The lasting damage of anti-transgender hysteria

This era of cruelty and corruption will end.

But we all see the damage it’s wrought. The aggressive nihilism. The smug elevation of power, trampling rights and restraints to suit those who rule. 

Many Americans have seen this brutality engulf their loved ones or felt it in their bones. The destruction wrought by anti-transgender hysteria might be among the hardest to repair.

It’s denied Alabamians critical healthcare. Federal judges gave our Legislature sweeping power to ignore medical consensus when moral panic rules the day. Transgender youth are now second-class citizens, denied access to activities because they exist, not due to any scientific determination.

And the attacks keep coming. One study estimated that between August and October, over $100 million was spent on political spots containing the phrase “sex change.” Alabama’s U.S. senators use valuable time in the upper chamber to threaten the civil rights of transgender people. The chair of the Alabama Republican Party said two candidates for the Alabama House who are transgender had “mental disorders.”

For all that, few voters appear to share the priorities of the gonad obsessives. A CNN poll last month found the issue ranked last in importance for those surveyed. A poll released last week found Democrats more trusted on transgender issues than Republicans. A prominent Republican in Texas — where anti-transgender advertising has taken the place of nitrogen in the atmosphere — says the attacks seem to be having little effect.

Does this mean we’ll get some relief from this ceaseless dehumanization of a small group of people?

I doubt it. If this were simple political opportunism, Alabama Republicans would drop the hysteria as quickly as they erased Jeff Sessions from their memories.

But it’s more than that. The anti-transgender hysteria is the most recent eruption of an Alabama mindset, one that’s taken a feverish intensity in the post-COVID era: There is one way to live, and it is the way our leaders live.

Alabama is a diverse state with a government that generally rejects plurality. We stopped issuing marriage licenses because a handful of probate judges hate same-sex marriage. The state Legislature immediately overrode Birmingham when it tried to create a local minimum wage.

But pre-COVID, non-conservative spaces were tolerated. Former state Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore and the probate judges aside, no one seriously challenged the fact of same-sex marriage. Cities had broad scope to rule themselves, provided they didn’t cross the Business Council of Alabama.

Now look at what we’ve seen since 2021.

First came the laws limiting transgender Alabamians’ ability to use the bathroom. Then the Legislature made it a felony for a doctor to provide gender-affirming care to a transgender youth. And finally, they banned transgender youth from playing sports in a way that’s consistent with their gender identity. Nothing less than a public effort to drive a group of citizens into shadows and silence.

This was revolting. But it worked. The federal courts blessed the offensive. And it emboldened those demanding uniformity in Alabama civic life. The cruelty and humiliation of the anti-transgender campaign quickly spread.

University instructors can now lose their jobs if they teach from a hazy list of “divisive concepts.” Our flagship universities drove Black and LGBTQ+ students out of public spaces. Professors now face post-tenure reviews. Their ability to decide how they teach students has been limited, if not curtailed.

State lawmakers revived the state’s Jim Crow traditions of treating Black Alabamians’ political views as inherently illegitimate. Our Legislature worked to reduce their representation in the congressional delegation. They’ve moved heaven and Earth to make voting harder, banning ballot drop boxes and criminalizing certain forms of assistance. And now we hear a gubernatorial candidate threaten to send the National Guard into the state’s major cities. 

Crime is down. A militia is not law enforcement. The leadership yawns. Voter fraud is almost nonexistent in Alabama. They shrug.

Because none of this is rational. But transgender hysteria isn’t rational, either. It is a rejection of reality for ideology; an angry swipe at a minority and, by extension, the plurality that rebukes a vision of conformity. Contradictory evidence does not disturb a zealot’s convictions. 

That’s why the attacks keep coming, even when Alabamians reject them. That’s why the attacks get more vicious, and the ethical floor for discourse keeps falling. A small group of leaders have been given the power to make the state into a Thomas Kinkade painting: Saturated, quaint and void of humanity. The vision must come to life.

It’s an impractical project. Alabama is home to many different people whose rights must be upheld. Whose right to exist is not open to debate. And who keep demonstrating resilience.

But that never stopped irrational creeds from shoving individuals into a cramped forgery of life. The wounds from this effort will take a long time to heal.

And as long as that obedience-first mindset reigns in Montgomery, the damage will grow. And make repairs even more difficult when this cruel era ends.