Three months into 2023, nearly 300 bills designed to discriminate against transgender people have been introduced in statehouses around the country, according to a tracker from Equality Federation, an LGBTQ rights nonprofit. That is an increase compared to this time in 2022, at which point nearly 240 anti-LGBTQ bills had been filed, most of them targeting trans people.
A review from the Human Rights Campaign found that fewer than 1 in 10 of last year’s 315 “anti-equality” bills became law. But this essay is not about those bills that die quiet, ignoble deaths. This is about the ones that don’t. This is about the bills that through fearmongering, bullying and shameless lies have made their way into law. This is about the bills that through escalating rhetoric and growing confidence from their sponsors in their political salience are making headway, shifting the debate from what is right for America’s children to what is “wrong” with this country. This is about the bills that will follow suit in the months and years to come. This is about how even as the percentage of these oppressive bills signed into law remains low, the odds for trans people’s future place in our society continue to get worse.
To great applause, Michael Knowles, a Daily Wire commentator, told a CPAC audience last weekend that there “can be no middle way in dealing with transgenderism. It is all or nothing.” He said that for “the good of society, and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology.”
As so many have pointed out, there is no “ideology” that is under debate here, beyond whether all people are worthy of respect and equal protection under the law. It is to our country’s shame that so many agree that the answer must be “no.” No, trans Americans don’t deserve the simple courtesy of being seen for who they are, don’t…
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