Thursday, December 5 Login

Election victories for Donald Trump and other candidates whose campaigns demeaned transgender people reinforced a widespread backlash against trans rights. For America’s LGBTQ-rights movement, it adds up to one of the most sustained setbacks in its history.

For transgender Americans, it’s personal: There is palpable fear of potential Trump administration steps to further marginalize them. But there is also a spirit of resilience – a determination to persevere in seeking acceptance and understanding.

FILE – Mac Gordon Frith, 6, left, who is here supporting his sibling, Caleta Frith, 9, right, who is non-binary, plays with a hula hoop during a rally on the Transgender Day of Visibility, Friday, March 31, 2023, by the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

Image

FILE – Coy Mathis, left, plays with her sister Auri, at their home in Fountain, Colo., on Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. Coy has been diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder. Biologically, Coy, 6, is a boy, but to her family members and the world, Coy is a transgender girl. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)

Image

FILE – Libby Gonzales stands with her father, Frank Gonzales, as she joins other members of the transgender community during a rally on the steps of the Texas Capitol, Monday, March 6, 2017, in Austin, Texas. The group is opposing a “bathroom bill” that would require people to use public bathrooms and restrooms that correspond with the sex on their birth certificate. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

Image

FILE – Protesters of Kentucky Senate Bill SB150, known as the Transgender Health Bill, cheer on speakers during a rally on the lawn of the Kentucky Capitol in Frankfort, Ky., March 29, 2023. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, File)

“I just went through an election where I couldn’t watch a sports event on TV without seeing a commercial where trans people were portrayed as monsters,” said Jennifer Finney Boylan, a transgender author who teaches at Barnard College in New York.

“This hurts more than any other moment I can remember. We’ve been knocked down before. We’ll be knocked down again. All we can do is fight.”

Anti-trans momentum has been growing for several years, with Republican-governed states enacting dozens of laws restricting trans people’s options for medical care, sports participation and public restroom access.

Activists fear the movement will grow, with the Trump administration taking power as many Americans question the trans-rights agenda. Overall, 55% of voters — and 85% of Trump backers — said support for transgender rights in government and society has gone too far, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 people who cast ballots nationwide.

“There is an urgent need to show the American people the reality of transgender lives — the ordinary people for whom being trans is not the center of their lives,” said Shannon Minter, a transgender civil rights lawyer with the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

“This is a frightening moment for transgender people and their families. There is a very real possibility that the new administration may adopt policies that cause them devastating harm.”

Trump and others have threatened to roll back various trans rights

Trump won the presidential contest over Vice President Kamala Harris after a campaign that included pervasive TV advertising mocking her support for trans rights. “Kamala is for they/them,” an ad that ran over 15,000 times asserted. “President Trump is for you.” Other Democratic candidates also were targeted with anti-trans ads.

On an array of issues, Trump — and other Republicans who now hold majorities in both the House and Senate — have threatened to roll back protections and civil liberties for trans people.

— Education: Trump has pledged to impose wide-ranging restrictions on transgender students. His administration could swiftly move to exclude them from Title IX protections, which affect school policies on students’ use of preferred pronouns, bathrooms and locker rooms.

— Health care: At least 26 states have adopted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for trans minors. In Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton is filing civil lawsuits against doctors he alleges were prescribing such treatments. Trump says any doctor or hospital providing gender-affirming care should be barred from Medicaid and Medicare.

Image

FILE – A referee raises the arm of Mack Beggs of Euless Trinity after he defeated Chelsea Sanchez of Morton Ranch to defend the Class 6A girls 110-pound title during the UIL State Wrestling Championships at the Berry Center in Cypress, Texas, on Saturday, Feb. 24, 2018. Texas limits transgender athletes to teams conforming with the gender on their birth certificate. That law came under criticism in 2017 and 2018, when transgender male Beggs won state titles in girls’ wrestling competitions after he was told he could not compete as a boy. (Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle via AP)

Image

FILE – Pennsylvania’s Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, waits for results after swimming the women’s 200 freestyle final at the NCAA swimming and diving championships Friday, March 18, 2022, at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)

Image

FILE – From third left, former collegiate swimmers Kaitlynn Wheeler, Riley Gaines, and Grace Countie prepare to testify in opposition to transgender athletes in women’s sports in front of the state senate’s Special Committee on Protecting Women’s Sports at the Capitol in Atlanta, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File)

— Sports: Trump and other Republicans embraced the anti-trans mantra opposing “boys in girls’ sports.” At least 24 states already have laws on the books barring trans women and girls from participating in certain women’s or girls’ sports competitions. In March, 16 college athletes filed a lawsuit against the NCAA, accusing it of violating their Title IX rights by allowing transgender woman Lia Thomas to compete at the 2022 national championships, where she won the 500-yard freestyle.

— Military: Trans-rights activists worry that Trump may reimpose a ban on trans people serving openly in the military, or — as an alternative — bar any future recruiting of trans people and curtail the availability of gender-affirming medical care for service members and veterans.

Advocates say they’re angry and anxious

Trans-rights organizations are calling for coalition-building and renewed efforts to increase public understanding. They celebrated some notable victories. Sarah McBride won Delaware’s lone seat in the House of Representatives to become the first openly trans person elected to Congress. In Montana, transgender state Rep. Zooey Zephyr won reelection and will be able to return to the House floor nearly two years after she was silenced and sanctioned by her Republican colleagues.

But nationwide, anger and anxiety were dominant emotions among trans activists.

Image

FILE – Students carrying pride and transgender flags leave Great Oak High School in Temecula, Calif., Friday, Sept. 22, 2023, after walking out of the school in protest of the Temecula school district policy requiring parents to be notified if their child identifies as transgender. (Anjali Sharif-Paul/The Orange County Register via AP, File)

Image

FILE – Tree Crane, 17, stands for a portrait following a rally where hundreds gathered in support of transgender youth at the Utah State Capitol Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

Image

FILE – A protester outside the Kansas Statehouse holds a sign after a rally for transgender rights on the Transgender Day of Visibility, March 31, 2023, in Topeka, Kan. Kansas will no longer change transgender people’s birth certificates to reflect their gender identities, the state health department said Friday, Sept. 15, 2023, citing a new law that prevents the state from legally recognizing those identities. (AP Photo/John Hanna, File)

“This election season has been brutal,” the leaders of Advocates for Transgender Equality wrote to their supporters. “Trump targeted trans people since his campaign launch. He targeted our existence. He targeted our rights. He promised he would continue to target trans people if he won — and we know he will keep his promise.”

Shelby Chestnut, executive director of the Transgender Law Center said trans people “have become the pawn for political groups that don’t understand our communities.”

“It’s a very precarious time,” Chestnut said. “We will get through this, but we have to step up and support each other. … How do we see the long game, not just the immediate narrow view, because it is very daunting right now. Where do we want to be in 15 years?”

Public opinion on trans rights issues isn’t uniform. According to AP VoteCast, slightly more than half of voters in the 2024 election strongly or somewhat opposed laws that ban gender-affirming medical treatment, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy, for minors. Slightly less than half of voters somewhat or strongly favored them

And according to a Gallup poll conducted last year, 69% of Americans say transgender athletes should be allowed to compete only on sports teams that conform with their birth gender.

Image

FILE – Paxton Enstad, left, speaks during a news conference about a lawsuit filed over refusal by an insurance plan to cover his gender-reassignment surgery, accompanied by his parents, Cheryl and Mark Enstad, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)

A history of struggle

Over the past 25 years, arguably the most daunting previous phase of the LGBTQ-rights movement started in 2004, after Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. Between 2004 and 2008, voters in 26 states approved ballot measures defining marriage as between one man and one woman – in effect outlawing same-sex marriage.

By 2012, however, public opinion was swinging in favor of same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court legalized it nationwide in 2015, and it has had the support of most Americans ever since.

Boylan recalled how that long-bitter debate tilted in favor of legalization when supporters of same-sex marriage popularized the phrase “Love is Love.”

Image

FILE – Sarah McBride, Democratic candidate for Delaware’s at-large congressional district, greets people at the Immanuel Highlands Episcopal Church on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Wilmington, Del. She became the first openly transgender person elected to Congress. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith, File)

Image

FILE – Transgender state Rep. Zooey Zephyr, D-Missoula, stands on the steps of the Montana State Capitol during a rally, in Helena, Mont., Monday, April 24, 2023. (Thom Bridge/Independent Record via AP, File)

Image

FILE – Ashton Colby looks out the window of his meditation corner in his apartment in Columbus, Ohio, on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced proposals in January that transgender advocates say could block access to gender-affirming care provided by independent clinics and general practitioners, leaving thousands of adults scrambling for treatment and facing health risks. Colby, 31, fears the clinic where he gets the testosterone he has taken since age 19 would no longer offer it. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Image

FILE – This 2022 photo shows a self-portrait of Maxwell Kuzma, a transgender man working as a film editor and writer living outside of Columbus in rural Ohio. (Maxwell Kuzma via AP, File)

“That opened doors and opened hearts,” Boylan said. “The challenge for trans people is we don’t have a phrase like that … the issues are more complex.”

Boylan noted that the anti-trans campaign seemed to make headway with issues that are not among the core concerns of most trans people: “The primary thing we’re fighting for is not the right to play with other women on a soccer team. We’re fighting for dignity, for respect, for the right to be left alone.”

Maxwell Kuzma, a transgender man working as a film editor and writer in rural Ohio, said he was “worn out” by the relentless targeting of trans people, and blamed Trump for perpetuating it.

Looking ahead, he said life as a trans person “has forced me to learn a resiliency that I will lean on as I continue to speak out against prejudice and discrimination.”

Christine Zuba, a transgender woman from New Jersey, described a recent surge of Zoom meetings enabling trans people to express their concerns and determine next steps.

″One of the best recommendations I have heard throughout this discussion is to not isolate yourself, rather surround yourself with your support group — the people you love, and who love you,” she said. “Do not despair. There are a lot of people who will work with you and for you.”

___

David Crary, currently news director of AP’s global religion team, has been covering LGBTQ issues since 1999.

Source: AP News

Share.
Leave A Reply

© 2024 Breaking News Today. All Rights Reserved.