By Sasha Buchert, Lambda Legal Director of the Nonbinary and Transgender Rights Project, and Alexandra Curd, Lambda Legal Staff Policy Attorney
Legislative sessions are well underway in many states this year, and once again, instead of working on the kitchen table issues that Americans truly care about — such as health care coverage or safer schools — far-right state legislators are once again choosing to focus their time and energy on their ongoing top priority: bullying LGBTQ+ people.
Anti-LGBTQ+ legislation has escalated dramatically in the last four years, both in quantity and in kind. Last year, the number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills tripled over the previous year, with more than 500 bills introduced. Nearly 90 of those bills were enacted and signed into law.
Nonbinary and transgender people have been at the epicenter of most of this legislation and thus continue to bear the brunt of the effects of these attacks on the LGBTQ+ community. While 2023 set the record for laws targeting the rights of transgender and nonbinary people, 2024 is already shaping up to be an even more difficult, dangerous, and harsh landscape.
Within just the first few weeks of 2024, hundreds of bills seeking to marginalize and outright erase transgender people in a wide array of areas have been introduced. For example, legislation introduced in Indiana seeks to eliminate the ability of transgender people to obtain state driver’s licenses or identification cards that accurately identify who they are. Utah has already passed legislation prohibiting many transgender people from using restrooms in public schools that are consistent with their gender identity.
Meanwhile, a policy maker in West Virginia introduced a bill that would allow transgender people to be prosecuted for simply being around children, South Carolina is racing through legislation that would ban access to medical care to treat gender dysphoria, and Iowa wants to prohibit transgender prisoners from being safely housed.
And even where legislation is not being introduced, elected officials are using the power of the state to impose harsh restrictions, such as Governor DeSantis’s recent move to prohibit transgender Floridians from being able to update their state issued identification with the proper gender.
These attacks have inflicted an enormous mental, physical and emotional toll on transgender people and their families, even when these bills do not get signed into law. The hateful rhetoric used to support these attacks and the junk science that is weaponized in support of them has a longstanding negative impact on the lives of living, breathing, transgender people who already experience high rates of harassment, discrimination, and violence.
It is important to emphasize that these attack bills disproportionately harm transgender people of color. Due to interpersonal and structural racial discrimination (i.e., racism) and its economic effects, transgender people of color and their families often don’t often have the option to move to a more supportive school or the resources needed to flee their state to avoid the effects of discriminatory bills and laws.
Black and Indigenous transgender, two spirit, and nonbinary people, as well as those from low-income backgrounds, also report rates of discrimination that far outpace the rates of discrimination faced by white and higher-earning transgender and nonbinary people. This is due to not only facing the impacts of anti-transgender and nonbinary laws and rhetoric, but also the ongoing legacy of racism and classism, and its past and current ramifications. The compounding, negative effects of these laws on transgender, two spirit, and nonbinary Black and Indigenous people of color and those with multiple marginalized identities cannot be overstated.
Despite these ongoing and ever-increasing attacks, the nonbinary and transgender community remains resilient. This year (and every year), transgender people and allies are fighting back. And this year, like every year, they will defeat the vast majority of these bills. Fathers, mothers, and transgender youth themselves, along with countless advocates around the country, will make their way through the cold, rain and snow to speak out against this legislation.
But we need your help. It is imperative that people do not remain silent in the face of this onslaught. The far-right has dominated the conversation around transgender people in state legislatures and it is essential that people disrupt this narrative in support of the humanity of transgender people.
Here are three concrete actions that you can take to make your voice heard.
- Take 5 minutes and register to vote. Many states require that you register before voting, with some requiring that you register at least one month before the election.
- Take 5 minutes and find out who your state legislators are by simply entering your address. Then call and ask them what they are doing to support the transgender community. Hold your federal elected officials accountable in the same way.
- Take 5 minutes to identify which corporations and companies are financially supporting anti-transgender legislators and stop buying from them.