundits on anti-trans policy is clear. The Washington Post  (2022-04-19) said: When asked by The Washington Post about her relationship with the account, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' press secretary Christina Pushaw wrote, "I follow, like and retweet Libs of TikTok. My interactions with that account are public," and added that she (Christina Pushaw) is a strong supporter of the Libs of TikTok mission. And Chaya Raichik knows quite well that her rhetoric is doing real damage. Chaya Raichik's  Libs of TikTok has reportedly encouraged the harassment of children's hospitals, of all places (The Washington Post: 2022-09-02). Anti-drag queen zealots targeted the home of a gay New York City Council member (Daily News: 2022-12-19), and armed protesters have targeted a drag queen story hour in Texas (Advocate: 2022-12-14).

The dangers of dehumanizing LGBTQ people go beyond threats and intimidation. Human Rights Campaign documents crimes directly against trans people, noting that "at least 32 transgender and gender-nonconforming people have been killed in the United States in 2022" (PBS: 2022-11-16). The Human Rights Campaign has "documented at least 302 violent deaths of transgender and gender-nonconforming people since the LGBTQ advocacy organization began tracking such fatalities in 2013."

Tucker CarlsonCarlson and the Murdoch media empire are clearly cheering on this transphobia, in a cynical ploy to rile up social conservatives to get them to the polls on election day. These types of media appearances are meant to create a culture of fear for all LGBTQ people and their allies - a clear attempt to force them back into the shadows and further out of public life. Anti-trans campaigns are meant to intimidate not just those being demonized, but any politician who contemplates defending LGBTQ rights.

Fueling tension

It's become tired and predictable to hear defenses of these media campaigns as free speech. The relentless transphobia and homophobia being cross-promoted by Fox News and people like Chaya Raichik is just as culpable for this anti-trans atmosphere as the nuts who actually go out and terrorize children going to story time. At a Drag Queen Story Hour at a public library in New York City, more than 30 protesters - including members of the far-right Proud Boys - heckled families on their way inside, calling them "pedophiles," while several times that many pro-LGBTQ counter-protesters defended the event (Gothamist: 2022-12-29). Police broke up fist fights, and one person was arrested after knocking over a barricade. The anti-trans protesters eventually dispersed on their own, but the tension and anger, fueled by a small group of right-wingers outnumbered by cops and counter-protesters, was palpable. As long as Fox News uses the likes of Chaya Raichik to spew hate, this tension is only going to grow. And that's the goal.

On Tuesday (2022-11-29) American Oversight  [American Oversight] filed an amicus brief  [amicus curiae] in Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)'s lawsuit against Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) over DFPS' implementation of Abbott's 2022-02 directive calling for the provision of gender-affirming care to be investigated as child abuse.

While Greg Abbott's office and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) have argued that the implementation of the directive does not constitute an official "rule" under the Texas Administrative Procedure Act, records obtained by American Oversight reveal that the agency adopted new policies and procedures in response to Greg Abbott's directive, and agency staff and other affected entities interpreted the changes as a new rule under Texas state law.

On 2022-02-22 Greg Abbott issued the directive the day after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton--> had released a non-binding legal opinion labeling such care as abuse. In early 2022-03 Lambda Legal and the ACLU sued on behalf of the family of a DFPS employee with a transgender adolescent who was investigated because of the directive, arguing that the rule was improperly adopted. In 2022-03, a Texas judge issued an injunction blocking DFPS from further investigating the family, finding that the rule violated the Texas state constitution and had been improperly adopted. Greg Abbott and DFPS have appealed that decision to the Supreme Court of Texas.

In its amicus brief, American Oversight details emails American Oversight has obtained through public records requests that reveal how DFPS officials and employees responded to Greg Abbott's directive. In one email sent on 2022-02-22 - the same day as the directive - DFPS Communications Director Patrick Crimmins told other officials that he had circulated to media outlets a statement affirming that the agency would begin investigating reports of gender-affirming care as child abuse "in accordance with Governor Greg Abbott's directive." On 2022-02-24 another DFPS official told staff that Greg Abbott was "mandating that DFPS investigate" parents who had allowed their children to receive such care. That same day (2022-02-24) a DFPS manager asked her team to review Greg Abbott's directive and wrote: "This new change is coming straight from the state office."

Other records show that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) implemented several new policies in response to Greg Abbott's directive. DFPS officials directed staff not to discuss the cases or investigations over email or text, even with the families involved. As The Texas Tribune  [The Texas Tribune] wrote when reporting on the documents obtained by American Oversight, the emails "show how the agency tried to limit the public trail of the cases and control public communications about the controversial investigations while employees across the state internally raised concerns."

Furthermore, new staffing procedures were instituted, with related cases being assigned to   certain DFPS employees rather than individual field staff. These staff were not allowed to assign those cases the lowest priority, ensuring that families providing gender-affirming care to their children were subject to DFPS investigations.

Several DFPS employees expressed confusion and distress over the policy change. On 2022-02-24 one employee wrote: "I refuse to punish those that are part of the community simply because they are trans." Another wrote: "I have told my boss I will resign before I RTB on a family whose child is transitioning." (RTB refers to a "reason to believe" that abuse occurred.)

The agency also opened new investigations in response to Greg Abbott's directive. While on the day of Greg Abbott's announcement there were "no pending investigations of child abuse" related to gender-affirming care, by the next day emails show that there were several investigations in the intake stage.

American Oversight's Tuesday (2022-11-29) amicus brief urges the Texas Supreme Court to review the records, as they are relevant to the question of whether the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS)'s implementation of the governor's directive constitutes a new rule under state law, and asks the court to affirm the earlier statewide injunction barring DFPS from conducting investigations into families and medical providers solely on the basis of the individuals having provided adolescents gender-affirming care.

The brief is available here  [local copy].

Last week (2022-11) hundreds of people packed into the Ohio Statehouse to share testimony with one goal in mind: stopping a bill that would strip health care that many see as life-saving from trans youth. One Ohio parent told lawmakers that her 14-year-old trans child had "heightened anxiety" at the prospect of this legislation being passed. "She spent the weekend in tears ... knowing that if things change, we don't know if we can stay in Ohio, where she has her friends and her family and closest people to her," Shannon Scott-Miller testified at the 2022-11-16 public hearing.

Ohio is contemplating a bill called the Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act, which would ban gender-affirming care for all minors, including puberty blockers and hormone therapies. Those who testified in support of the bill, including around 30 physicians, politicians and parents, say they're worried that patients of this age group are too young to make permanent decisions regarding their health. More than 250 physicians, social workers, trans people and parents of trans youth who gave testimony last week say this bill only brings harm to an already vulnerable community. According to more than 20 leading medical organizations in the U.S., including the American Academy of Pediatrics  (AAP), gender-affirming care is the standard of care for trans and gender-diverse people.

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Arkansas House Bill 1570 (2021)

Arkansas House Bill 1570 (2021)]

Arkansas House Bill 1570 (HB 1570) - also known as the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act or Act 626, is a 2021 law in the state of Arkansas that bans gender-affirming medical procedures for transgender people under 18 years of age, including puberty blockers, transgender hormone therapy, and sex reassignment surgery. The law also bans the use of public funds for gender transition procedures, and prohibits insurance from covering gender transition procedures - while doctors who provide treatment in violation of the ban can be sued for damages or professionally sanctioned. The measure makes Arkansas the first U.S. state to make gender-affirming medical care illegal.

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Comment (Persagen.com, 2022-11-25): This anti-transgender legislation appears to be derived from a model act (model bill) promulgated by the notoriously conservative, anti-LGBT (notably transphobic) Family Research Council. [The similarly far-right American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) also promulgates many so-called model bills.]

• Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act. "Protecting Minors from Gender Reassignment Procedures. Family Research Council actively recommends and supports the Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act. One's sex is never "assigned at birth"; it is always objective and observable by time of birth. Propagating an ideology of fluid sexuality not only undermines a scientific understanding of human anatomy but also damages the lives of the next generation. The staggering growth of transgenderism has left children vulnerable to life-altering procedures such as puberty-blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones, and irreversible surgeries. These unscientific, destructive gender transition procedures should not be allowed to interrupt the development of children and irreversibly alter their bodies. The SAFE Act addresses this critical need. In 2021, 21 states introduced bills banning gender transition procedures on minors; so far in 2022, 13 states have introduced similar legislation. In April 2021, Arkansas became the first state in the nation to enact such a law, establishing strong protections for other states to use as a model. Some bills include criminal penalties. Others make gender transition for minors "child abuse." Many do not address insurance coverage. We believe that a more carefully-calibrated approach is warranted. KEY POINTS. { • "Gender transition" is an experiment; no "treatment" can change a person's genetic composition, and no studies have demonstrated long-term benefits. • The government should not force taxpayers to fund this experiment, insurers to cover it, or children to be subjected to it. • The SAFE Act also provides legal remedies for minors who have been permanently disfigured and/or sterilized. } Source (2022-11-25): Family Research Council.

• PDF: DocumentCloud.org  (contributed by David Armiak, Center for Media and Democracy).  |  local copy





Protecting Minors from Gender Reassignment Procedures   |  Source (Family Research Council)

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Ohio is not an outlier. A similar scene has been playing out across the U.S. as legislation targeting the transgender community - particularly trans youth - increases. Around 350 anti-LGBTQ2S+ bills have been introduced in the U.S. so far (2022-11) in 2022, according to a count by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) - a U.S. based non-profit that focuses on advocacy and lobbying for more LGBTQ2S+ rights. According to HRC, 79 pieces of anti-transgender legislation were introduced in the U.S. in 2020, which jumped to 147 bills in 2021, 13 of which were passed into law, a record for this type of legislation.

Last year (2021) also saw an unprecedented 43 bills introduced aimed at eliminating or restricting gender-affirming care for minors. So far in 2022, 25 bills flagged by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) as anti-LGBTQ2S+ have been passed into law across 13 states, with more than half targeting trans people. "Approximately 145 of (the bills) are specifically targeting transgender people," Sarah Warbelow, HRC's legal director, told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview, adding that they've seen "a significant increase in the past couple of years (in these bills)." This ranges from legislation instructing teachers to tell families if their students identify as trans, to bills seeking to punish parents with jail time if they attempt to get their trans child gender-affirming care, even if recommended by medical experts. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) some families have been forced to leave states that have enacted or are considering legislature that criminalizes trans health care.

Some Canadian trans people and activists say they're worried that this wave of what they describe as anti-trans rhetoric and legislation could move into Canada - even more than they feel it already has. "It's absolutely happening here," Florence Ashley, a doctoral candidate at the University of University of Toronto Faculty of Law and the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics whose work focuses around trans rights, told CTVNews.ca. They said that there is a "homegrown" movement of anti-trans sentiments in Canada, which is "selectively drawing from the resources of the United States." "That's really scary," Florence Ashley said. "That sentiment has been spreading for a while, but it's getting worse and worse. And what sucks is the feeling that nobody cares."

Barbara Perry - Director of the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism at Ontario Tech University - said that securing health care and support is already difficult in both the U.S. and Canada, with trans people reporting long wait times to be assessed or access hormones or further care. Seeing legislative attempts to make accessing health care even more difficult is causing "concern" for many Canadians, she told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview. "There's a pretty widespread awareness in the Canadian context that trends, patterns that emerge in the U.S. will eventually make their way up here, and that they will influence our own narratives," she said.

Medical consensus being ignored, advocates say

Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Ohio and Florida have all, within the last year (2021-2022), enacted or are considering legislation or other avenues to restrict or eliminate - and in some cases, criminalize - gender-affirming care for those under 18. The proponents of these bills or rules offer a range of explanations depending on the scope of the bill. Some politicians openly state that they don't believe trans people exist. "I believe very strongly that if the Good Lord made you a boy, you are a boy, and if he made you a girl, you are a girl," Alabama Governor Kay Ivey said when she signed a ban on gender-affirming care into law earlier this year (2022).

In Canada, there are more than 100,000 trans or non-binary people, according to the 2021 census. Others frame their opposition to gender-affirming care for minors as simply concern for their health, claiming that minors can't consent to medical care that includes permanent changes to their bodies and that there is insufficient evidence to support it.

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said in a statement this fall (2022) that banning gender-affirming care will "protect our children from irreversible surgeries and highly experimental treatments."

Dr. Meredithe McNamara - a pediatrician and assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine, who has worked with trans patients - testified in front of the Florida Board of Medicine in 2022-10, stating that gender-affirming care is not "experimental." "Gender-affirming care for youth is supported by every relevant major medical organization and this consensus is based on a solid body of evidence with more than 16 studies confirming that standard medical treatments for gender dysphoria are safe and effective," she said at the time.

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In 2022-04 the Florida Department of Health wrote a memo which misrepresented the scientific consensus to stop minors in Florida from socially or medically transitioning and cited William Malone [founder, Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine]. The Florida Phoenix described the Florida Board of Medicine - which has 15 members appointed by the Governor [Ron DeSantis] and approved by the Florida Senate - as "stacked with anti-trans doctors, some of whom are affiliated with anti-trans fringe movements such as Genspect, and the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine". The United States Department of Health and Human Services stated "gender-affirming care for minors, when medically appropriate and necessary, improves their physical and mental health. Attempts to restrict, challenge, or falsely characterize this potentially lifesaving care as abuse is dangerous."

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Accredited medical groups supporting transgender-affirming treatments in the U.S. include the American Academy of Pediatrics  (AAP), the American Medical Association, the Endocrine Society, the American Psychological Association, the Pediatric Endocrine Society, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Family Physicians, among others. AAP - an organization of 67,000 pediatricians that provides guidance on medical care for children within the U.S. - said in a 2018 policy statement that gender-affirming care means individual, age-appropriate health-care plans, "on the basis of the physical and cognitive development of youth who identify as trans and gender diverse." It stated that alternative care models such as "watchful waiting," which advocates for holding off on affirming a child's gender identity until "an arbitrary age (often after pubertal onset) when they can be considered valid," are based on limited research and do not help patients.

Pre-puberty, gender-affirming care means social transition: respecting a child's pronouns, manner of dress and chosen name, the American Academy of Pediatrics  (AAP) adds. "Once a kid reaches the age of puberty, they can start puberty blockers, which can put things on hold for a little while to ensure that the transgender youth is confident in their gender identity," Erin Reed told CTVNews.ca, adding that later on, teens and their doctors may consider hormone therapy. The effects of puberty blockers are reversible when treatment is halted. Erin Reed - a trans activist and legislative researcher who has been writing about legislation in the U.S. that affects trans people for the last three years - told CTV News in a phone interview that trans kids "know who they are," and that when families affirm their gender, it has huge benefits. "Allowing a transgender kid who is dysphoric gender dysphoria--> to take puberty blockers and then to develop normally along their cisgender peers reduces their rate of suicide by anywhere between 40 and 73 per cent," Erin Reed said. "This care is life saving. But more than that, it raises their quality of life, it lowers anxiety, it lowers depression, and it allows transgender people to exist as they see themselves."

Trans and gender-diverse youth have high levels of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation due to gender dysphoria as well as a lack of societal acceptance, according   to   numerous   studies - including a recent survey of 35,000 LGBTQ2S+ youth. A 2021 study of 9,000 trans youth aged 13 to 24 found that receiving gender-affirming care was associated with a significantly lower rate of suicide attempts compared to youth who couldn't receive it.

Jeopardy! champion Amy Schneider - a trans woman who grew up in Ohio - testified last week (2022-11) in opposition to the SAFE Act bill, stating that the only reason she survived her youth despite the constant distress of dysphoria was because she thought there were no other options. Amy Schneider described it as living with an "alarm" droning on in her mind that was only silenced decades later when she came out as trans and began receiving gender-affirming care. "I knew peace and quiet for the first time," Amy Schneider said. "Please, don't take that away from (trans youth). Please don't force them to go back to that constant feeling of wrongness and danger."

Health care in question

The most concerning legislative bills for trans people, activists and the majority of medical experts are those that aim to restrict health-care options or punish families for supporting their trans children. In 2021-04 Arkansas became the first state to ban doctors from providing or referring patients under 18 for gender-affirming care, overriding the governor's veto. Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson   raised concerns that the new legislation would force patients already receiving care to detransition, something Erin Reed said could be traumatizing for teens. "You're a transgender girl, but you're not open at school about being trans, and then all of a sudden, you know that you're going to be forced to grow facial hair," Erin Reed said. "It's going to be terrifying."

Alabama lawmakers also voted in 2021-04 to approve legislation to ban gender-affirming treatment for minors. Both laws have since been paused amid court challenges, but numerous other states have since introduced similar legislation.

In Arizona, a bill banning only gender-affirming surgeries for those under 18 was later signed into law in 2022-03.

New Jersey has introduced an "Anti-Mutilation" bill, criminalizing the provision of gender-affirming care. Oklahoma legislation withheld US$40 million in federal money from a children's hospital until it stopped offering gender-affirming services, and Tennessee is proposing a ban on all gender-affirming care for minors that would allow doctors to be sued up to 20 years later. "We've also seen a rise in administrative actions that bypass legislature altogether," Sarah Warbelow said.

After state legislation failed to pass a ban, the Florida Board of Medicine voted this month (2022-11) to draft a new standard of care barring those under the age of 18 from accessing gender-affirming care, marking the first time that a state board has ever pursued this type of rule. It allows teens who are already receiving care to continue to receive it. The Endocrine Society   said in a statement that "medical evidence, not politics" should inform treatment decisions. "The move by the Florida Board of Health to ban gender-affirming care based on a political agenda rather than on medical science sets a dangerous precedent for all health care decisions," the Endocrine Society said. The Florida Board of Medicine is made up of 15 members appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has previously described gender-affirming care as doctors "chemically castrating young boys," and asserted that "a lot of trans kids' dysphoria resolves itself by the time they become adults." It's unclear what source of information Ron DeSantis was citing, but this assertion is one that 22 major medical organizations have stated "lacks scientific support."

Numerous studies found that rates of transition regret and detransition are low. A recent study of 720 youth published in 2022-10 found that 98 per cent of trans youth who went on puberty blockers were still continuing gender-affirming care years later into adulthood.

And it's not just trans youth who are the focus of this new legislation - some states are going after their parents as well. Michigan introduced a bill last month (2022-10) to expand the definition of child abuse to include if a parent, guardian or medical professional "consents to, obtains, or assists with a gender transition procedure for a child." If the bill passed, parents and doctors could face jail time over even just a prescription for puberty blockers for their trans child - medication which has been used for decades to treat precocious puberty in cisgender kids.

A similar bill has been introduced in Texas this month, (2022-11) after a judge blocked Texas Governor Greg Abbott's order to Texas state agencies to investigate parents for child abuse if they provided gender-affirming care for their child. "It seems extremely egregious to take what is the medical consensus ... and define that as child abuse," Erin Reed said. "And to potentially take kids away from their parents is extremely frightening."

As these transphobic bills spread, some other states are responding to protect families internally displaced by anti-trans legislation. Nineteen states have committed to introduce "trans refuge bills," according to a 2022-05 press release. One such bill passed in California includes a provision to protect "people that are fleeing from states that are criminalizing gender-affirming care," Erin Reed said - adding that she has personally helped people "escape Texas because of prior efforts to enforce this kind of action."

Fear spreading in Canada

The risk of legislation being tabled that would ban gender-affirming health care for trans youth or criminalize supportive parents seems distant in Canada - but as anti-trans views crop up more north of the border, activists and trans people fear the influence of the U.S. "We're already seeing the discourses but we're seeing it more in the courts in Canada than elsewhere," Florence Ashley said.

Florence Ashley mentioned a high-profile case from a few years ago in which a father went to court with the aim of preventing his child from continuing with gender-affirming care that the child's doctor had assessed as medically necessary and the child's mother had agreed to. The B.C. Supreme Court  [Supreme Court of British Columbia] ultimately ruled in favour of the child.

However, Barbara Perry believes Canada won't see legislation similar to those being proposed south of the Canadian border. "I like to think that ... we have a deeper commitment to equity in the Canadian context," Barbara Perry said. But in a world as interconnected as ours, the impacts are already being felt, Florence Ashley says. "I think trans Canadians don't feel like there's much place for them outside of Canada anymore, and increasingly less and less place for them in Canada," they said.

While some clinicians and parents raising concerns about gender-affirming care may be attempting to do so in good faith, the big picture being painted by the legislation in the U.S. right now is more sinister, Florence Ashley said. Those pushing this legislation are less concerned about kids' safety and more concerned with "the very idea that anybody would transition, because they don't think that's OK at all," Florence Ashley believes. "These bills exist alongside things like "don't say trans" laws  [Anti-LGBT curriculum laws in the United States - sometimes referred to as don't say gay laws - are laws approved by various U.S. states that prohibit or limit the mention or discussion of homosexuality and transgender identity in public schools], bathroom bills  [Discrediting the Transphobic "Bathroom Predator" Myth  |  Anti-Transgender "Wedge" Tactics], bans on sports inclusion, moral panics about drag queens that turn into calls to ban trans people from public spaces, and claims that LGBTQ+ people and especially trans women are "groomers" [LGBT grooming conspiracy theory]. Taking all these pieces together, the anti-transgender movement tells a story of trying to eliminate trans people from the public sphere, pushing them back into the closet where they never have to think about their existence."

Youth left with few health-care options

The alternatives to gender-affirming care don't stand up to scientific scrutiny, according to some advocates and experts. In an amicus brief  [Amicus curiae] filed to an Alabama court in opposition to the state's legislation banning and criminalizing gender-affirming care, 22 national and state medical and mental health organizations said stripping gender-affirming care away from trans youth will leave a damaging gap in health care for this vulnerable population.

"While some prepubertal children who experience gender dysphoria may go on to identify with their sex assigned at birth by the time they reach puberty, there are no [sic] studies to support the proposition that adolescents [sic] with gender dysphoria will come to identify with their sex assigned at birth, whether they receive treatment or not," the brief stated. "Using 'watchful waiting' with gender-dysphoric adolescents can cause immense harm by denying them treatment that could alleviate their distress and forcing them to experience full endogenous puberty, resulting in physical changes that may be reversed - if at all - only through surgery," it added.

Aside from the "wait and see" approach, the term "gender-exploratory therapy" has emerged within the last few years, defined by proponents as an approach that explores all potential factors behind gender dysphoria. Some medical experts and academics say this approach is too close to conversion therapy. "Forcing someone to 'explore' as a condition for accessing medical care means that they'll simply double down and tell you what you want to hear," said Florence Ashley, who has written on this topic for a peer-reviewed journal. "It doesn't create the kind of non-judgmental, open environment that fosters genuine gender exploration." Gender-affirming care aims to offer the space for patients to understand on their own terms if transition is right for them or not, without there being a right or wrong answer, Florence Ashley said, but gender exploratory therapy "tries to find reasons why you think you are trans but actually aren't."

As visibility of trans people grows in pop culture, media and everyday life, more people are able to feel comfortable coming out as trans earlier in life, Erin Reed said. "People are feeling more free to be themselves and as a result of the increased visibility, I also think that we're seeing an increased amount of backlash, and people not understanding who transgender people are, and what being transgender means," Erin Reed said.

Studies have shown that the number of trans youth being referred to gender clinics or identifying as trans or gender-diverse has increased in recent years, with some regions showing a larger increase among teens assigned female at birth - but while trans people like Erin Reed and medical experts such as Meredithe McNamara see it as a natural result of stigma against trans identities lessening with time, some clinicians and politicians believe this increase to be concerning.

Sarah Warbelow said there is a lot of misinformation regarding gender-affirming care out there, and worried parents "sometimes perpetuate these incorrect narratives ... often because they don't know anybody who is transgender - or at least they don't know that they know someone who is transgender - and are not always interested in seeking out more accurate information." These bills, the vast majority of which are struck down, are "not really a reflection of the values and the beliefs of the majority of Americans," she said. "This is a select number of politicians pandering to a base, and a group of folks in the middle who we are working hard to educate, who just lack information on transgender people."

In the days that have followed the 2022 midterm elections  [2022 United States elections], much of the coverage has focused on the balance of power in Congress, which, days after the election, was still up in the air. And though, for Democrats, the failed "red wave"  [elected Republican Party members] has been largely celebrated as a success story, there is much to be concerned about in the wake of the 2022 U.S. elections: some of the most rabidly anti-trans politicians won reelection, paving the way for another year of anti-trans bills in state legislatures and a national landscape of anti-trans rhetoric in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election  [2024 United States presidential election]. In other words, this election all but guaranteed the continuation of the most insidious governmental attacks on trans life at the state level.

Come 2023-01, states will begin to reconvene for the 2023 legislative sessions and lawmakers will put forth new attempts to criminalize trans lives, bodies and survival opportunities. And with Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, and Tennessee Governor Bill Lee  - among others - all winning reelection, these bills will be pushed aggressively from the executive branch in Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Georgia and Tennessee, respectively.

Executive branch officials in Texas and Florida have already maneuvered outside the legislature to attempt to ban health care for transgender adolescents through executive agencies. In 2021, neither Texas nor Florida passed bans on health care for transgender people through their state legislatures, but in 2022, both Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis utilized their power to prioritize attacks on trans youth. In Texas, Governor Abbott directed the so-called child welfare agency to investigate the provision of gender-affirming care for adolescents as a form of child abuse, opening up families to investigation by the state. In Florida, Governor DeSantis' appointees on the state's Board of Medicine are in the process of promulgating new standards of care that would ban all prospective treatment for transgender adolescents in a process that has silenced trans advocates and leading experts in pediatric medicine. So long as Abbott and DeSantis remain in office, these types of attacks will continue and likely escalate.

Following the 2022 U.S. midterms, Chris Rufo [Christopher Rufo] - a conservative polemicist and Manhattan Institute fellow who is most known for building the national attacks on "critical race theory" in schools and more recently, for pushing the "groomer" narrative about LGBTQ adults  [LGBT grooming conspiracy theory] - tweeted, "The culture war is good policy and good politics. Republicans need to lean in."

[ ... snip ... ]

The day after the 2022 United States elections, lawmakers in Tennessee pre-filed two bills targeting the trans community. The first, SB1, bans medical treatment for adolescents with gender dysphoria. [See also 2016-04-06 Tennessee Senate Bill 1556 (SB 1556), Senate Bill 1556 (109th General Assembly of the Tennessee General Assembly).]  Modeled after legislation that was passed in Arkansas and Alabama (though thankfully blocked in court in both states), SB1 was the very first bill filed by lawmakers in the state. For context, that means that in the midst of ongoing climate collapse, pandemic, overcrowded pediatric emergency rooms, unemployment and shootings in schools, lawmakers in Tennessee prioritized a bill that would take away health care from young people who need it over all other issues they could focus on leading up to the start of session in 2023-01.

• Tennessee Senate Bill 1, 112th Regular Session (2021-2022). "Public Health - As introduced, prohibits a healthcare provider from performing on a minor or administering to a minor a medical procedure if the performance or administration of the procedure is for the purpose of enabling a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex. - Amends TCA Title 28; Title 29; Title 33; Title 34; Title 36; Title 37; Title 39; Title 40; Title 49; Title 56; Title 63; Title 68 and Title 71."  |  (2022-11-09) Tennessee General Assembly Senate Bill 0001

Forget that the banned health care is supported by every major medical association in the United States, that it is supported by decades of clinical experience and data, that it saves lives. Those facts are easily cast aside in light of the tagline fabricated by right-wing commentator Matt Walsh: "stop the mutilation of children." This concerned trolling about health care for trans adolescents is, of course, disingenuous - and one need look no further than the other types of legislation that Tennessee has already proposed two months before the legislature even convenes. Lawmakers are not trying to "protect" children, they are trying to control and punish gender variance and nonconformity.

The same day that Tennessee SB1 was introduced, Tennessee lawmakers also pre-filed SB3, a bill aimed at criminalizing drag shows. The bill makes it a crime for performers to engage in "male or female impersonation" that appeals to a "prurient interest." Given the wide latitude afforded to police and prosecutors to harass, arrest and charge individuals with crimes, this type of vague and broad legislation could be used to shut down drag shows, harass trans people, and further empower the state to use the power of the criminal law to enforce gender norms. Criminalizing "male or female impersonation" also harkens back to the anti-cross-dressing laws that were used to criminalize trans and gender variant people for decades.

These two bills are just the beginning in Tennessee and across the country. Lawmakers have made it clear that they intend to ramp up the rhetoric and political attacks on trans people and the Left has not met the moment to come forward in defense of trans lives. Instead, trans people are subjected to ongoing reporting and think pieces questioning the legitimacy of our care and the potential threat of our bodies. In a matter of five years, we went from a political discourse and set of policy attacks that focused on use of restrooms  [Discrediting the Transphobic "Bathroom Predator" Myth (anti-transgender wedge strategies | anti-transgender wedge tactics] to the current climate where medical care and drag shows are being criminalized, mention of trans people in school is being banned, and child protective services threaten to remove young people from loving and affirming homes. This escalation should alarm anyone paying attention.

From Stephen Miller to Chris Rufo to Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump - the purveyors of right-wing discourse and rhetoric have, across the board, made it clear that attacking trans people is a priority in the lead up to the 2024 U.S. elections. And these types of attacks are used to mobilize a right-wing base to put far right officials into positions of governance and to expand the power of the state to constrain bodily autonomy for all of us.

[ ... snip ... ]

Iowa's governor said knowing "boys from girls" was as vital as knowing the difference between liberty and tyranny. The GOP candidate for attorney general in Nevada called for fewer transgender people to exist, using and then later doubling down on a slur. And the Republican nominee for governor in Illinois used a debate question on abortion access to spread a conspiracy theory about the current governor's family and portray gender-affirming care for trans youth as "experimental gender surgeries."

Republicans in 2022 midterm races are embracing more anti-transgender rhetoric than in any year that LGBTQ+ experts can remember. The rhetoric is frequently tied to "parental rights," which is invoked by proponents of bills to remove information about LGBTQ+ people from schools and libraries or keep trans youth out of sports. In ads and on the stump, candidates are sharing incorrect, inflammatory statements that are often used as a basis to restrict gender-affirming care.

Outside groups, notably the America First Legal Foundation and the American Principles Project super PAC, are adding more fuel to the fire. A recent ad from the American Principles Project, described by President Terry Schilling as the group's "closing ad in the 2022 election," uses photos of early surgery scars from transgender people, whose faces are blurred, and accuses the Biden administration and Democrats of "pushing transgender drugs and surgeries on kids" due to their support of the Equality Act.  [The Equality Act is a bill in the United States Congress, that, if passed, would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (including titles II, III, IV, VI, VII, and IX) to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex,   sexual orientation, and gender identity in employment, housing, public accommodations, education, federally funded programs, credit, and jury service. The Supreme Court's June 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia protects gay and transgender people in matters of employment, but not in other respects. The Bostock ruling also covered the Altitude Express and Harris Funeral Homes cases.] "It's on another level from prior years," said David Stacy, government affairs director for the LGBTQ+ rights organization Human Rights Campaign (HRC). The transphobic rhetoric is harsher, and more mainstream Republicans, notably gubernatorial candidates, are willing to use it on the stump, he said.

Anti-trans ads have aired on TV and streaming services in at least 25 states during the 2022 U.S. midterms, HRC found. HRC tracked $50 million - including $4 million in radio ads from the America First Legal Foundation, founded by former Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller - being poured into TV, streaming, radio and digital anti-trans ads, which mostly targeted parents with misinformation on gender-affirming care for trans kids. Gender-affirming surgeries are extremely rare for trans youth, who typically receive puberty blockers as part of transitioning at an early age, and later hormone therapy, to alleviate the distress of gender dysphoria.The process of getting a prescription and treatment generally takes months or years of working with medical professionals.

American Principles Project director of policy Jon Schweppe said on a Missouri radio show in 2022-09 that the American Principles Project pledged to spend $10 million across six states. American Principles Project, Jon Schweppe said, is focused on gender-affirming care for trans youth, which he equated to Democrats trying to sterilize children through sex changes - a practice that does not happen - as well as trans youth playing school sports aligning with their gender identity and "the effort in schools to sexualize kids." "These lies and the propaganda that are in these attacks are directly responsible for increased stigma, discrimination, and violence against transgender and nonbinary people," said Geoff Wetrosky, HRC campaign director.

In addition to the risk of increased violence from campaign ads, advocates fear that candidates will translate their own rhetoric into anti-LGBTQ+ policies if they are elected into office and will be more emboldened to spread this rhetoric in 2024 if Republicans do well across the board. "If people who are running on an anti-trans platform are successful in this 2022-11 election, I think it's going to unleash an even more intense, sustained effort to capitalize politically on vulnerable trans kids," said Chris Erchull, staff attorney at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD). It also could have a chilling effect. Sean Meloy, vice president of political programs at LGBTQ Victory Fund, worries that if anti-LGBTQ+ Republicans do well in the 2022-11 U.S. midterm elections  [2022 United States elections], it "will put up even higher walls for LGBTQ candidates trying to step forward."

For some politicians, this election cycle has inspired pledges of a renewed push for anti-trans legislation. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, when pressed by a conservative radio host, promised that if he is reelected, he'll back legislation against gender-affirming care for trans youth, The Washington Post   reported.

Although anti-trans views are hardly the core focus of most candidates' campaigns, and it's unclear how successful anti-trans rhetoric will be in swaying voters, many Republicans are prioritizing it as a key way to reach their base - and advocates are worried about the damage it will cause. "It's signaling to their entire voting base that trans people are not who we say we are, that there is some virtue in refusing to be respectful to trans people," said Ari Drennen, LGBTQ+ program director for Media Matters for America, a progressive nonprofit and media watchdog. Far-right media is helping to spread the rhetoric further, she said, as outlets like Newsmax elevate campaign ads and host candidates to discuss anti-trans views. "This is an all-out assault from the right-wing media," Ari Drennen said.

Across the United States ads in support of Republican contenders use anti-trans rhetoric to attack Democrats and further spread anti-trans rhetoric. In Florida, the state's Republican senatorial campaign committee released an ad accusing Democratic Florida state senate candidate Joy Goff-Marcil of being backed by advocates of "free sex-change operations for minors."

A campaign ad against Michigan's ballot measure codifying abortion access in the state falsely claims that the measure would enable trans youth to receive puberty blockers without parental consent. At least some voters in Michigan have been confused by the misinformation, as a local outlet in Detroit published a fact-check in response to a reader seeking clarification on the measure.

Another American Principles Project ad urges voters to protect their children by voting against Democrat Abigail Spanberger, who's running for reelection in Virginia's 7th Congressional District. It attempts to tie Abigail Spanberger to inaccurate depictions of gender-affirming care for trans youth, which the ad falsely portrays as a way to "chemically castrate" children.

In Texas, Dallas-area voters started receiving mailers this past weekend (2022-11) - paid for by the America First Legal Foundation - accusing President Joe Biden and Democrats of "pushing radical & irreversible gender experiments on children," The Dallas Morning News reports.

"The far-right used to use a lot of dog whistles and coded language, and they're not even hiding any longer what it is they're really trying to do, which is further marginalize the trans community and further move the trans community into the shadows through direct attacks," said Zeke Stokes, GLAAD's former chief programs officer who now consults the LGBTQ+ media advocacy organization on its voter engagement.

Some GOP candidates - like Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, plus Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem - are releasing their own campaign ads that use anti-trans rhetoric. Rand Paul and Kristi Noem, both running for reelection, have dedicated   campaign ads against trans students playing in sports that match their gender identity. Kristi Noem has stood out as a candidate working early and hard to tout her support of anti-trans legislation to voters. Rand Paul's campaign has also taken anti-trans rhetoric to stump speeches. "I wouldn't expect the Democrats to know what a recession is, they can't even define what a woman is," said Kelley Paul, speaking in her husband's place at Kentucky's annual Fancy Farm Picnic. Other candidates, including South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, a Republican, are tying anti-trans rhetoric to broader anti-LGBTQ+ stances. Henry McMaster said at a debate this month (2022-11) that he still opposes gay marriage - as well as trans students playing in sports that match their gender identity. Kim Reynolds, Rand Paul, Kristi Noem and Henry McMaster are all heavily favored to win reelection.

Even if the anti-trans rhetoric doesn't clearly help Republicans attract voters, Zeke Stokes doesn't expect it to go away anytime soon. Zeke Stokes expects to see politicians double down on the anti-trans rhetoric, especially in state legislatures, which have introduced another record year of anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ bills. "I think those who have weaponized these issues are going to believe that they worked, even in places where perhaps they didn't win," Zeke Stokes said. There are still some bright spots, Geoff Wetrosky said - LGBTQ+ representation among those running for office is growing. A record number of transgender, nonbinary and gender nonconforming candidates ran this year (2022), according to the LGBTQ Victory Fund, and LGBTQ+ candidates ran in all 50 states for the first time. "That representation matters, in the face of these attacks, to have somebody on the floor of the chamber where these bills are being debated, and to able to speak to them from their own personal perspective is incredibly powerful. And that gives me hope," Geoff Wetrosky said.

Trans health care is under attack on multiple fronts in the United States [and Canada] - from direct anti-trans legislation, to cuts to vital resources, to the targeting of gender-affirming care providers. While dozens of U.S. states have proposed legislative bills attacking trans health care in 2022, currently (2022-09-17), three U.S. states already have passed laws restricting trans-affirming health care for minors: Alabama, Arizona and Arkansas. Alabama is the only state in which it is now a felony to provide certain care to minors. (Tennessee bans hormone replacement therapy for prepubertal children, even though such treatment is not actually practiced anywhere in the country.) Each of these three laws is under intense legal scrutiny. Arkansas's law has been blocked by a federal judge from taking effect, and Arizona's law doesn't come into effect until 2023. The Williams Institute  [Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy] estimates that if all the legislative bills filed against trans-affirming care for youth were passed in 2022, nearly 60,000 of the country's 150,000 high school-aged trans youth would lose access to the health care they need.

While Florida does not currently ban trans-affirming care for anyone in the state, trans Floridians may not access Medicaid funds to cover the costs of their care. Medicaid is a state and federal partnership that covers the health care costs of low-income and disabled people. Transgender people are disproportionately low income, due to housing discrimination and employment discrimination , making this ban on coverage for low-income Floridians especially harmful.

Meanwhile in Texas, the Republican governor and attorney general have been hard at work making it painful and dangerous for the families of trans children to live in Texas . In 2022-02 Texas Attorney General Ken Paxtonissued a nonbinding legal opinion holding that some forms of trans-affirming care for minors constitute child abuse, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott followed Ken Paxton's statement with a chilling announcement that the Texas' Department of Family and Protective Services  [Texas Department of Family and Protective Services] would be investigating the families of trans children to determine if they met these new life-threatening standards. Three families sued the state with the help of Lambda Legal and the ACLU of Texas  [American Civil Liberties Union  |  LGBT rights in Texas]. A Texas judge agreed with the parents' assertion that the law could cause irreparable harm to their children and ordered an injunction of the directive, pausing investigations while the case proceeds.

However, in the brief months during which Texas Governor Greg Abbott's directive was permitted to stand, children, parents and families were subjected to invasive and humiliating investigations and interrogations. By 2022-05, at least nine families were under active investigation by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, according to the Texas Tribune.

[ ... snip ... ]

In additional to legislative measures, attacks on providers of gender-affirming care are also ramping up. Throughout the summer (2022), Twitter account Libs of TikTok   focused the ire of the anti-trans internet toward a number of children's hospitals providing gender-affirming care, such as support for the parents of trans kids, and guidance for families and schools supporting youth through social transition. Under the guise of concern for the children receiving this care, Libs of TikTok (the online face of former real estate agent Chaya Raichik) posted dozens of tweets to its million-plus followers, spreading dangerous lies about "pedophiles" and "groomers". Chaya Raichik's influence was thrown into clear view when Boston Children's Hospital in Massachusetts began receiving bomb threats and death threats for providing trans-affirming care [Boston Children's Hospital:  harassment campaign against gender-affirming care]. And Chaya Raichik's disregard for children's actual health became all the more apparent when she refused to end her campaigns, even as the Boston Children's Hospital had to briefly close its doors to visitors due to bomb threats.

The impacts of campaigns like Chaya Raichik's cannot be understated. Boston Children's Hospital - like every children's hospital - focuses on providing specialized care for children with health needs that are serious, rare and difficult to treat. The attacks on these hospitals make it very clear these anti-trans activists are comfortable sacrificing the health of thousands of children with serious illnesses, even terminal illnesses, in order to reduce the care available to trans children.

[ ... snip ... ]

The attack on trans health services in the United States will only exacerbate this lack of care, support and resources. And the disinformation campaigns appear to be at least partly working: public opinion on trans health care is slipping, with 46 percent of American adults now agreeing that it should be illegal for health care professionals to offer trans-affirming care to minors. Just one year ago (2021-04-21), a PBS NewsHour / NPR / Marist Poll   poll found that only 28 percent of Americans supported laws that "prohibited gender transition related medical care for minors."  [PBS.org, 2021-04-21: New poll shows Americans overwhelmingly oppose anti-transgender laws].

Advocacy against trans-affirming care persists despite overwhelming medical consensus that trans-affirming care is evidence-based and lifesaving. The American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics strongly endorse trans-affirming care for youth. Within the trans community itself, many underfunded organizations are spending their scarce resources on supporting trans lives on the ground and beating back negative laws and policies rather than pushing for expanded health care access.

We have a crisis here in the United States that is endangering trans children's lives. These consistent persistent attacks on trans health care will not stop with attacks on youth. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's 's revocation of Medicaid coverage for trans adults makes that very clear. Unless and until we have strong leadership in support of trans-affirming care for everyone, more states will pass laws making it impossible for families to access care for their children, and the anti-trans lobby will move to banning trans-affirming care for adults, too.

When Jay told his mom he was bisexual at 14, she was supportive. But when he came out as transgender a few years later, she pushed back. She felt blindsided by the news. YouTube videos and online forums soon convinced her that she was right to feel that way. To her, it was clear that Jay was simply mistaken. A trans "contagion" called "rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD)," spread through social media, had caught hold of him and convinced him he was not female, she said. The internet had "turned" him ke trans.

Widely introduced four years ago in a PLOS One paper by Lisa Littman, a physician and researcher, the concept of ROGD hypothesizes a "potential new subcategory" of gender dysphoria - the feeling of distress that one's gender and assigned sex do not match. Young people with ROGD, the theory claims, feel symptoms of gender dysphoria and identify as trans as a result of peer influence, especially online. They hide behind a false diagnosis of gender dysphoria, the thinking goes, instead of confronting whatever issues are truly challenging them.

Lisa Littman polled parents and reported that they "describe a process of immersion in social media ... immediately preceding their child becoming >gender dysphorictrans youth, Lisa Littman said, adding that the dynamic particularly affects those assigned female at birth.

The paper, which was based on parent surveys recruited from explicitly anti-trans or trans-skeptical websites and forums, almost immediately drew criticism. Shortly after its publication in 2018-08, PLOS One, a peer-reviewed open-­access journal covering science and medicine, issued a comment that questioned Lisa Littman's methodology. Brown University, Lisa Littman's then-employer, retracted its press release about the study. In early September, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health  (WPATH  |  WPATH policies) put out a statement (2018-09-04) saying ROGD "constitutes nothing more than an acronym" and urged restraint in using the term. Six months after that (2019), PLOS One reissued the study with a large correction emphasizing that Lisa Littman's paper was simply a "descriptive, exploratory" one and had not been clinically validated. In 2021, the Journal of Pediatrics published a comprehensive study that found no evidence for ROGD's existence. More than 60 psychology organizations, including the American Psychological Association,   called for elimination of the term "ROGD".

The scientific community, in short, agreed there was no such thing as ROGD. But did it matter? Lisa Littman's "ROGD" paper was a turning point. While theories and rumors about something like ROGD had quietly percolated online before the paper was published, Lisa Littman's descriptive study gave legitimacy to the concept. Soon after, it took on a life of its own. People describing themselves as "parents of ROGD kids" formed online   support   groups.  Abigail Shrier's anti-trans tome - "Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters"  [Abigail Shrier] - sold more than 100,000 copies and has been promoted on extremely popular conservative   podcasts. YouTube videos peddling the ROGD theory have scored hundreds of thousands   of views. Justifications for anti-trans bills, like a memo on Florida's attempt to stop Medicaid funding for adult transition-related health care, routinely cite the study in their footnotes.

[ ... snip ... ]

A bill advancing through Montana's statehouse would legally define a man as someone who produces sperm and a woman as someone who produces eggs - and apply that definition to 40 aspects of the Montana's legislative code - from employment protections and school sports teams to burial records and marriage licenses. The 60-page bill  [Define sex in Montana law:  Montana Senate Bill 458 (2023); Montana SB458 (2023)  |  local copy] - which is being considered in the Montana House of Representatives after being passed by the state Senate on 2023-03-17 - is an extreme example of a trend growing across the country this year: anti-trans bills that focus on narrowly defining sex. LGBTQ+ advocates say it's part of an attempt to totally push transgender people out of public life by excluding them from as many areas of law as possible.

If the bill becomes law, it's unclear how its directives would be carried out, and legal experts say its provisions would be easily challenged in court. But the immediate effect would be to prevent transgender and gender-nonconforming people from being protected by anti-discrimination laws, increase hostility and scrutiny of individual gender expression, and potentially cost Montana billions in federal funds." With SB 458, they're just jumping right to the finish line," said SK Rossi - a longtime LGBTQ+ activist and lobbyist based in Montana. "They essentially just decided to wipe us from the code ... which means you actually can't function in public spaces or public systems as yourself without either lying to the state or to your local government about the gender you were given at birth, or misgendering yourself at every juncture of your public life." "It's completely unworkable. And that's the endgame," SK Rossi said. "They want to make sure that there's no avenue or system that recognizes who we are."

Logan Casey - senior policy researcher and adviser for the Movement Advancement Project, which monitors LGBTQ+ policy - has tracked 15 active bills introduced this year (2023) across 11 states that aim to define, or redefine, sex. Four additional bills were introduced in Mississippi, but died in committee. Montana's bill stands out as the most expansive one, Logan Casey said. Not every bill is focused on defining men and women by their reproductive capacities, but all aim to make a legal distinction between men and women based on their characteristics at birth." I haven't seen this many bills like this, let alone in this many states, let alone all in the same year," Logan Casey said.

Shawn Reagor - director of equality at the Montana Human Rights Network - said that Montana has seen a "disturbing" rise in the quantity and harm of anti-LGBTQ+ bills compared with its last legislative session - and that more Republicans are rallying around them. Montana's proposed bill to define sex creates many unknowns, Shawn Reagor said - how it would be funded, how it would be implemented and how it would be enforced. It has the potential to impact transgender people in nearly all parts of their day-to-day life - through housing protections, identity documents, employment and health care." It entirely eliminates the existence of intersex people. It tries to force trans and nonbinary folks to misidentify their gender. And it has huge implications for the rest of the state, taking us back hundreds of years," Shawn Reagor said.

Lauren Wilson - president of the Montana Chapter of the Academy of Pediatrics - worries that SB 458 and a separate bill to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth will prompt physicians to leave - and that pediatric specialists won't want to come work in Montana. "We lost one of four pediatric endocrinologists licensed in the state. That is a big deal," Lauren Wilson said, referring to a colleague who left Montana in 2022-03(?), but who provided virtual coverage through the summer (2022 ?). "One of the four who lived here, left. And he told us to please go ahead and tell everyone that he is leaving, in part, due to the criminalization of best-practice care."

The Montana bill attempts to grapple with people who do not produce eggs or sperm by defining those who have "nonambiguous internal genitalia" as women and "nonambiguous external genitalia" as men.The Montana bill attempts to grapple with people who do not produce eggs or sperm by defining those who have "nonambiguous internal genitalia" as women and "nonambiguous external genitalia" as men. These definitions of sex are inaccurate, Lauren Wilson said. Intersex people exist who do not fit this description, despite the language referring to those who cannot produce eggs or sperm." They're trying to categorize people by their reproductive capacity. There are a small number of people who produce both sperm and eggs," she said. "So what that means is they're essentially not people under the law in Montana." Depending on how Montana state agencies choose to implement the bill, if it passes into law, the state could lose federal funding up to $7.5 billion, according to a recent analysis by the state's legislative fiscal division.

The analysis found that, overall, it is uncertain how the bill would impact state agencies or change the ways that they operate - since the legislation does not provide any direction to those agencies. But its definitions of sex run afoul of how the Biden administration has directed federal agencies to interpret Bostock v. Clayton County, the Supreme Court of the United States case that found gender identity to be a protected class of sex. Federal laws often require states to comply with nondiscrimination laws to get federal funding, the analysis notes, and excluding transgender people may allow state or local governments to discriminate. Ezra Ishmael Young - who teaches constitutional law at Cornell Law School - said Montana's bill clearly violates the state's own constitution, as well as the federal Constitution. In the 1970s, Montana added an "individual dignity" clause to its state constitution - stating that "no person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws" or discriminated against by the state of Montana on the basis of sex.

The Montana Supreme Court has held that the plain meaning of the dignity clause protects the intrinsic worth and basic humanity of its citizens - which is "directly at odds with what this bill aims to do," Akilah Maya Deernose - staff attorney at the ACLU of Montana - old reporters at a virtual briefing on Wednesday (2023-03-29)." Given the scope of this law, it would make it very difficult for a trans person like myself to live my life as male in the state of Montana," Ezra Ishmael Young said. "That could chill people's expression, it could make some people become recluses and not participate in public life because there's not really a place for them to be themselves in public life." Montana's proposed bill could be challenged under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment as well as the due process clause, said Paul Smith - a law professor at Georgetown University  [Georgetown University Law Center], and counsel in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court Lawrence v. Texas case, that invalidated sodomy law across the United States, during Wednesday (2023-03-29)'s briefing.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and LGBTQ+ rights organization Human Rights Campaign (HRC) have not committed to suing Montana over the bill. Both the ACLU and the HRC are monitoring the progress of the Montana bill. The ACLU - alongside other groups - has announced that it plans to sue if the state passes its gender-affirming care ban for minors into law. Ria Tabacco Mar - director of the ACLU's  Women's Rights Project - said Montana's bill - and others cropping up around the United States that aim to create a legal definition of womanhood - are reminiscent of centuries' worth of laws segregating women based on "biological capacities". These bills - several of which are dubbed a "women's bill of rights" - have the potential to worsen conditions for all women, Ria Tabacco Mar said. While these bills are clearly targeting transgender people - Ria Tabacco Mar said - writing such strict definitions of sex into law would invite scrutiny and discrimination against anyone - especially women - who appear "too macho," too gender-nonconforming, or who simply don't align with traditional gender expressions."They rely on generalizations about who people are, based in this case on particular reproductive capacities, that fail to take into account the beautiful diversity of what it means to be a woman ... in ways that are very reminiscent of earlier laws and policies that restricted what women could do based on biology," Ria Tabacco Mar said.

A proposed draft of a physical education form in Florida could require all high school student athletes to disclose information regarding their menstrual history - a move that's already drawing pushback from opponents who say the measure would harm students. The draft - published last month (2023-01) by the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) - a group that oversees interscholastic athletic programs across Florida - proposes making currently optional questions regarding a student's menstrual cycle mandatory, as reported by the Palm Beach Post. The form, if approved, would ask students if they've had a menstrual cycle, and if so, at what age they had their first menstrual period, their most recent menstrual period and "how many periods the student has had in the past 12 months." The questions have appeared in the state's athletics participation form for more than two decades, but have been optional.

"This is clearly an effort to further stigmatize and demonize transgender people in sports and meant to further exclude people who aren't assigned female at birth in girls sports," said Maxx Fenning, president of PRISM, a South Florida nonprofit organization that provides sexual health information to LGBTQ+ youth. "Beyond that, I think there's concern among LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ students alike. This is an extremely invasive mode of gleaning into someone's reproductive history, which is especially dangerous in this post-Roe world we live in."

Issues related to school districts and the LGBTQ+ community have become more contentious over the past year (2022). Last 2022-03 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis  [Ron DeSantis] signed the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act - dubbed by critics as Florida's "Don't say gay" bill - which prohibits instruction related to gender identity or sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade, and potentially restricting such instruction for older kids. A few months later, the Miami-Dade School Board  [Miami-Dade County Public Schools] voted overwhelming against recognizing October as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer History month, even though the Board had voted 7-1 to recognize that designation the previous school year.

The FHSAA board is set to discuss the potential mandate 2023-02-(26-27) in Gainesville, Florida. The FHSAA did not respond to queries from the Herald Thursday (2023-02-02) about the matter.

[ ... snip ... ]

Defying the guidance of the nation's leading medical organizations, Republican Utah Governor Spencer Cox on Saturday (2023-01-28) signed into law a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors in Utah.

Passed by the Utah House of Representatives on Thursday (2023-01-26) and the Utah Senate on Friday (2023-01-27), Utah S.B. 16  [Utah S.B. 16 (2023): S.B. 16 Transgender Medical Treatments and Procedures Amendments] prohibits gender-affirming surgeries for trans youth and bars hormonal treatment for new patients who were not diagnosed with gender dysphoria before the bill's effective date, 2023-05-03

"This bill effectively bans access to lifesaving medical care for transgender youth in Utah," said   Brittney Nystrom - executive director of the ACLU of Utah - after the Senate vote Friday (2023-01-27). "It undermines the health and well-being of adolescents, limits the options of doctors, patients, and parents, and violates the constitutional rights of these families."

Brittney Nystrom also sent Spencer Cox a letter urging him to veto the bill. Brittney Nystrom wrote that "the ACLU of Utah is deeply concerned about the damaging and potentially catastrophic effects this law will have on people's lives and medical care, and the grave violations of people's constitutional rights it will cause."

[ ... snip ... ]

Some LGBTQ+ advocates had hoped Spencer Cox would be compelled to block the bill because last March (2022-03) - citing trans youth suicide rates - Spencer Cox vetoed Utah H.B. 11 (2022), which banned transgender girls from playing on school sports teams that align with their gender identity. Utah lawmakers swiftly overrode Spencer Cox's, but a state judge in 2022-08 issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the law.

Republican lawmakers in various states have ramped up efforts to enact anti-trans laws - particularly those targeting youth - over the past few years. As The New York Times reported Wednesday (2023-01-25):

But even by those standards, the start of the 2023 legislative season stands out for the aggressiveness with which lawmakers are pushing into new territory.

The (anti-transgender) bills they have proposed - more than 150 in at least 25 states - include bans on transition care into young adulthood; restrictions on drag shows using definitions that could broadly encompass performances by transgender people; measures that would prevent teachers in many cases from using names or pronouns matching students' gender identities; and requirements that schools out transgender students to their parents.

Legislative researcher Erin Reed, who is transgender, told the The New York Times that the more aggressive proposals could make others seem like compromises. "I really hope that people don't allow that to happen," Erin Reed said. "Because these bills still target trans people who will then have to suffer the consequences."

[ ... snip ... ]

On Saturday (2023-01-28), Utah Republican Governor Spencer Cox signed legislation banning gender-affirming surgeries for transgender youth and placing an indefinite moratorium on hormone treatment for minors who haven't yet been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

While Utah is the first state of 2023 to limit gender-affirming care, it is not likely the last: A barrage of state bills brought by Republican lawmakers this year (2023) seeks to control the lives of transgender children. More than 150 such bills are being considered in at least 25 states, according to The New York Times, including proposals to ban transitional health care, restrict drag shows, and prevent teachers from using the names and pronouns that match the gender identities of their students.

Some of the anti-transgender bills - which are backed by longtime GOPChristian nationalist groups - have nearly identical language, suggesting a common template [ model acts (model bills)]. Those organizing the legislative push include the Alliance Defending Freedom [ Alliance Defending Freedom], the Family Policy Alliance, the American Principles Project, and The Heritage Foundation.

"This is a political winner," said Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, a conservative think tank, according to The New York Times. Terry Schilling argued that more midterm voters might have come out had Republicans not "shied away" from the issue.

Last year, Utah Governor Spencer Cox made headlines when he vetoed a bill that would have limited the participation of transgender kids in school sports. But in a statement about the recent legislation, Spencer Cox argued for pausing "permanent and life-altering treatments." Spencer Cox added, "While we understand our words will be of little comfort to those who disagree with us, we sincerely hope that we can treat our transgender families with more love and respect as we work to better understand the science and consequences behind these procedures."

Major medical organizations - including the American Medical Association [Wikipedia: American Medical Association], the American Academy of Pediatrics [Wikipedia: American Academy of Pediatrics], and the American Psychiatric Association [Wikipedia: American Psychiatric Association] - agree that gender-affirming care is key to improving health outcomes for transgender individuals, especially trans youth. Such care is associated with dramatically reduced rates of suicide, depression and anxiety, and substance use.

In a letter on Friday (2023-01-27), the ACLU of Utah urged Spencer Cox to veto the bill. "By cutting off medical treatment supported by every major medical association in the United States, the bill compromises the health and well-being of adolescents with gender dysphoria," it read. "It ties the hands of doctors and parents by restricting access to the only evidence-based treatment available for this serious medical condition and impedes their ability to fulfill their professional obligations."

Senator Mike Kennedy - the Republican lawmaker and family physician who sponsored the bill - expects the legislation to be litigated. "I'm afraid that I'm going to be working on this for the rest of my political life," Mike Kennedy said on the state Senate floor.

A legal review by Utah's state legislature - obtained by the Salt Lake Tribune - suggested that the anti-transgender legislation could be deemed unconstitutional if brought before a federal court.

[ ... snip ... ]

... Those numbers come after three years of nearly ceaseless legislation in statehouses across the country targeting transgender youth. In the last year alone (2022), 344 anti-transgender bills were introduced in statehouses, and 25 became law, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Nowhere has the anti-trans push been stronger than in Texas, where Texas Governor Greg Abbott directed state officials to investigate parents of transgender kids getting gender-affirming medical care - or in Florida, where Florida Governor Ron DeSantis championed a bill barring schools from teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity. While both incumbents won their reelection bids, advocates say their victories do not necessarily signal a fever pitch of anti-transgender animus in the United States. In Illinois, Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey called gender-affirming care "experimental surgeries." In Nevada, Republican attorney general candidate Sigal Chattah employed a slur when referring to transgender people and called for there to be fewer of them. Both candidates lost. ...

The war in Ukraine and recent discourse around transgender rights have fuelled an increase in hate crime complaints, according to Montreal police. The Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal  (SPVM)'s hate crime unit was called to present its work at Montreal's Public Security Commission. No formal figures were put forward at the meeting, as the 2022 year is still on-going, the unit said. Marc Bellerose, who works with the unit, the Module des incidents et crimes haineux (MICH), said world events often lead to specific spikes in hate crimes and incidents in Montreal. Marc Bellerose said the widespread reaction to the Russian invasion in Ukraine has led to an increase in hate-related reports from both Russian-Montrealers and Ukrainian-Montrealers.

Recent media coverage around transgender rights - including transgender athletes in sports, at drag events and in education - has likewise contributed to the increase of reports by transgender people who say they have been targeted, Marc Bellerose said. "When we're living through ... large-scale changes in our society, it's unfortunately human nature to seek someone to blame," he said. "That's exactly what we saw." ... Marc Bellerose said four groups - Muslim and Arab residents, the Black community, the Jewish community and the LGBT community - make up the bulk of hate reports the SPVM receives at any given time.

[ ... snip ... ]

Nikita Dragun, an influencer and content creator, was arrested and held in a men's unit of a Miami, Florida jail this week (2022-11), court records show. Dragun, who is a transgender woman, creates content on YouTube (her videos have well over 250 million views) and Instagram (where she has 9 million followers). She discusses her gender identity openly and covers her lifestyle and beauty tricks in her videos. She also founded a makeup company called Dragun Beauty. Nikita Dragun was held in a men's unit of the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami over an incident this week (2022-11). Nikita Dragun's facing charges of misdemeanor disorderly conduct and felony battery of a law enforcement officer, court records show.

Representatives for Nikita Dragun criticized how Miami police handled her incarceration. They didn't comment specifically on the charges Nikita Dragun is facing. "The situation with Nikita Dragun - who is legally female - being placed in a men's unit of a Florida jail is extremely disturbing and dangerous," according to Jack Ketsoyan, a representative for Nikita Dragun with Full Scope Public Relations. "This decision made by the Miami-Dade County corrections department directly violates their protocol, which mandates that transgender inmates are classified and housed based on safety needs and gender identity. Nikita has been released and is now safe."

Nikita Dragun's arrest and incarceration in a men's unit are notable given her stature, but it's a common occurrence for many trans individuals incarcerated in the United States. In practice, many corrections departments place individuals in facilities according to their assigned sex at birth or genitalia at the time they were arrested. This is regardless of research showing that transgender inmates face greater risk of assault and abuse. This has been a problem in Miami previously. Three transgender people filed a lawsuit against Miami-Dade County for abuse they allegedly faced in 2020 when they too were misgendered. Nikita Dragun reportedly asked a judge during her hearing whether she had to remain in the men's unit. "I don't make the rules up there," the judge said.

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Nikita Dragun

[curation date: 2022-11-10] Nikita Dragun born January 31, 1996) known professionally as Nikita Dragun, is a YouTuber, make-up artist, and model. CONTROVERSIES. ... ARREST. Nikita Nguyen was arrested on 2022-11-07 after police claimed they found her roaming around the pool in her underwear and spraying police and security personnel with water at The Goodtime Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. According to the police report, officers were called in response to a report of a person acting in a "highly disorderly fashion" and causing a disturbance at the hotel. Nikita Dragun was charged for misdemeanor disorderly conduct, misdemeanor battery, and felony battery on a police officer and was taken into custody at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami-Dade County with a $5,000 bond. Nikita Dragun was reportedly placed into a men's prison despite her gender identity. Officials from the Miami-Dade Corrections & Rehabilitation Department disputed that account, saying she had never made it past booking, so was never placed in a men's prison, and was first in an open seating area, then in a holding cell by herself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_Dragun

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Transgender children in Florida will be barred from receiving hormones or undergoing surgeries to treat gender dysphoria under a rule approved Friday (2022-11-04) by state medical officials at the urging of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. The Florida Board of Medicine and the state Board of Osteopathic Medicine voted at a joint meeting in Lake Buena Vista to finalize rules governing gender-affirming health care for minors. The rule is set to take effect after a weeks-long public input period. The ban comes as DeSantis and Republicans in other states move to limit access to the treatments for minors, often characterizing them as medically unproven and potentially dangerous in the long term, as another political battle against liberal ideologies.

Many doctors, mental health specialists and medical groups have argued that treatments for transgender youth are safe and beneficial, though rigorous long-term research is lacking. Federal health officials have described the gender-affirming care as crucial to the health and well-being of transgender children and adolescents. DeSantis has made criticizing such treatments for minors a routine part of his re-election campaign, often referring to the procedures in graphic terms during rallies and speeches. The new policy, finalized days before the election (2022-11), marks another example of DeSantis' ability to leverage the power of government to accomplish controversial political goals, bolstering his national reputation as a combative GOP culture warrior.

PUBERTY BLOCKERS, SURGERIES PROHIBITED. The rule prohibits doctors from prescribing puberty-blocking, hormone and hormone antagonist therapies to treat gender dysphoria in minors. It bans sex reassignment surgeries or other surgical procedures that alter primary or secondary sexual characteristics in minors. ... Gender-affirming health care for youths has been a target for Republicans in recent years. Last year, the American Medical Association issued a letter urging governors to block any legislation prohibiting the treatment, calling such action "a dangerous intrusion into the practice of medicine."

FOLLOWS BANS IN ARKANSAS, ALABAMA. Arkansas was the first state to enact such a ban on gender-affirming care, with Republican lawmakers in 2021 overriding Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson's veto of the legislation. Alabama Republicans this year approved legislation to outlaw gender-affirming medications for transgender youths. Both laws have been paused amid unfolding legal battles. Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, a Republican, signed a bill last month (2022-10) that bars federal funds earmarked for the University of Oklahoma Medical Center from being used for gender reassignment treatments for minors. Stitt also called for the legislature to ban some of those gender reassignment treatments statewide when it returns in 2023-02.

Top Tennessee Republicans also have vowed to push for strict anti-transgender policies. The state already bans doctors from providing gender-confirming hormone treatment to prepubescent minors. To date, no one has legally challenged the law as medical experts maintain no doctor in Tennessee does so.

In Florida, DeSantis signed a law last year (2021) barring transgender girls and women from playing on public school teams intended for student athletes identified as girls at birth.

A Texas judge has ordered Texas to halt investigations into families providing gender-affirming care to their children if they belong to PFLAG, an LGBTQ-aligned organization. The order from Travis County, Texas District Judge Amy Clark Meachumwas issued on Friday (2022-09-16) and only applies to Texas-based members of PFLAG who are at risk of being investigated by officials. District Judge Amy Clark Meachum's specificity over who is protected from intrusive and unnecessary investigations was due to limitations the Supreme Court of Texas had placed on a previous order issued by Amy Clark Meachum.

Inquiries into these families were prompted by an executive order earlier this year (2022-02) from Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX), who instructed the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to conduct "a prompt and thorough investigation of any reported instances" of gender-affirming care, which his order wrongly characterized as "abusive procedures."

Amy Clark Meachum had actually placed an injunction on Greg Abbott's executive order shortly after it was issued (2022-02). But the Supreme Court of Texas overruled Amy Clark Meachum's original action, and stated that Texas officials could still pursue these investigations. Lower courts could also impose blocks of Greg Abbott's executive action - but only for specific plaintiffs, not broadly as Amy Clark Meachum had done. In Amy Clark Meachum's order on Friday (2022-09-16), Meachum ruled that members of PFLAG - which had sued on behalf of plaintiffs who were being investigated by the state under Greg Abbott's decree - should be shielded from being harassed by the state (Texas). Meachum issued her order on the basis that there was "a substantial likelihood" that the litigants would be successful in suing to stop the inquiry. Without the injunction, Amy Clark Meachum added in her order, families being investigated by the state (Texas) would "suffer probable, imminent, and irreparable injury in the interim."

Contrary to the claims made in Greg Abbott's order, gender-affirming care is far from being "abusive" - in fact, it has the potential to be lifesaving. Gender-affirming care includes a wide range of treatments, from verbal therapy to medicine or even surgery in some cases. For children, however, treatment options rarely, if ever, include surgery; instead, most medical treatment for trans youth involves the use of reversible puberty blockers.

Medical experts largely agree that gender-affirming care for trans youth is more than just safe - it's also deeply beneficial. In a University of Washington   study published in 2022-02 on the outcome of using puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormone treatments for individuals aged 13-20, such gender-affirming treatments were associated with 60 percent lower odds of moderate or severe depression and 73 percent lower odds of suicidality  [suicidal ideation, suicidal thoughts] a year after the gender-affirming treatments began.

Columbia University's Department of Psychiatry has also confirmed that gender-affirming care is beneficial for trans youth. "Research demonstrates that gender-affirming care ... greatly improves the mental health and overall well-being of gender diverse, transgender, and nonbinary children and adolescents," the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry said in a statement in 2022-03. State laws and policies like Texas' "run counter to scientific evidence and also threaten the mental health of transgender and nonbinary youth," the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry went on.

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin's administration has proposed new policies for the Virginia's schools regarding how they treat transgender students - including restricting which bathrooms they can use and which pronouns they may use  [Discrediting the Transphobic "Bathroom Predator" Myth  |  Anti-Transgender "Wedge" Tactics]. The Virginia Department of Education released its 2022 Model Policies online Friday (2022-09-16) - effectively rolling back the work of Glenn Youngkin's predecessor, Democrat Ralph Northam.

Virginia Department of Education's new rules will effected the more than 1 million children enrolled in the Virginia's public school system. The revamped rules explicitly state that students must only use bathrooms and locker rooms associated with the sex assigned to them at birth. If a student wants to participate in a sport or other extracurricular activities, they must, again, only participate in teams that align with the sex assigned at birth. Further, the legal name and sex of a student can't be changed 'even upon written instruction of a parent or eligible student' without an official legal document or court order. Teachers and other school officials can only refer to a student by their pronouns associated with their sex at birth. But they also don't have to refer to a student's preferred names regardless of paperwork if they feel doing so 'would violate their constitutionally protected rights'  [Discrimination via Conscientious Objection].

Virginia now joins a growing number of state legislatures across the United States that have adopted new restrictions on gay and transgender students. Like Virginia, these policies often limit conversations about sexuality and gender identity in schools. There have been more than 200 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced at the state level this year alone (2022-09), according to the LGBTQ rights group, Freedom for All Americans. Some go as far as to restrict access to gender-affirming medical care. ..."

In 2022, Pride month - June - gave way to an explosion of invective against LGBTQ rights, helped along by allies in right-wing media, particularly Fox News. But there's also rising anti-trans sentiment in the liberal-left sphere, and it's being driven by some elements of what might be called the "post-left," onetime champions of progressive outlooks who have now tilted to the right. Former Intercept writer) Glenn Greenwald is one of those leading the charge, turning his audience on to fringe elements of a growing hate movement.

It wasn't always like this. Glenn Greenwald was once a stalwart defender of trans rights - perhaps in connection with his advocacy for U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning and his friendship with since-assassinated Brazilian politician and activist Marielle Franco. "If you want to get a taste for how widespread warped & creepy hostility against trans people is, mention Chelsea Manning and survey the bile," Glenn Greenwald tweeted on 2016-09-10.

In 2017, Glenn Greenwald called   Milo Yiannopoulos' notorious appearance on Bill Maher's show "the most trans-hating discussion I've seen on television." Glenn Greenwald referred to Bill Maher's attacks on trans people in general as indicative of a complex of "thinking you're brave & subversive for mocking the most marginalized, while reliably sycophantic to actual power."

[ ... snip ... ]

A zero-sum view of civil rights doesn't easily allow for solidarity between marginalized groups. But Glenn Greenwald's shift on trans rights has also coincided with his broader tilt toward the far-right in recent years. While Greenwald has long had a friendly relationship with extremist Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Greenwald's gone further and further down a conservative media rabbit hole since leaving   The Intercept in late 2020. It would have once been nearly unthinkable to imagine Greenwald chumming it up onstage with the likes of social conservative Erick Erickson or giving a softball interview to notoriously homophobic conspiracy theorist Alex Jones - but both of those things have happened. Perhaps cultivating a new audience of right-wing media consumers has pushed Greenwald to embrace social conservatism and bigotry against trans people.

Greenwald recently laid out his view of the trans rights movement on June 23 during an appearance on the Vanguard YouTube show. In response to a question about his engagement in multiple culture-war issues, almost invariably on the side of the political right, Greenwald claimed that he was just asking questions about "what has become of the trans agenda."

[ ... snip ... ]

... A week later on an edition of his video streaming show on 2022-06-30, Glenn Greenwald interviewed Christopher Rufo - the hard-right intellectual force behind the panic over "critical race theory" - who has now set his sights on LGBTQ rights. Christopher Rufo has made little secret of his intentions to propagandize against the LGBT community, laying out part of the strategy in a 2022-06-17 tweet in which he suggested that "Conservatives should start using the phrase 'trans stripper' in lieu of 'drag queen' because 'it has a more lurid set of connotations and shifts the debate to sexualization.'" During his congenial, unchallenging discussion with Christopher Rufo, Glenn Greenwald questioned 'this new agenda of trans issues like, you know, demanding everybody say trans women are women.' Greenwald then pegged the beginning of the trans rights movement to the end of the same-sex marriage fight, saying that the push for trans civil rights was a byproduct of winning that battle. Faced with either going home victorious but unemployed or pivoting to a new fight, according to Greenwald's version of events, equality activists chose to keep the spigot of cash flowing. 'Instead, they immediately switched to the trans movement, which they barely had talked about before, because there was nothing else for them to do,' Greenwald said - connecting to the zero-sum civil rights argument Greenwald made with anti-trans media figure Katie Herzog over a year earlier [2021-03-18]. ...")

[ ... snip ... ]

Florida's Republican-dominated legislature passed a bill Tuesday [2022-03-08] to forbid instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, rejecting a wave of criticism from Democrats that it marginalizes LGBTQ people. The proposal, which opponents have dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill, now moves to the desk of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who is expected to sign it into law. Since its inception, the measure has drawn intense opposition from LGBTQ advocates, students, national Democrats, the White House, and the entertainment industry. The proposal came amid increased attention on Florida as Republicans push culture war legislation and Ron DeSantis ascends in the GOP as a potential 2024 presidential candidate  [2024 United States presidential election]. "This bill, from its introduction, has been used as vehicle to marginalize and attack LGTBQ people," said Florida Representative Carlos Guillermo Smith, a Democrat who is gay. Smith said it "sends a terrible message to our youth that there is something wrong with LGBTQ people, that there is something so dangerous or inappropriate about us that we have to be prohibited and censored from the classroom."

Restrictions on LGBTQ topics in schools

The "Don't Say Gay" bill states: "Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards." Parents would be able to sue districts over violations. Republican Florida Representative Joe Harding - who sponsored the measure - and other GOP lawmakers in Florida have argued that parents should be broaching these subjects with their children, rather than educators. It would not bar spontaneous discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools but instead is intended to prevent districts from integrating the subjects into official curriculum, Joe Harding and supporters have said. "I know how important it is to empower parents in this relationship. I want to encourage parents across Florida to own it," said Florida Senator Dennis Baxley, a Republican who carried the bill in the Florida Senate. "They're your kids, and it is tough - it's tough to figure out what influences will be on them and what kinds of decisions they will make and how that all comes out."




Republican Florida Senator Dennis Baxley, right, sponsor of a bill, during a legislative session at the Florida State Capitol before it was passed.  [Source]

Bill sparks protests

Democrats have often said the "Don't Say Gay" bill's language - particularly the phrases "classroom instruction" and "age appropriate" - could be interpreted broadly enough that discussion in any grade could trigger lawsuits from parents and therefore could create a classroom atmosphere where teachers would avoid the subjects. Statewide, the bill has sparked a swell of protests and student walkouts. Dozens of students and advocates flooded committee rooms during the proposal's early stages and then packed into the halls of the Florida Legislature as it moved toward final passage - often with chants of "We say gay!" "We have failed as a legislature if hundreds of kids stand outside screaming for their rights and you can't explain to fifth graders and sixth graders and eighth graders simple definitions of your bill. You've failed," said Florida Senator Jason Pizzo, a Democrat. In the bill's early stages, Florida Representative Joe Harding filed an amendment that would have effectively required a school to inform parents if a student came out as LGBTQ to a teacher, renewing widespread condemnation of the measure. Joe Harding withdrew the amendment as it picked up attention in media and online. "Nothing in the amendment was about outing a student. Rather than battle misinformation related to the amendment, I decided to focus on the primary bill that empowers parents to be engaged in their children's lives," Harding said in a statement.

Ron DeSantis has chafed at calling the proposal the "Don't Say Gay" bill because DeSantis said it would apply to instruction on any gender identity or sexual orientation. DeSantis said it was inappropriate for teachers to discuss those issues with children in kindergarten through third grade. "We're going to make sure that parents are able to send their kid to kindergarten without some of this stuff injected into their school curriculum," the governor said Monday [2022-03-07]. The White House - which has sparred frequently with DeSantis over a wide range of policy - had previously criticized the measure and President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has called it "hateful." On Tuesday [2022-03-08], shortly after the measure passed the Florida statehouse, United States Secretary of Education   Miguel Cardona issued a statement that read "leaders in Florida are prioritizing hateful bills that hurt some of the students most in need." "The [U.S.] Department of Education has made clear that all schools receiving federal funding must follow federal civil rights law, including Title IX's protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity," Cardona wrote. "We stand with our LGBTQ+ students in Florida and across the country, and urge Florida leaders to make sure all their students are protected and supported."




On Tuesday [2022-03-08], Republican members of the Florida House of Representatives passed a bill - dubbed by opponents as the "Don't Say Gay" bill  [Florida House Bill 1557 (2022)  |  Florida HB 1557 (2022)  |  local copy  |  Florida Senate Bill 1834 (2022)  |  Florida SB 1834 (2022)  |  local copy] - to forbid discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. Demonstrators opposed to the bill gathered near the Florida state capitol on Monday [2022-03-07], in Tallahassee, Florida.  [Source]

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Disney employees  [The Walt Disney Company] are showing their outrage over the entertainment company's decision not to denounce Florida's so-called "Don't Say Gay" bill, which would limit discussion of sexuality and gender in Florida schools. The Florida Senate passed the bill Tuesday [2022-03-08], and it now goes to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' (R-FL) desk. It's the latest effort by Republican lawmakers to remove the teaching of LGBTQ issues from schools.  Florida Senate Bill 1834 (2022)  [Florida SB 1834 (2022)  |  local copy  |  see also: Florida House Bill 1557 (2022)  |  Florida HB 1557 (2022)  |  local copy] reads, "A school district may not encourage classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels," according to the text.

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According to the accountability news site Popular Information - [2022-03-08] The inside story of how Disney turned its back on the LGBTQ community - "in the last two years, The Walt Disney Company has donated $197,162 to members of the Florida Legislature that have already voted for the "Don't Say Gay"' legislation," including to sponsors of the bill, Florida Representative Joe Harding (R-FL) and Florida Senator Dennis Baxley (R-FL).

[ ... snip ... ]

On Monday [2022-03-07], Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Chapek wrote in a memo to employees, "I believe the best way for our company to bring about lasting change is through the inspiring content we produce and the diverse organizations we support."

[ ... snip ... ]

In 2019-08 - six weeks after Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen joined the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) as Deputy Executive Director - news broke that the United States Department of Justice, under President Donald Trump, had asked the Supreme Court of the United States to legalize firing transgender workers on the basis of their gender identity  []. But at one of the moments it was needed most, the nation's premier transgender policy nonprofit organization, which had word shoulder-to-shoulder with presidential administrations, sat empty. Earlier that same day [2019-08], NCTE staff had walked out over the way NCTE treated its employees of color. The incident would prelude the effective dissolution of the storied organization.

By 2019-11, even as states across the country were gearing up to introduce a barrage of anti-transgender bills, NCTE staff were leaving en masse. Facing allegations of racism and union-busting, Mara Keisling - the Executive Director at the time of the walkout - presented employees with a choice: align with leadership (staff had called for their resignation), or take a buyout. Nearly every one of the top trans policy minds in the country severed ties and left. NCTE, the organization that helped secure protections for transgender people in health care, that gave them IDs that reflected who they were, was at risk of folding. As a senior leader, Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen was party to the dismissals, which whittled a staff of more than 20 down to just seven. Today, only three people remain from that time, including Heng-Lehtinen, who spoke with The 19th at length about NCTE's efforts to rebuild and re-engage on national policy goals spearheaded by former staff .

Last July [2021-07], Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen was appointed as Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality (). Since that time, Heng-Lehtinen has been slowly trying to rebuild NCTE into the policy powerhouse it once was, while breaking the organization of habits that drove out staff members of color, he said. Heng-Lehtinen can hardly afford time, not in terms of anti-trans bills, and not in rebuilding the brand of the organization he now helms. NCTE has historically not only been the largest transgender policy organization in the United States, but in many ways, it is the only one that consistently tackles federal policy. NCTE also publishes the U.S. Transgender Survey - the only comprehensive study of transgender life in the country. Though it does not collect its own robust data on trans people, the U.S. federal government relied on the survey to make policy decisions like issuing gender-affirming passports, protecting transgender people in shelters, and crafting healthcare rules that cover trans people.

After the staff dissolution at the National Center for Transgender Equality, a Monica Roberts accused Mara Keisling of racism against her dating back years. The fallout - which fractured the movement for transgender equality in the United States - hit major media. Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen and his 15-person staff now face the unenviable task of restoring community trust at time when transgender kids are facing unprecedented attacks in state legislatures. In two years, 11 bills banning transgender kids from playing sports have been signed into law, as well as a bill barring doctors from providing trans kids the gender-affirming care recommended by all major medical associations. Yet Heng-Lehtinen is hopeful for the future of NCTE and the future of transgender rights.

[ ... snip ... ]

At its peak, the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) laid the groundwork for the most substantial advancements for transgender people in the country's history. NCTE had a hand in nearly every major gain under the Obama administration - from housing to health care to workplace protections to schools. Under the Trump administration, NCTE served as the first line of defense against a blitz of anti-transgender policy moves. When The New York Times reported that the United States Department of Health and Human Services was preparing to legally define trans people out of existence in 2018-10, NCTE launched the now-ubiquitous #WontBeErased campaign to demonstrate the transgender community's resilience.

But allegations of racism against NCTE have eroded community trust. In 2022-01, Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen put out a statement conceding what NCTE had long denied: NCTE drove out employees of color. "NCTE - like many nonprofits - was using a totally White-dominant style and not even noticing," Heng-Lehtinen told The 19th. Heng-Lehtinen said past leadership struggled to delegate, leaving junior staffers of color feeling untrusted in their roles. He also said NCTE failed to operate with transparency. In this, Heng-Lehtinen tries to distance himself from Mara Keisling and his predecessors. Mara Keisling did not respond to a request to comment for this article.

While NCTE is working to staff back to full capacity, Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen has prioritized diversifying its roster: nine of its 15 staffers are people of color. NCTE has formally recognized its employees union. NCTE is actively partnering with smaller transgender organizations that serve people of color, especially in relaunching its now two-year delayed U.S. Transgender Survey. It's unclear what former staff make of the changes. Seven former employees declined to be interviewed for this piece, some citing a need to continue to seek employment in LGBTQ+ advocacy. Heng-Lehtinen said he has not been in touch with past staff. "I don't want to intrude on someone," he said. "But my door is open."

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has signed a law that bans transgender girls and women in the state from competing in sports according to their gender identity. The measure applies to public schools and private K-12 schools and community colleges as well as colleges and universities affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). The law's backers say it's intended to ensure fair competition among girls and women. But opponents call it a discriminatory attempt to sideline transgender students who they say make up a small fraction of athletes in the state and do not pose the competitive threat that supporters claim.

Kimberly Reynolds signed the bill - Iowa House File 2416 (2022)  [local copy] - in the rotunda of the Iowa State Capitol, surrounded by young women and fellow Republican lawmakers who support the discriminatory legislation. Reynolds repeated the claim that transgender girls hold a fundamental advantage in female sports. "It worries me that this bill is needed at all. It's hard to imagine how anyone who cares about the rights of women and girls could support anything less," said Reynolds. "No amount of talent, training or effort on their part can make up for the natural, physical advantages males have over females."

Under the law - which takes effect immediately - only cisgender female athletes are allowed to compete in female sports. Transgender girls and women would be forced to play against boys and men. The bill does not address the eligibility of transgender boys, who would be free to compete in male athletics. Ainsley Erzen - a high school track star from Carlisle, Iowa - has been an outspoken proponent of removing transgender girls from girls' sports. Speaking at the signing ceremony, Ainsley Erzen said putting the new law into effect sends a message to female athletes.

[ ... snip ... ]

• [RightWingWatch.org, 2022-03-02] Terry Schilling Claims Credit for Texas Governor Abbott's Anti-Trans Directive.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott last week [2022-01] directed the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate gender-affirming health care as "child abuse" and the parents of children who receive such care as perpetrating it. The directive, which was met with alarm by LGBTQ groups, was applauded by Terry Schilling of the American Principles Project, who took credit for Greg Abbott's directive on Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast last Thursday [2021-02-24] and thanked the War Room for aiding its pressure campaign on Abbott. "We put together a $750,000 grassroots advocacy campaign with the War Room support, and we put pressure on Greg Abbott right before the election," Terry Schilling said. "It wasn't a coincidence that he did this. And Abbott basically instructed all of his state agencies to treat this as child abuse, and it's now criminal to do this."

Greg Abbott, a champion of the conservative movement, has been accused of not being right-wing enough by the Republican Party's extreme fringes. Such attacks escalated ahead of Tuesday [2022-03-01]'s Republican gubernatorial primary, which Abbott easily won. In Terry Schilling's telling, Greg Abbott has been insufficiently harsh on the LGBTQ community. Under Schilling's leadership, American Principles Project - a religious-right organization that has made discriminating against trans kids its main endeavor - launched a Texas state chapter of American Principles Project last year [2021] and targeted Greg Abbott and other Republicans for not going far enough with the anti-trans legislation they passed. In 2022-02 American Principles Project released two   ads attacking Greg Abbott for failing to "protect our children." "Governor Greg Abbott promised to protect our children from dangerous sex-change procedures and hormone therapies," a voice narrates in one ad released 2022-02-04. "Given the opportunity to protect Texas children, Greg Abbott chose not to bring up legislation."

The Texas legislation in question was an extreme bill from the Texas State Legislature that would have criminalized gender-affirming health care for trans youth, redefining "child abuse" to include puberty suppression drugs, hormone replacement therapy, or surgical or medical procedures "for gender transitioning purposes". (It's worth noting that trans youth rarely, if ever, undergo surgery, and medical professionals say puberty blockers - which provide trans youth time to better understand their gender identity - are reversible.)

[ ... snip ... ]




Terry Schilling, President of the American Principles Project.  [Source]

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• [NewRepublic.com, 2022-03-01] The ACLU Is Suing Texas to Block the Worst Anti-Trans Program in the Country.  A Texas family investigated under a "child abuse" directive targeting trans youth is taking the state to court.

• [19thNews.org, 2022-03-01] As families of trans kids fear state investigation, advocacy groups are suing Texas.  As some families in Texas prepare for worst-case scenarios, the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal have sued Texas Governor Greg Abbott to prevent the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services from investigating parents seeking gender-affirming care for their children.

Two weeks after South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem   signed a law banning transgender students from joining sports teams that match their gender identity, the Republican came under fire Thursday [2022-02-17] for her apparent ignorance of difficulties faced by many LGBTQ+ peopleLGBTLGBTQLGBTQ+. During a press briefing, reporter Kyle Ireland asked Kristi Noem: "There's a statistic circling around right now that 90% of South Dakota's LGBTQ community is diagnosed with either anxiety or depression. Why do you think that is?" Governor Kristi Noemresponded: "I don't know. That makes me sad and we should figure it out."

The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) shared a video of the exchange on Twitter and noted that discriminatory policies like the one Kristi Noem approved earlier this month [2022-02] "can be directly correlated to anxiety, depression, and even suicidal ideation" in LGBTQ+ youth. The NCLR also highlighted that similar measures are being considered and enacted in several other states, and reiterated that such policies "will have LONG-TERM and SERIOUS ramifications for the mental health and well-being" of the young people targeted.

Congresswoman Marie Newman (D-IL) - who has a trans daughter - also responded to Kristi Noem's comments on Twitter. "Really? Last year was the deadliest on record for transgender Americans. You just passed a discriminatory bill that attacks trans kids who just want be themselves and play sports," Newman said. "Want to figure out why LGBTQ+ youth are more prone to depression? It's because of people like you."

After Kristi Noem - who is widely considered a leading candidate for the GOP's 2024 presidential primary race  [2024 United States presidential election] - signed the anti-trans measure, Cathryn Oakley  [local copy] of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) said Kristi Noem's "eagerness to pass a bill attacking transgender kids reveals that her national political aspirations override any sense of responsibility she has to fulfill her oath to protect South Dakotans." "Governor Noem and South Dakota legislators need to stop playing games with vulnerable children," added HRC's State Legislative Director and Senior Counsel, Cathryn Oakley. "Transgender children are children. They deserve the ability to play with their friends. This legislation isn't solving an actual problem that South Dakota was facing: It is discrimination, plain and simple. Shame on Governor Noem."

Last year [2021], according to HRC, legislators introduced more than 250 anti-LGBTQ+ measures in 31 states and enacted 17 laws in 10 states. As Common Dreams   reported last week [2022-02], Republican lawmakers continue to pursue such policies, despite warnings about the impact. Polling published in 2020-08 by Morning Consult and The Trevor Project found that LGBTQ+ youth "are significantly more likely than straight/cis youth to exhibit symptoms of depression, anxiety, and/or both." Of the 600 LGBTQ+ people ages 13-24 who were surveyed, 55% reported symptoms of anxiety, 53% reported symptoms of depression, and 43% reported symptoms of both in the two weeks preceding the survey. The figures were even higher for trans youth and nonbinary youth, at 69%, 66%, and 61%, respectively.

Amit Paley  [local copy] - CEO and Executive Director of The Trevor Project - said at the time that "we've known that LGBTQ youth have faced unique challenges because of the countless heartbreaking stories we've heard on our 24/7 phone lifeline, text, and chat crisis services; but these findings illuminate the existence of alarming mental health disparities that must be addressed through public policy."

What we have is a situation where our opponents are fixated on us and our allies are leaving us behind," says trans attorney and activist Chase Strangio. Republicans have made attacks on trans youth a signature policy item at the state level . In this episode of the "Movement Memos podcast," Kelly Hayes  [local copy] and Chase Strangio talk about the avalanche of transphobic legislation Republicans have generated, the role of fascist politics in this onslaught, and why trans students are not getting the support they need from liberals or the Left. ...

Many LGBTQ+ youth reported high stress, anger, sadness and fear for the future at the end of 2021, and reported struggling to access basic needs during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new online poll published Monday [2022-01-10] by Morning Consult [a global, privately held data intelligence company,] and LGBTQ+ youth crisis organization the The Trevor Project [an American nonprofit organization founded in 1998 focused on suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth]. Much of the stress and sadness was caused by the record number of anti-transgender bills introduced last year aiming to restrict transgender kids' ability to play sports at school or access gender-affirming care. Two-thirds of the surveyed LGBTQ+ youth, all aged 13 to 24, said debates surrounding anti-trans bills last year [2021] negatively impacted their mental health. Among the trans and nonbinary youth surveyed, 85 percent said their mental health suffered, with 37 percent saying the effect was severe. "To have two-thirds of kids say that is shocking and something we should really pay attention to," said Ryan J. Watson, associate professor at the University of Connecticut  [local copy] who has researched the experiences and health risks facing LGBTQ+ teenagers.

Experts, as well as advocacy groups PFLAG and The Trevor Project, are worried that the mental health consequences for LGBTQ+ kids and young adults - especially trans youth - will continue or get worse as more anti-transgender bills are introduced in 2022 and as policies start playing out in schools. At least 12 new anti-trans bills have been filed across seven states this month as 2022 legislative sessions kick off, not counting states like Arizona and Hawaii, where 2021 anti-trans bills are being carried into the new year's session. The anti-trans bills, introduced in states that pursued the same efforts last year, again aim to restrict trans kids' access to gender-affirming care and their ability to play on school sports teams that align with their gender.

Several anti-transgender bills also propose additional restrictive steps not seen in 2021. Oklahoma and New Hampshire are pursuing new efforts this year to restrict bathroom use or add stipulations about biological sex to state birth certificate laws. "What we are concerned about is that, having achieved a measure of success with these anti-trans sports bills and anti-trans health care bills, that the advocates of those anti-trans legislation are now seeing an opportunity to build on that," said Casey Pick,  [local copy], The Trevor Project's Senior Fellow for Advocacy and Government Affairs.

South Dakota Republicans have introduced a bathroom bill that goes further than the state's 2016 bathroom bill by allowing any student to sue a school district if they encounter a member of the opposite sex - as determined by biological sex instead of gender identity - in any changing room or bathroom, or if the school allows students of another gender to use the same sleeping accommodations. Multiple states, including Arkansas, Mississippi, West Virginia, Montana and Florida, that successfully passed anti-trans bills to restrict trans kids' sports access in school last year [2021] included a similar clause to allow students to take legal action against their school if they feel they are being deprived of athletic opportunities due to competing against a trans person. Lawmakers in many states have failed to provide evidence of trans competitors posing an issue.

In addition to a bill that would ban physicians from prescribing hormone therapy and puberty blockers to trans minors as part of gender-affirming care, Indiana has also brought an additional bill this month [2022-01] that would require physicians to tell the state how many of their patients are receiving gender-affirming care.

Abbie Goldberg  [local copy], a clinical psychology professor at Clark University who has interviewed trans and nonbinary college students as well as LGBTQ+ families, said that trans youth grappling with a global COVID-19 pandemic [COVID-19 pandemic] and legislation targeting their lives are navigating personal threats on top of broader anxiety. "They're experiencing an undue amount of stress," she said. " ... 'What are people thinking of me, how do my neighbors feel about me?'"

Diego Miguel Sanchez  [local copy], Director of Advocacy, Policy & Partnerships at PFLAG National, said that he worries about poor mental health effects of anti-trans bills combining with other stressors caused by the pandemic. Issues already faced by LGBTQ+ people, like youth homelessness and food scarcity, have only   gotten worse during the pandemic.

Half of LGBTQ+ youth told Morning Consult and The Trevor Project that not having enough money causes them stress or anxiety very often - and 35 percent struggled to afford the things they needed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nineteen percent said they had experienced not having enough food during the pandemic. The margin of error for the survey is ± 3 percentage points. Transgender kids and young adults reported significant challenges to accessing mental and physical health care last fall [2021] - as the United States rode out the Delta surge of the coronavirus pandemic - compared to their cisgender LGBTQ+ peers. Fifty-three percent of trans youth reported having trouble getting mental health care during the pandemic, and 30 percent struggled to access physical care. Twenty-eight percent of the surveyed 820 LGBTQ+ youth polled from 2021-09-14 to 2021-11-05 (last year) said that they were very stressed about losing their housing, plus 26 percent who felt stressed about losing their health care.

Studies have shown that discrimination, health care costs and a lack of access to finacial resources combine to keep many trans and nonbinary people in poverty long term - and for many LGBTQ+ people, it can be hard to even expect to have a future when you're younger. Trans youth experiencing poor mental health due to legislative debates over their rights could be facing a higher risk of self harm and suicidality, Abbie Goldberg said. "That's the unspoken but pretty obvious thing here, is that if you're feeling not great about yourself, and you're feeling angry, and you're feeling pessimistic about the future, you don't feel like you have a future," Goldberg said. "No one has your back." "These bills have incredibly significant material consequences for individual human lives," she added.

Measures against LGBTQ+ youth at the local level are also taking their toll. PFLAG and The Trevor Project are worried about potential negative mental health effects caused by school districts across multiple states banning Pride flags as a political symbol, or banning books by LGBTQ+ authors - especially those that depict trans characters. What's happening inside school districts is a top priority for PFLAG in 2022, Diego Sanchez said. School districts in states including Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Oregon, and Utah instituted Pride flag bans as early as last fall [2021], around the start of the school year. "We know this is coming up everywhere," he said.

While the Morning Consult / Trevor Project poll did not ask how LGBTQ+ youth felt about book bans or flag bans, experts previously told   The 19th that flag bans could have dire mental health effects for LGBTQ+ students as they look for signs of acceptance from adults while navigating their identities. Amid what advocates see as a state-level attack on trans youth, there are opportunities for local decision-makers to take action. Casey Pick said that she would like to see health care providers and school counselors have access to competency training to understand challenges faced by LGBTQ+ people, she said, and school districts should help equip educators to respond to suicidality among students. Mental healthcare providers should, at the very least, be knowledgeable about support systems in their immediate area to refer trans youth and adults to, and respect their trans patients' pronouns and identity, Goldberg said.

For LGBTQ+ youth who are grappling with COVID-19 pandemic-related stress on top of legislation that targets them or people they know, especially trans youth, self-care should be a priority, Abbie Goldberg added. "It's really important to recognize when you're approaching a burnout or emotional exhaustion threshold," Goldberg said, especially as trans and LGBTQ+ youth engage in activism and stay on top of news that affects them. For parents trying to support their kids, Goldberg recommends reaffirming their value and helping them find resources if traditional mental health avenues aren't available - like mental health apps that can help them regulate their mood, searching for online support groups. Whether or not anti-trans bills introduced and debated in 2022 actually pass, they still present a mental health stressor, Goldberg said - and people in the lives of trans youth should do what they can to support them.

Quidditch is getting ditched. The sport started growing beyond the Harry Potter books years ago, when college students first translated it into a real-world game. But now two large leagues plan to drop the famous name, citing author J.K. Rowling's "anti-trans positions." A new name hasn't been chosen yet. Both U.S. Quidditch and Major League Quidditch (MLQ) say they'll use a series of surveys in the next few months to reach a decision.

The two leagues put out a joint statement this week announcing the looming name change. "For the last year or so, both leagues have been quietly collecting research to prepare for the move and been in extensive discussions with each other and trademark lawyers regarding how we can work together to make the name change as seamless as possible," Major League Quidditch (MLQ) Commissioner Amanda Dallas  [see also] said in the statement.

Removing the quidditch name could also open up opportunities like sponsorships and broadcast deals that aren't currently feasible because of the trademark Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. holds on "quidditch." The leagues hope the change will also bring more expansion opportunities. "I believe quidditch is at a turning point. We can continue the status quo and stay relatively small, or we can make big moves and really propel this sport forward into its next phase," US Quidditch (USQ  |  Wikipedia: US Quidditch) Executive Director Mary Kimball said. "Renaming the sport opens up so many more revenue opportunities for both organizations, which is crucial to expansion."

While growing the sport and its revenue are big factors in the name change, the leagues say they want to move away from any association the sport has with J.K. Rowling. In recent years, J.K. Rowling has made comments that many saw as transphobic and anti-transgender. In 2020, Rowlings came under heavy criticism after tweeting a link to an article about access to menstrual hygiene products during the COVID-19 pandemic. The article referenced "people who menstruate" - a framing Rowling seemed to take issue with because it did not refer to "women."

"'People who menstruate.' I'm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?" J.K. Rowling tweeted. The author elaborated on her views, via Twitter and on her own website.

After J.K. Rowling's anti-transgender comments, many of the movie franchise's biggest stars made statements in support of trans people, including Daniel Radcliffe,   Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint.

The quidditch leagues say J.K. Rowling's controversial opinions about trans people are not welcome in their ranks. "Our sport has developed a reputation as one of the most   progressive   sports in the world on gender equality and inclusivity, in part thanks to its gender maximum rule, which stipulates that a team may not have more than four players of the same gender on the field at a time," the leagues said. "Both organizations feel it is imperative to live up to this reputation in all aspects of their operations, and believe this move is a step in that direction."

Members of transgender and non-binary communities say they're seeing concerning signs that transphobic ideology is worsening in Canada. Anti-trans sentiments are not new to the country, but several factors make this moment in time fraught, say activists and educators. That's despite the fact that the federal government moved to protect the rights of transgender people in 2017 with the passing of Bill C-16, which made gender identity and expression a protected human rights category. "The climate for trans people has improved in the last decade very considerably, but we're definitely starting to feel some of those waves of anti-trans activism that have really taken hold in the United Kingdom and in the United States in recent years," said Travers, a professor of sociology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C, who goes by one name.

Recent media coverage, including a story by the CTV News investigative program W5 and opinion columns published by the Toronto Star and CBC, have been criticized by some members of the transgender community for pushing transphobic ideas and misrepresenting the dangers they face daily, which, according to Statistics Canada, include violence and poor mental health due to discrimination.

Among the concerning messages, say critics, are assertions that trans people who have not undergone transition-related surgery are not real men or women or that falsely paint transwomen as dangerous men. Similar ideas have been spreading in the U.K. for years. British author J.K. Rowling, for example, has made comments blurring sex (biological characteristics) and gender (personal identity) to push back against inclusive terms such as "people who menstruate," which Rowling sees as an erosion of women's rights.

Last month, American comedian Dave Chappelle in his Netflix special defended Rowling's comments, prompting a walkout by the streaming company's transgender staff and their allies. In the special, Chappelle declares, "I'm team TERF," referring to the term trans-exclusionary radical feminists, which is used to describe people who see trans rights as not aligned with women's rights.

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Civil rights groups sued on Thursday [2021-11-04] to challenge a law in Tennessee that restricts transgender students' participation in school sports, arguing that it is unconstitutional and discriminatory. "Today, Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the ACLU of Tennessee filed a lawsuit challenging a Tennessee law excluding transgender youth from participating in school sports," the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement.

Earlier this year [2021], Tennessee Governor Bill Lee  [William Byron Lee: Bill Lee: LGBT Issues] signed into law SB 228, which requires public middle and high school students to play sports based on the sex listed on their original birth certificates. Lee's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. Supporters of such legislation say it is aimed at protecting fairness in school sports by eliminating what they see as an inherent physical competitive advantage of transgender athletes playing on female teams.

The lawsuit is on behalf of a student in the state who says the law prevents him from trying out for the boys' golf team at his school. "SB 228 was passed not to protect female athletes but to marginalize transgender people. The law amounts to a bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group, which is an impermissible government purpose and fails any level of equal protection scrutiny," said the lawsuit, filed in United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.

At least 35 bills to exclude transgender youth from athletics have been introduced in 31 states this year, up from 29 in 2020 and two in 2019, according to a tally earlier this year by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Equal rights advocates decry such restrictions as discriminatory and whose real purpose is to energize social conservatives. "The emotional cost of this law to transgender student athletes is tremendous," said Hedy Weinberg  [Tennessee Bar Association profile], Executive Director of ACLU of Tennessee [ACLU: American Civil Liberties Union].

This week, the Biden Administration made history by tapping Dr. Rachel Levine as the head of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Levine is a transgender woman; the job comes with a uniform, four stars, and a somewhat unexpected title: Admiral. The appointment makes her the first woman to lead a uniformed service branch, and confirms her place as a LGBTQ pathbreaker. The move was quickly greeted by transphobic remarks from conservatives, including Fox News'   Tucker Carlson, and GOP [Republican Party] representatives Jim Banks of Indiana, and Lauren Boebert of Colorado.

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Jim Banks: LGBT Rights

Banks opposes same-sex marriage. Banks describes banning transgender people from serving in the military as an "emotional issue." He opposes the military paying for sex reassignment surgery, saying that "I don't think taxpayers should be on the hook for that." [Source; Wikipedia, 2021-10-23.]

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• [APNews.com, 2021-10-21] Chapelle special spurs Netflix walkout; 'Trans lives matter'.

• [CBC.ca, 2021-10-20] Netflix workers stage walk-out over Dave Chappelle's transgender comments.  Group of employees planning to present CEO Ted Sarandos with "list of asks."

• [NPR.org, 2021-10-20] Netflix employees are staging a walkout as a fired organizer speaks out.

• [Thomson Reuters Foundation News: news.Trust.org, 2021-10-21] Protesters denounce Netflix over Chappelle transgender comments.  Public figures, trans activists and supporters joined 'Team Trans' Netflix employees in protest against decision to release Dave Chappelle comedy special.

• [MSNBC.com, 2021-10-11] Dave Chappelle finds that mocking transgender people can revive a career.  In the last four of his Netflix specials, the comedian has mocked transgender people. Dave Chappelle has released three Netflix comedy specials over the previous three years, and each featured a lengthy segment of commentary about transgender people. Another Netflix special was released 2021-10-05, and, again, it features a lengthy bit mocking trans people. ...

• [theVerge.com, 2021-10-11] Netflix suspends trans employee who tweeted about Dave Chappelle special.  Internally, Netflix' trans employees and allies are asking executives tough questions about the line between commentary and hate.

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