More than 500 bills, laws, and acts have been introduced in recent months targeting the LGBTQ+ community. All 50 states have seen them and debated the rights of a mere 7.1% of the population. More specifically, the vast majority of these bills prey on transgender people, who made up only 0.4% of the US population in 2022. Both the Queer and Trans communities are vastly underrepresented in legislative settings, leading to largely cisgender and heterosexual governing bodies deciding the rights and very existence of people whose experiences they have never had to endure. Twenty out of 50 states have passed bans on gender-affirming care for transgender people under the age of 18 under the guise of protecting children from making life-altering decisions.
Gender-affirming care is rarely as drastic as many think. The general public is fed ideas that these bans are in place to protect children from permanent surgery, which is supposedly the first step of transitioning. In reality, there are many requirements outside of the law for those who want to undergo gender surgeries and it is very often one of the last steps of a physical transition. For example, doctors have created multiple specifications that patients must meet before getting top surgery that has been put in place to protect people from making irreversible decisions that they might regret. The Association of American Medical Colleges reports that for many, gender-affirming care comes in the form of therapy, haircuts, or makeup lessons. None of these are uncommon for cisgender youths and teenagers, so why are we, as a society, alienating transgender children to the point of criminalizing these basic services?
The ruse of “protecting children” falls through as soon as we acknowledge that surgery is very rarely provided to minors. Puberty blockers and hormone treatments, such as testosterone and estrogen, often touted by the conservative right as permanent sabotage to the body, are not distributed freely. Neither treatment is necessarily permanent. The process requires a diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria, which the American Psychiatric Association describes as “psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity.” No two people’s gender dysphoria will show up the same way. For example, some trans women who have not undergone bottom surgery may feel extreme distress surrounding their genitals while others may experience large discomfort at the sound of their own voice. The effects of gender dysphoria are often severe and debilitating, especially for trans children and teenagers, who are already going through unrelated social and academic stress. Gender-affirming care for these minors is something that should not be a question. It is generally accepted that mental health is at an all-time low amongst minors, and for many in the trans community, this is exacerbated not only by mental health issues, such as gender dysphoria, but also by the knowledge that no matter where you are in the country, people are fighting against your rights to exist as yourself.
Montana is now one of the 20 states that have passed bans on gender-affirming care. It also has a Republican majority in both its House of Representatives and its Senate. Zooey Zephyr was elected to the Montana House of Representatives in November of 2022 and began her first term in January of 2023. Zephyr is the first openly transgender woman to hold elected office in her state. Montana eventually passed Senate Bill 99, which attempts to ban gender-affirming surgery, hormone treatments, and puberty blockers for all transgender people under the age of 18. The bill does little to disguise its transphobia, with Section 4C listing that this ban exists only to “address a female minor’s perception that her gender or sex is not female or a male minor’s perception that his gender or sex is not male.” This language is damaging in its own right, belittling the pain that comes with being transgender and erasing the identities of every trans person in the state by misgendering them. The bill notes that these treatments are perfectly acceptable for minors born or maturing with sexual underdevelopment, or other issues that these processes are used to solve for cisgender children. According to this bill, it is only when a minor is trying to transition that these treatments become harmful.
While her fellow lawmakers were debating the bill, Zephyr responded to its supporters, referring to the majority Christian legislator body: “I hope the next time there’s an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands.” Zephyr has been fighting transphobia on the front lines and behind the scenes. When she attempted to fight Bill 99, her colleagues responded by censuring and misgendering her. Zephyr has not been allowed to take the House floor since April 20th and will not be allowed to until 2025 except for a possible reelection next year.
The result of a vast majority of one party in a state’s legislative bodies is huge power for that party. What does it mean for the future of a bipartisan political system in a political climate where censuring, expulsion, and worse are being normalized for simply questioning that status quo? In the news, we hear so much about the negatives of the world. We are fed the big events but rarely shown the lasting consequences or responses. Although Zephyr has been silenced in a governmental setting, she has continued her work outside of the House. Pouring time and effort into a reelection campaign, which would end her censure, Zephyr has spoken in public spaces and has joined countless people as an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, and more specifically, trans rights. Alongside her fiancée, Erin Reed, Zephyr has worked hard not only to change minds but also to spread hope and comfort to those who are affected most by the ban on gender-affirming care. She attends queer-dominated events, such as pride marches and gatherings, sharing the kind of queer joy that no censure can truly stop.
For the right, the growing response to political opposition has been to simply silence those who question their beliefs. There have been multiple examples of this in recent months. Mauree Turner is the first nonbinary legislator in Oklahoma and was censured for fighting against the 15 bills debated during the legislative sessions attacking trans rights, and for protecting the spouse of a protestor who had been arrested earlier that day. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson were expelled from Tennessee’s House floor in response to their protests of Tennessee House Republicans’ unwillingness to pass gun reform following a school shooting in the state that killed six people. All three of these cases involve differently identifying people debating different topics, yet the common denominator is that when issues are brought up that conservative politicians don’t like, the response is to attack democracy and continue a cycle of silencing minorities. Our society becomes more and more polarized, stuck between two extremes, as those who have historically been repressed get ignored.