Against Sexually-Affirming Care for Trans Youth: A Recent CNN Survey of State Legislation and the ACLU Report on Drag Shows
More than two-thirds of the health care-related bills introduced this year would ban gender-affirming care for trans youth. Ten of those bills have been signed into law so far this year, according to a CNN review of state legislation and ACLU data. There were more than two hundred bills passed combined in the two years.
“[These bills] rely on this sort of paranoid idea that teachers are secretly encouraging your kids to identify as trans, and then not telling you about it,” said Branstetter. Everyone wants to feel they can trust their teachers, and it’s important that they feel that way.
The scope of these attacks has gone up over the last few years, says Gillian Branstetter, a communications strategist. This year, it is more than just the total number that has got worse, it is also the amount of bills.
Several states have introduced legislation that would require teachers to alert parents when a student goes by a different name or pronoun without the student’s consent. Sixty of the education-related bills introduced this year are “forced outings” bills, according to ACLU data.
Drag shows began attracting scrutiny from conservative lawmakers as they began moving into the mainstream over the last decade. At least 39 bills targeting drag performances have been introduced in legislatures this year — a category that didn’t exist in past sessions, according to the ACLU. Several of the bills aim to group venues hosting drag shows with adult movie theaters and strip clubs, while others would prohibit performances from taking place in the presence of children. Republican sponsors say they worry that the performances expose children to sexually provocative and inappropriate themes. Last week a federal judge halted enforcement of the drag ban in Tennessee, which was set to go into effect hours before a theatre company tried to stop it.
Gender-affirming medical care for minors in the U.S.: A study of state laws preventing sports teams from prosecuting transgender students
Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender — the one the person was designated at birth — to their affirmed gender — the gender by which one wants to be known.
The majority of Americans — 54 percent — oppose bills criminalizing gender transition-related medical care for minors, according to a recent NPR/PBS/Marist poll. Several of the bans that were passed in previous years are currently stuck in court.
A survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Washington Post at the end of the year shows that a third of all people who are transexual in the US said they have been physically attacked. The rate is higher for trans people of color.
The rule change comes as GOP-led states in the country continue to push a variety of anti-trans measures, including bills to keep trans students from playing on sports teams. The most significant action thus far has been taken to combat them by the Biden administration.
Kansas became the latest state to ban anti-trans sports on Wednesday after lawmakers overrode a veto from the governor. Similar sports bans were enacted in eight states by the year 2022.
In pushing such measures, conservatives have argued that transgender women and girls have physical advantages over cisgender women and girls in sports, though a 2017 report found “no direct or consistent research” on any such advantage.