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State legislatures wrap, leaving terror in their wake

‘It’s hard to not be alarmed about the direction that this is all heading’

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Florida State Capitol (Washington Blade photo by Yariel Valdés González)

Conservative state legislatures from Florida to Idaho, have finished or will soon finish their business, leaving transgender Americans and their loved ones reeling from the onslaught of attacks against them.

Between 400 and 600 bills were introduced since January that target LGBTQ folks, disproportionately transgender kids – a figure that has often been cited by LGBTQ groups and elected Democrats.

What is often lost in this accounting, however, is how harmful the legislation is (or will be, in the case of so many bills that have yet to take effect), because for those who are directly targeted by the ceaseless legislative and rhetorical attacks, they are hardly an abstraction.

On Monday, Oklahoma became the 16th state to ban guideline-directed best practices healthcare interventions for the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors and the fourth state to make it a felony for providers to administer that care to their patients.

Then, on Tuesday, Montana became the 17th state, having just evicted duly elected state Rep. Zooey Zephyr from the chamber because, in her words, “I dared to give voice to the values and needs of transgender people like myself.”

In March, Kentucky passed what was then deemed “the worst anti-trans bill in the nation,” a healthcare ban augmented by language pulled from Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law, which criminalizes discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in schools.

The following month, just across the border, the torch was passed to Missouri, whose Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey issued an emergency rule prohibiting gender affirming care for youth as well as adults and then published a form allowing citizens to formally record complaints about “a gender transition” they have “experienced or observed.”

Powerful conservative Christian advocacy groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom have lobbied for anti-LGBTQ bills and defended them from legal challenges. The organization has backed anti-trans measures from restrictions on access to gender affirming care to “Don’t Say Gay” laws.

For trans people, the prospect of having to flee their home states “doesn’t feel theoretical anymore,” Ari Drennen, LGBTQ program director for Media Matters for America, told the Washington Blade.

“The thing is,” she said, “I feel like we got there a while ago, and I just kind of adjusted, and now it’s like this weird world where I have multiple adult friends who are leaving multiple states for their own safety.”

“It’s hard to keep perspective of just how bad it’s gotten and just how quickly,” Drennen said.

She added the recent polling data, which indicates “most voters do not think that this is a good use of the government’s time and energy” offers cold comfort because “when that doesn’t seem to stop them, it almost makes it scarier.”

Drennen said the reality for so many of these Republican legislators is “they are just so genuinely opposed to the existence of trans people” that they will continue apace with these legislative crusades, political consequences be damned.

Another concern, often overlooked, is the escalation of transphobic rhetoric that abets the work of anti-trans GOP legislatures and to some extent makes their goals more reachable.

“You can look at The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles giving his big speech at CPAC,” Drennen said, in which he argued “that transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.”

“Those were his exact words,” she said, and “what he’s saying there is that trans people should not be in public, really under any circumstances, and I think that’s where a lot of the right wing media has gotten.”

“This has escalated very quickly in a couple of years from, ‘oh, well, you know, we just have some concerns about the fairness of trans people who are competing in sports,’ to multiple states passing bathroom bills or considering bathroom bills, multiple states expanding what kinds of gender affirming care they’re considering trying to take off the table,” Drennen said.

“And it’s hard to not be alarmed about the direction that this is all heading,” she said.

At this juncture, according to the ACLU:

  • Anti-LGBTQ bills can be divided into seven categories: Healthcare (e.g., bans on gender affirming care); public accommodations (e.g., laws prohibiting trans people from using restrooms and facilities consistent with their gender identity); schools and education (e.g., “Don’t Say Gay” laws, bans prohibiting trans student athletes from competing in sports); free speech and expression (e.g., restrictions on drag performances, book bans); accurate IDs (e.g., laws prohibiting trans people from obtaining documents that reflect their gender identity); civil rights (e.g., measures to allow discrimination against LGBTQ people); and other (e.g., Alabama’s proposed bill to define “woman” based on sex characteristics at birth).
  • Fifteen states have introduced more than 10 anti-LGBTQ bills: Arizona, North Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Iowa, Missouri, Mississippi, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida.
  • Four states and the District of Columbia have not introduced any anti-LGBTQ bills: Pennsylvania, Delaware, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
  • 318 anti-LGBTQ bills are now advancing through state legislatures. Forty-five have been signed into law; 105 have been defeated.
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Congress

House passes spending bill as Greene threatens to oust Johnson

51 of 52 anti-LGBTQ riders were defeated

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) speaks at a press conference on Sept. 20. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The U.S. House of Representatives averted a government shutdown on Friday with a vote of 286-134 to pass the $1.2 trillion spending bill, over the objections of hard-right members like U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

The congresswoman subsequently filed a motion to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who is himself an ultraconservative legislator. The move marked the second time in six months that the party has called for a vote to oust their own leader.

“Today I filed a motion to vacate after Speaker Johnson has betrayed our conference and broken our rules,” said Greene, who refused to say whether she would call up the resolution to call for a snap vote, which likely means the matter will be delayed until after the two-week recess.

Greene and Johnson are at odds over the content of the minibus appropriations package, with the congresswoman calling it a “Chuck Schumer, Democrat-controlled bill” that does not contain conservative policy demands on matters like immigration and LGBTQ issues.

The speaker, meanwhile, proclaimed, “House Republicans achieved conservative policy wins, rejected extreme Democrat proposals, and imposed substantial cuts while significantly strengthening national defense.”

With respect to anti-LGBTQ riders submitted by Republican members, more than 50 were ultimately stripped from the bill, which the Human Rights Campaign celebrated as “a victory,” crediting lawmakers for their “bipartisan, bicameral negotiations.”

Of the 52 anti-LGBTQ riders, only one survived in the $1.2 trillion package passed on Friday: A ban on flying Pride flags at U.S. embassies.

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Congress

Massive defeat for anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ riders in spending bill

Proposal has only one rider that would target community

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U.S. Capitol
U.S. Capitol (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

On Thursday, Congress unveiled the much-anticipated spending bill to avert a government shutdown. The bill, which includes funding for major government departments such as Health and Human Services and Education, featured fierce negotiations over conservative “policy riders.” 

These policy riders included bans on coverage for gender-affirming care, DEI bans, sports bans and more. Despite some indications that Democrats might compromise due to the sheer number of conservative policy riders, it appears those fears did not come to fruition. Democrats held firm in negotiations, and the most impactful anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ riders were nowhere to be found.

One policy rider proposed for the Food and Drug Administration would have defunded any hospital that “distributes, sells or otherwise uses drugs that disrupt the onset of puberty or sexual development for those under 18,” a measure targeting not only transgender youth but also those experiencing precocious puberty. 

Another rider sought to bar any government funding toward “surgical procedures or hormone therapy for the purposes of gender-affirming care” in the Department of Health and Human Services. This move would have significantly impacted private and subsidized insurance in the Healthcare Marketplace. It also aimed to bar the enforcement of President Joe Biden’s executive order titled “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity,” which broadened anti-discrimination protections for trans individuals.

Additional riders included bans on funding for any organization that “promotes transgenderism,” Title IX protections for trans youth, bans on legal challenges against states over anti-LGBTQ+ laws, book bans, DEI bans and more.

In total, over 40 riders were proposed and negotiated in the spending bills. None of these were found in the final bill.

Ultimately, the final spending bill released contained only a single anti-LGBTQ rider: A ban on Pride flags being raised or displayed above foreign embassies. The policy, while certainly qualifying as anti-LGBTQ and a regression to Trump-era policies, notably does not bar personal displays of Pride flags by embassy workers.

In the past, some embassies have gotten around such bans by not “flying a flag over the embassy” but rather, painting portions of the embassy in rainbow colors or draping flags on the side of buildings.

News of the defeat of the most impactful anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ riders comes after a significant push from Equality Caucus Democrats and the Biden administration against the riders. “As you negotiate government funding for Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24), we write to strongly urge you to reject any attempts to include anti-LGBTQ+ provisions in any final FY24 funding agreement,” said a letter signed by 163 representatives on behalf of the Congressional Equality Caucus to the Biden administration.

However, Republicans also pushed hard for their inclusion. In a shutdown threat issued Feb. 21 from the House Freedom Caucus, Republicans indicated that bans on gender affirming care and trans participation in sports were necessary to prevent a potential shutdown.

Previously, U.S. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) stated that such bans are the “hill we will die on.” In a report published by Axios, one Republican lawmaker stated, “People are predicting a shutdown even if it’s just for a few days.” Others concurred, citing gender affirming care riders as one of the potential reasons for such a shutdown.

Many anti-LGBTQ leaders in the Republican Party reacted negatively to the bill. U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) expressed anger at funding for the New Jersey Garden State Equality in Education Fund, calling it “force feeding the LGBT agenda in schools” and stating that it enables “gender mutilation surgeries in minors,” “biological men” in women’s bathrooms and trans participation in sports.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) decried the lack of a DEI ban. U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) stated that Republicans “surrendered” to Democrats on hormone therapy. The House Freedom Caucus published a lengthy list of healthcare and equality centers that the budget would fund, urging the GOP to vote “no” and to shut down the government.

In a press release published by House Appropriations Democrats, they stated that the bill rejected over a hundred poison-pill riders, many of which targeted LGBTQ people. For example, the Labor-HHS-Education portion of the bill blocked provisions around gender affirming care, sports bans and nondiscrimination.

See the House Appropriations Democrats statement:

Press release, House Appropriations Democrats on Labor-HHS-Education

The bill must pass by Friday evening to avert a government shutdown, though the impacts of such a shutdown would likely not be felt until Monday. If passed, the bill would keep the government funded through September, at which point all of the riders could resurface during the peak of the 2024 presidential election.

However, for the next several months, LGBTQ riders will not pose a significant threat in a year where trans and queer individuals have faced attacks at historic levels.

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Erin Reed is a transgender woman (she/her pronouns) and researcher who tracks anti-LGBTQ+ legislation around the world and helps people become better advocates for their queer family, friends, colleagues, and community. Reed also is a social media consultant and public speaker.

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The preceding article was first published at Erin In The Morning and is republished with permission.

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Congress

Padilla, FCC introduce measure to improve 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

HHS launched effort in 2022

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U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) (Screen capture: YouTube)

U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), joined by U.S. Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.), Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, introduced a measure on Thursday to improve the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

Calls are currently routed to mental health professionals and local public safety officials based on the caller’s area code — even though, as the lawmakers and officials noted during their announcement — in many cases, the area code, especially for cell phone numbers, does not match the location from which they are calling.

Under the new proposal, Padilla said, “We’re going to be in a position to be able to provide care as quickly and as safely as possible.”

“In the same way that 911 calls in the case of an emergency are routed to local providers, local first responders, so ambulances can come out and help quickly when you call 911, 988 should be tied to a caller’s location, not their area code,” he said.

Calling Padilla, Tillis, and Cárdenas “great champions of mental health,” Rosenworcel noted, “that’s not our stock and trade” at the FCC.

“We are people who deal with technology and communications,” she said, “but we came to realize that we could work with Congress to make sure that everyone in this country who’s going through a crisis has someone to call and someone who can listen — and that’s why in 2022, we set up 988, the easy-to-remember three digit number for anyone who is in crisis.”

A press release from Padilla’s office explains the details for how the update to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline will work:

“The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) announced today seeks to address the discrepancies and inefficiencies of the current system by proposing the adoption of a rule that would require a georouting solution to be implemented for all wireless calls to the 9-8-8 Lifeline while balancing the privacy needs of individuals in crisis. 

Georouting refers to technical solutions that enable calls to be directed based on the location of the caller without transmitting the caller’s precise location information. These solutions would permit wireless calls to the 9-8-8 Lifeline to be directed to nearby crisis centers based on factors such as the cell tower that originated the call rather than the area code of the wireless device used to place the call.”

The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline offers LGBTQ-affirming counseling, which is accessible by pressing three.

A 2023 survey by the Trevor Project, which included more than 28,000 LGBTQ participants aged 13-24, found that 41 percent had seriously considered suicide within the past year and 56 percent wanted — but were unable to get — mental health care within the last year.

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