There are 300,000 Transgender youth in America as of 2022 and growing. One-fourth of America’s youth aged 13 – 17 identify themselves as transgender according to the Williams Institute at UCLA. In March of 2022 there were 240 anti-LGBTQ rights that were targeted by lawmakers’ bills half are specifically aimed toward Transgender people says an NBC analysis. Conservative state lawmakers nationwide are targeting the LGBTQ community spreading national intolerance.
According to a tally by the LGBTQ group Equality Texas, over 30 anti-LGBTQ bills, 13 specifically affecting trans youth were filed in 2021. These bills specifically ban youth from playing on sports teams aligned with their gender identity, state family protective services agencies to investigate parents who provide their children with gender-affirming care, medical care, or surgery, and use of bathrooms aligned with gender identity.
Earlier this year Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, ordered state agencies to investigate gender-affirming care for transgender young people as child abuse.
In March, Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor considered a frontrunner for the presidential nomination in 2024, signed a controversial “don’t say gay” bill that prevents teachers from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools. In June, DeSantis moved to ban transition care for transgender youth.
The vast majority of these bills that are anti-transgender bills never use the word “transgender” at all. Lawmakers instead pitch the bill as critical to securing rights for women in sports and larger society according to PBS news. This statement is a moronic view, especially being said on the coat tales of overturning Roe v. Wade which now denies women reproductive rights and freedom over decisions concerning their own bodies.
The Campaign of GOP Candidates Targets Trans People
Recently, angst has been growing between red and blue states on transgender rights over explicit protection against discrimination and gender rights. NBC News reported that GOP candidates have unleashed a wave of TV ads targeting transgender rights in May 2022.
Two leading Republican senate hopefuls in Pennsylvania have spent vigorous time and money on ads attacking one another over who supports transgender surgery more. Even though voters and polls show it is not helping their cause. There has never been a political commitment in primary campaigns across the country attacking transgender rights until now.
What is Next
What has moved these Republican representatives to launch campaigns targeting our transgender youth? The majority of the supreme court justices are right-wing conservatives, which opens the door for other issues of controversy to return threatening contraceptive access and marriage equality threatening LGBTQ rights. Many believe this is being sparked by conservative Clearance Thomas who has recently suggested giving Americans a look at what issues are on the table for these right-wing conservatives as their next agenda.
The question that still arises here is, have we as parents and a community taken the measures needed to protect our children from a government that has deemed themselves rightful decision-makers over another group of individuals’ bodies? At what point do we the people of the United States take a firm united stand against a government that is rapidly transforming into a totalitarian one? Whatever happened to America home of the brave land of the free?
During a hearing in July on the consequences of the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, Josh Howley, a Republican representative from Mississippi, was accused of being transphobic and denying trans people to exist, pretending, or ignoring trans people is dangerous, said by Khiara Bridges, a professor at UC Berkley School of Law who was invited to testify on reproductive rights. Parts of the US have seen a rise in anti-LGBTQ+hate and anti-LGBTQ+legislation over the past year. The line of questioning proceeded as follows:
“You’ve referred to ‘people with a capacity for pregnancy,” he said. “Would that be women?”
Bridges replied: “Many women, cis women, have the capacity for pregnancy. Many cis women do not have the capacity for pregnancy. There are also trans men who are capable of pregnancy, as well as non-binary people who are capable of pregnancy.”
Hawley said: “So this isn’t really a women’s rights issue. It’s … it’s what?”
Bridges said: “We can recognize that this impacts women while also recognizing that it impacts other groups, those things are not mutually exclusive, Senator Hawley.”
She added: “I want to recognize that your line of questioning is transphobic and it opens up trans people to violence by not recognizing them.”
Hawley said: “You’re saying that I’m opening up people to violence by asking whether or not women are the folks who can have pregnancies?”
Bridges said: “I want to note that one out of five transgender persons has attempted suicide. Denying that trans people exist and pretending not to know that they exist is dangerous.” The Guardian.com
However, the public has its own perspective. As per the PBS hour/NPR/Marist Poll, 8 in 10 Americans back nondiscrimination protection for LGBTQ+ people, poll nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute that includes 65 percent of republicans and ⅔ of Americans oppose bills limiting the rights of transgender people. America has taken great strides forward as far as discrimination is concerned to go backward now. Americans believe in tolerance and equality for everyone. There are no exceptions to this belief.
If we continue to vote for representatives who stand for inequality in the LGBTQ community, racial injustice, women denied making the decisions concerning their own bodies, and lenient gun control then we will never move forward as a nation that excels globally. Tolerance and reforms will build up communities, towns, and our nation. Only then are we correct when we say America is truly a nation worthy of the modern era.