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The right to exist

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The right to exist

Feb 22, 2022 | 8:00 pm ET
By Kate Queram
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News From The States: Evening Wrap

A few months ago, a friend who was assigned female at birth told me they identified as trans and nonbinary. I was thrilled for my friend, who felt free and unburdened and comfortable and happy in a way they hadn’t felt before. And I had questions. (I … always have questions.) In particular, I wanted to understand what it meant to be both trans (identifying with a sex other than the one you were assigned) and nonbinary (rejecting the duality of gender, full stop). Those concepts seemed inherently contradictory to me.

I try not to ask people with different lived experiences to perform the emotional labor of educating me, but my friend is often open to discussion, and we had a long talk about their new identity and the spectrums of gender and sexuality. I reflect on that conversation frequently, both to remind myself of the fluidity of concepts we’ve long considered rigid and to remember the mutual grace and respect that grounded our discussion.

Coming to grips with something I didn’t understand was easier than you might think, which is how it should be. Because it’s not hard to learn more about what you don’t understand, or to recognize and validate authenticity, or to celebrate someone else’s happiness. It isn’t hard to be curious rather than judgmental. It isn’t hard to treat human beings like human beings, no matter how much politicians want you to believe otherwise.

The Big Takeaway

It’s a bit of a misnomer to say that today’s news focuses on homophobic legislation, because it’s been a recurring theme for more than a year. State lawmakers introduced 268 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in 2021, including 147 proposals targeting the transgender community — nearly double 2020’s then-record total of 79, according to analysis by the Human Rights Campaign. 

Most of those proposals were aimed at kids. Eighty-one bills sought to keep trans youth from playing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity. Forty-three sought to prevent them from receiving gender-affirming health care. More than 40 bills would have also allowed doctors to refuse to treat LGBTQ+ patients for religious reasons.

My kids really like the rainbow flag, and I like that, and if you find that triggering, well, it must be exhausting to be you. (Photo by Getty Images)
My kids really like the rainbow flag, and I like that, and if you find that triggering, well, it must be exhausting to be you. (Photo by Getty Images)

It can feel like transgender rights were weaponized overnight, but Republicans have been readying this fight for years. Their first major assault came in 2016 via a North Carolina bill that required transgender people to use public restrooms corresponding with the sex they were assigned at birth (it was overturned a year later). By the 2020 Republican National Convention, transgender rights were mainstream enough for the main stage, where one speaker misgendered trans girls, lied about Democrats forcing schools to change their policies and claimed, falsely, that trans youth pose a threat to cisgender students.

Most of the discriminatory legislation introduced in the past two years follows that same script — it’s all necessary, sponsors claim, to protect children, either from being “forced” into gender-affirming medical care or from having to compete against trans athletes. But multiple experts have testified that the bills do little other than hurt transgender kids, an often-marginalized group that’s already more at risk for depression, anxiety and self-harm. 

But Republicans don’t care, because they’ve managed to turn the private lives of kids and families into red meat for their red base, just in time for the next election. And that has advocates and allies bracing for another year of unprecedented onslaughts on LGBTQ+ Americans.

It’s well underway. Republicans in seven states filed bills targeting trans and nonbinary kids in just the first week of January. At least six discriminatory bills were filed last month in Arizona alone, including measures that would require school employees to out transgender kids to their parents, prohibit public schools from asking staff to respect students’ chosen pronouns, and prevent the state from penalizing adoption and foster care agencies who discriminate against LGBTQ+ couples.

This has been the transgender flag since 1999. (Photo by Getty Images)
This has been the transgender flag since 1999. (Photo by Getty Images)

Occasionally, a stray Republican will seem to evolve on the issue, but it never sticks. Let’s spotlight Arizona Sen. Tyler Pace, a Mesa Republican who joined Democrats to reject a bill that would have prevented doctors from providing kids with gender-affirming care like puberty blockers and hormone therapy. Pace said he’d flipped on the bill after multiple trans kids testified that they viewed that care as life-saving, per the Arizona Mirror.

“I don’t want my vote to stop those great things,” he said.

A week later, Pace reintroduced the bill in the form of a ban on gender reassignment surgery for kids under the age of 18. It passed the state Senate along party lines. So did a bill banning transgender females from competing on girls’ and women’s sports teams for K-12 schools and colleges. According to Republicans, the ban — which would change state law to categorize trans females as “biological males” — was needed to protect their daughters and granddaughters, who are being “targeted” by trans athletes.

Here is a bench. It supports all athletes the same way. (Photo by Getty Images)
Here is a bench. It supports all athletes the same way. (Photo by Getty Images)

Nine states enacted similar laws last year. South Dakota passed its own ban in January, and at least a half-dozen more are under consideration in state legislatures. Sponsors of most of those measures say they’re necessary to protect the sanctity of women’s sports by banning participation from “biological males” with inherently superior athletic ability. 

The science on this is iffy at best. Some trans women may have athletic advantages over their cisgender counterparts, but a lot depends on their genetics and medical care. In general, it’s impossible to pinpoint the reason that one athlete outperforms another. But researchers are much clearer on the effect this type of marginalization has on trans kids. (Surprise! Being excluded when you already feel excluded isn’t good for you!)

Democrats have called some of these bills “state-sanctioned bullying” and I have yet to find the lie. (Photo by Getty Images)
Democrats have called some of these bills “state-sanctioned bullying” and I have yet to find the lie. (Photo by Getty Images)

But Republicans never met a scientific fact they couldn’t ignore, so the hits keep on coming. On Monday, the Iowa House passed its own ban on trans girls playing women’s sports in K-12 schools and colleges, a move they justified by spouting the same spotty science about “unfair” competition from athletes who have “significant physiological advantages,” reported the Iowa Capital Dispatch. 

The ban would extend to both public and private schools, including those governed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which has its own policy for transgender athlete participation. Republicans have not explained how the policies might coexist or which would take precedent.

But they’ve made it clear which they prefer. Rep. Skyler Wheeler, a Republican who led the House debate on the ban, rattled off a list of “advantages” that “biological males” have over female athletes, including larger lungs and hearts and stronger muscles. Those “biological males … do not get to play female sports,” he said.

Calling a transgender individual by the incorrect pronoun — known as “misgendering” — is derogatory, demoralizing and invalidating. (There is no cisgender equivalent, but it probably feels worse than, say, having someone you like and admire call you by the wrong name and then punch you in the stomach.) Multiple Republicans from multiple states are doing this to trans kids — loudly, publicly, on purpose — in some weird attempt to justify heaps of legislation that targets them. It’s mean and discriminatory, though Wheeler would like you to know that’s not what this particular ban is about.

“This bill is not about discrimination,” he said. “This bill is about protection.”

Also affecting actual human beings: Virginia Republicans block effort to scrap 2006 gay marriage ban“Don’t Say Gay” bill pushing through Florida Legislature; many speakers have only 30 seconds for comment(Michigan) Anti-trans litter box rumor is ‘harming our LGBTQ+ kids,’ advocates say(Michigan) Judge’s transphobic comments in case prompt rebuke from LGBTQ+ groupsLGBTQ ‘panic’ defense could be banned in New Mexico(New Jersey) Judges side with transgender man in protecting privacy of name changesEducation committees clash over legitimacy of bill of rights legislation for Kansas parents(Florida) Advocates rally at the Old Capitol against whitewashing conversations about race and gender

Caught Our Eye

It seems that, maybe, at long last, the conspiracy people are turning on each other.

PHYLLIS YOU MAKE THE POPCORN (via Giphy)
PHYLLIS YOU MAKE THE POPCORN (via Giphy)

At least I think that’s what’s happening. Arizona Sen. Wendy Rogers, a Republican, sent an encrypted message on Telegram (the far-right’s favorite messaging app) asking the “groyper army” to “hit” Ron Watkins, a MAGA and QAnon conspiracy theorist who’s running for Congress.

(Did you make it through that? It’s OK if you need to read it again. I will wait.)

Rogers, whose entire political career is based on the fact that she believes the Big Lie, is mad at Watkins for telling people that she was involved in a “backroom deal” that got in the way of an audit that was totally going to prove that the 2020 election was rife with fraud. (There’s no evidence of either the deal or the fraud.)

(Doing OK? Want some water? We’re almost done, I promise.)

The “groyper army,” it seems, is a collection of white nationalists who go online to troll people they don’t like. Their goals, per the Arizona Mirror, include “normalizing their extreme and racist views by aligning them with Christianity and so-called ‘traditional’ values.”

No comment. (via Tenor)
No comment. (via Tenor)

I’d like to leave it at that, but the conspiracy people ruin everything they touch, so I’m obligated to conclude by letting you know that this could have serious repercussions. Experts told the Mirror that a state official calling the group out by name could help legitimize it, something they’ve been angling for for years. (Sorry.)

From the Newsrooms

One Last Thing

A raccoon fell through the ceiling into a packed cafeteria at Louisiana State University, prompting students to scream and scatter while one cook tried to catch it in a bucket. One student told the university’s newspaper that she stayed in line to get food because she thought it was a fake raccoon, but didn’t end up eating after she learned that it was real and that it briefly sat on top of her bag.

“I am just scared that my bag has a disease,” she said. “Right now it’s funny to look back at, but at the moment, I was traumatized. My appetite is definitely gone.”

This could be us but you playin’ (via Giphy)
This could be us but you playin’ (via Giphy)

This edition of the Evening Wrap published on Feb. 22, 2022. Subscribe here.

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