'Almost no aspect of life is untouched': Washington Post article on trans rights in the US

"Republican-led state legislators and their allies have mounted a far-reaching and coordinated effort to pass a record wave of new measures restricting gay and trangender rights. Almost no aspect of life is untouched.

Among the roughly 60 laws enacted in nearly half of U.S. states this year are limits on what children can read about LGBTQ people, whether trans youth can participate in school athletics, what trans or nonbinary adults can wear in public, which bathrooms and pronouns they can use, and whom doctors can treat."

This is from today's Washington Post article by Casey Parks, discussing trans rights in the United States. That's my unpaywalled gift link above.

So:

"All of this led Human Rights Campaign earlier this month to issue a state of emergency for LGBTQ Americans — the first in the nonprofit’s more than 40-year history. It also has prompted the architects of anti-trans laws, who say they have “maxed out” at the state level, to set their sights on passing federal restrictions. Both sides agree that the battle over LGBTQ rights is likely to intensify as another presidential election approaches."

Also:

"Before 2020, no state banned trans people from participating in sports or accessing health care. Then, a few weeks after the coronavirus shuttered most of the country, Idaho became the first to pass a sports ban. Arkansas passed the nation’s first ban on gender-affirming care the following year, and in that year’s legislative session, the number of anti-LGBTQ bills across the country ramped up again, to 268. By the spring of 2023, that number had surged past 400, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the ACLU and the Movement Advancement Project (MAP).

Whereas previous anti-LGBTQ efforts focused on one issue — marriage, say, or military service — this year's onslaught stunned Logan Casey, MAP’s senior researcher, in its scope and 'cruel creativity.'

'This moment is unlike any before, given the truly wild breadth and scale of the attacks,' Casey said.

Conservative groups including the American Principles Project and America First Legal also collectively spent at least $50 million airing anti-trans ads in 25 states in the 2022 election, according to the Human Rights Campaign, and politicians from Georgia to Arizona ran on anti-LGBTQ campaigns.

American Principles Project President Terry Schilling said his group began focusing on transgender issues after North Carolina rescinded a 2016 measure that required trans people to use a bathroom that matches the gender on their birth certificate."

Also:

"About 22 states now ban trans people from competing in women’s sports, and teachers in nearly a dozen states can no longer affirm students’ gender, according to MAP. And at least 19 have passed bans on transition health care for minors, despite the fact that all major medical associations oppose such restrictions."

Look at this in 2023 [emphasis mine]:

"The issue started several weeks ago when Tim Jagger, the father of a student at the school [Perkiomen Valley High School in eastern Pennsylvania], posted on Facebook that his daughter saw a boy in the girls’ restroom, leading to outrage on social media.
* * *
...Jagger admitted that 'we aren’t sure' if the person his daughter saw was a trans girl, a cis girl, or a boy, but that didn’t matter because his daughter, he claimed, is 'too upset and emotionally disturbed' to use the restroom at all. He told the board that 'there is zero reason for someone with male genitalia to be in the girls’ facilities' and that transgender students should be forced to use single-person bathrooms.
* * *
Fox & Friends, the far-right network’s morning news show, did a segment on the school district and Emery’s mother, Melanie Marren, told the show that the school didn’t take 'into consideration how they affect the students and how uncomfortable it is to just be a teenager in general,' as if transgender students at the school aren’t students or aren’t going through awkward teen years themselves."
— "Marjorie Taylor Greene celebrates school freaking out over possible trans girl in bathroom," Alex Bollinger, LGBTQ Nation, Sept. 20, 2023

After last year’s passage of legislation restricting medical treatment for transgender youth, North Carolina families seeking care for their children are looking across state lines. Barry Yeoman tells the story of one such family. www.theassemblync.com/health/north...

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— Carli Brosseau (@carlibrosseau.bsky.social) Aug 16, 2024 at 2:45 PM

Please read my article "On the 3rd Anniversary of J.K. Rowling’s Pledge for Trans Rights". It's a 6-minute read on Medium. Medium lets you read a certain number of stories for free every month. You may also consider a paid membership on the platform.