WASHINGTON – When the Washington Blade connected with activist and legislative researcher Erin Reed on Tuesday to debate the brand new anti-LGBTQ bills which have been introduced in statehouses across the country, it was just because the news of an especially hateful proposal got here across her desk.
Senators in West Virginia had teed up an anti-trans law that will criminalize “displays” that “shall include, but not be limited to, any transvestite and/or transgender exposure, performances, or display to any minor.”
The move recalled anti-LGBTQ laws from the Sixties that criminalized the very existence of transgender and gender non-conforming individuals in addition to drag performers, while providing pretexts for police raids of LGBTQ establishments just like the Stonewall Inn, Reed said.
For instance, she said, many states once enforced dress codes that required people to wear not less than three articles of clothing consistent with their sex assigned at birth.
Likewise, the West Virginia bill raises alarming questions on whether transgender parents and teachers within the state is perhaps prosecuted, with a possible five-year prison sentence, said Reed, who’s herself a transgender parent.
Moreover, the proposed laws is “unconstitutionally vague,” written so broadly that it will presumably develop into illegal to screen the film “Mrs. Doubtfire” or perform certain Shakespearen plays for an audience of minors if the measure were to pass, Reed said.
Lower than three weeks into 2023, state legislatures have introduced nearly as many anti-LGBTQ bills as were introduced in everything of last yr – and qualitatively, a lot of these latest bills are more hateful than anything we’ve seen in many years, Reed said.
“I see a rise in each the number and within the cruelty towards transgender people,” she said.
There are “latest pieces of proposed laws that go further than bills in 2021 and 2022,” corresponding to by “banning gender affirming care through age 26 in Oklahoma,” and others that “goal the drag community in ways in which haven’t happened in 30 to 40 years.”
Fear and hate mongering over all-ages drag performances has been ratcheted up within the right-wing ecosystem, fueled by conservative media figures like Matt Walsh and Tucker Carlson, in addition to social media accounts like Libs of TikTok and extremist militias, Reed said.
According to the ACLU, “As drag reality competitions and drag brunches develop into increasingly popular, backlash in the shape of armed protests and intimidation of drag performers has followed.”
Consequently, Reed said, this yr for the primary time anti-LGBTQ laws has included measures targeting drag performances – with, thus far, a dozen latest bills. And the priority is just not just that a lot of these proposed laws are draconian, like Nebraska’s bill that will prohibit patrons younger than 21 from attending a drag show.
“Every time I see those [laws] being proposed, I also see militant organizations storming in” to LGBTQ bars, schools, hospitals, and venues that host drag queen story hours, Reed said. “I see people attempting to break into drag events and successfully doing so,” disrupting them with violence and intimidation, she said.
“What I read into [the impetus behind these laws] is these legislators want to vary the uniform of the people doing the storming,” from militias comprised of far-right residents to “people wearing badges.”
Making matters worse, Reed said, there are “a lot of cases where drag events have asked for local protection and never received any protection by any means.”
Last month, organizers of a drag queen story hour-style event in Columbus, Ohio, needed to cancel after they said police didn’t work with them to guard participants from demonstrators affiliated with far-right groups just like the violent neo-fascist Proud Boys. (Police dispute the organizers’ account of events.)
The ACLU notes that, “Amidst this wave of anti-drag laws and violence, drag performers and host venues across the country are moving to higher security or cancel performances altogether.”
Taking a look at the slate of recent statewide legislative proposals, many are a continuation of comparable anti-trans themes which have emerged in recent times, but “we’re seeing scary attempts to escalate things,” Reed said.
As an illustration, bills that restrict or prohibit guideline-directed healthcare for transgender and gender non-conforming youth were introduced and passed in several states in 2021 and 2022, but latest measures proposed this yr would goal adults as old as 26.
“It makes me wonder what their ultimate goal is,” Reed said. “To ban transitions entirely?”
Every mainstream medical organization with relevant clinical expertise recommends age-directed gender affirming care in line with clinical practice guidelines which can be supported by a bevy of research and updated usually to make sure best practices.
Still, right-wing figures have demagogued the problem and characterised responsible medical care as “experimentation” and child abuse.
Reed noted there are some “latest wrinkles” in anti-trans healthcare bans which have been proposed this yr.
As an illustration, she said, Indiana proposed folding gender affirming care into practices that will be outlawed under a conversion therapy ban – thereby conflating supportive and medically obligatory healthcare with an abusive, ineffective practice that has been rejected by mainstream science and medicine.
Across the board, Reed noted, there’s an increasing reliance on executive authority. This was previewed toward the tip of last yr, she said, pointing to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s weaponization of the state medical board and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s weaponization of the Department of Family and Protective Services to, respectively, ban gender affirming care and prosecute parents for child abuse for facilitating their trans children’s access to gender affirming care.
‘The fight is on the state level immediately‘
Amid the onslaught of anti-LGBTQ laws, Reed emphasized the necessity for coordinated motion by the U.S. Congress, the Biden-Harris White House, progressive and pro-equality legal actors, and state legislatures, in addition to local and national LGBTQ groups.
She noted that pro-equality interests have focused significant time, attention, and money urging Congress to pass the Equality Act, which is commendable and obligatory, while the courts can provide (and, often, have provided) a path toward effectuating pro-equality policy.
At the identical time, Reed said, for the foreseeable future federal legislators are unlikely to search out a path forward for any major bills impacting LGBTQ people, while counting on the judiciary – particularly with the U.S. Supreme Court because it is currently construed – is removed from a secure bet.
In contrast, “on the state level, we’ve seen the GOP focus time and a focus and money and efforts on changing state laws,” she said, adding, “it’s necessary that we do the identical.”
Likewise, Reed said, “I also think we actually need to support our local LGBT organizations and help lift them up as much as possible,” particularly those situated in additional conservative and rural states, which largely don’t earn commensurate resources and support.
“In places like North Dakota and Oklahoma, South Dakota, and West Virginia, we’d like to assist the individuals who live there,” Reed said, but additionally in blue states where significant progress toward LGBTQ equality has been made but there remains to be room for improvement. “Don’t neglect your individual backyard.”
As an illustration, she said, the gay and trans panic defense remains to be legal in some progressive states.
“One among the largest problems for people in a few of these states criminalizing [healthcare for trans people] is that they don’t have resources to travel out of state,” Reed said, noting that POLITICO has reported on the plights of people that have been forced to flee states with anti-trans laws.
And while “We have now to care for those people,” Reed said, people shouldn’t be able where they need to flee their home states. “We’d like federal motion and federal protections,” she said.
Thankfully, there’s some movement on pro-LGBTQ state bills. Reed said she has seen more this yr in comparison with last yr, which is “a bit promising.” She highlighted bills corresponding to the proposal to guard gender affirming care in Maryland, access to bathrooms for trans youth in Minnesota, the flexibility to vary information on birth certificates in West Virginia, and adoption by trans parents in Montana.
