Anti-Trans Bills Are Harming LGBTQ+ Youth

A flood of state-level efforts to restrict transgender rights are being fueled by many of the Christian and conservative groups that led the charge against Roe v. Wade. The political debate is escalating at a dangerous rate, putting the physical and mental health of trans youth at risk.

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The Cost of Extremism - Episode 3 Transcript

Jill: Episode 3, Anti Trans Legislation.

“Protect our children.” Those three words have been touted by politicians over and over again, and an attempt to sell us a false narrative created to restrict transgender rights. In the last few years, we have seen an explosion of anti trans legislation from the hands of Republican lawmakers who are trying to control gender affirming health care, restrict what sports teams kids can play on, and what bathroom they can use at school. Data from the Trans Legislation Tracker shows that at the time of recording, 560 anti trans bills have been introduced in 2023, a number which is expected to grow as the year goes on and the 2024 election inches closer.

And do you want to know what these bills are doing? Well, they're... definitely not protecting our kids. That's for sure. Instead, right wing extremists are using these fear mongering tactics to create a cultural shift that is actively harming our Children.

Jaime: What I've been hearing her lately speak to is how she feels like when she leaves her house that people view her as a monster. And it's horrible to hear that come out of an 11 year old's mouth because, you know, she's a child and she's hearing this and hearing that people just hate her for who she is. A kid shouldn't have to fight for her right to exist. She really, she shouldn't. And none of these kids should have to. And it's a fight of her life and death at this point.

Jill: Jamie Jara is a history teacher by trade, but she has dedicated her life to fighting for her transgender daughter amidst this wave of attacks.

Jaime: Dempsey is my daughter. She is the youngest of three. She's 11. She is transgender. She socially transitioned when she was about 5 years old, and she's 11. It's been, it's been a while. She is so many things. Trans just happens to be one of them. But she's sassy and smart and kind and she's, she's a diva. Actually, she's quite a diva. And she's just all around, she's a great kid.

You know, she just always was who she was, I guess, for lack of a better way to explain it. But when she was five and she could vocalize it, verbalize, you know, verbally say she said, “I know, mommy, I'm a girl in my heart and my brain. I'm not a boy. I don't want you to call me a boy. And the doctors made a mistake. I never was a boy, this is just who I am.” And so for us like I said, it wasn't really a new thing, but just that she was able to verbalize it at five, we were like, “okay we have to learn and figure out what's going on here. But you know, you be you.” And I mean, how incredible is it for a five year old to tell you exactly who they are? And, you know, as parents, we took her seriously and just followed her lead.

Jill: When you look at the facts, these anti trans bills are doing nothing to protect the mental or physical health of our children, despite what the GOP suggests. The sad reality of it is that the LGBTQ plus community is already at greater risk of anxiety and depression, and this legislation push is only making it worse.

According to the Trevor Project, 86% of transgender and non-binary youth have said that the recent debates over restricting their rights has negatively impacted their mental health. Not shocking, right? Let's look at some more numbers. 45% of LGBTQ plus youth have reported considering a suicide attempt. And that number peaks at 60% for transgender boys. The kids who live in a community that is accepting of them reported a significantly lower number of suicide attempts. Are politicians ignoring these statistics? Do they even care about the well being of our youth?

Jaime: You don't want your kid to be picked on. You don't want them to be bullied. You want them to be safe. So those are all concerns. But at the end of the day, the most important thing for us and our family was that she was happy and healthy and in a good mindset where, you know, before she transitioned, she really wasn't… she was really depressed, very introverted and, you know, had these ultimate tantrums, especially when we would do things like take her to the barber to get her hair cut. That was traumatizing for her. And so all of these things were so anxiety inducing.

And seeing that depression in, in a child, a young child that age, it was really just something that we had to do. And once we did it, it was like, she blossomed. She just became this whole other child just with sheer happiness being able to be recognized for who she is.

Jill: Dempsey went through what's known as a social transition, like most kids that are transgender do. Despite what some people are saying, it's rare for children to go through any sort of permanent medical care for their transition.

Eli: That's one of the big pieces of misinformation that's been going around. Even politicians are claiming that like six year olds are getting transgender surgery, which is just ridiculous. That's never happened.

Jill: That was Eli Erlick, a trans activist that has been working for trans youth since she was 15. She came out as trans at the age of eight. Before even hearing the word trans or knowing what it meant, at 16, she co founded an organization named Trans Student Educational Resources, which was the only national organization led by trans youth. If there's anyone that knows about this topic, it's Eli.

Eli: Now, social transition is… when someone transitions socially, it just might start using different name pronouns, dressing differently, any of the above. There's all sorts of ways to socially transition. The medical transition, which usually, which doesn't start until the onset of puberty might be hormones, puberty suppressants for younger people.

Jaime: So socially transition means growing out your hair, changing your wardrobe, changing your pronouns. For some, it may look like changing your name. Dempsey didn't change her name. She chose to keep her name. So we didn't do that, but we did go ahead and change her pronouns and her birth certificate was changed. But it doesn't require any medical intervention or anything other than just outer appearance.

Alejandra: There are so many misconceptions, just even starting about what gender affirming care is.

Jill: Alejandra Caro has revolved her law career around the trans community with a specific focus on trans healthcare, which was partially informed by her own experience of being denied access to care after coming out in 2016.

Alejandra: For any trans youth below the age of, roughly, even around 12, gender affirming care is just haircut, clothes, names, pronouns. You know, that, that's it, that's it, like, that's all it is. It's just affirming them. It's supporting them, providing the most loving environment by their family and, and loved ones that they can have. And that, that's really all it is. It's, it's therapy and support.

You know, and then by time puberty rolls around, it can get a little bit more difficult for trans youth. And so they typically can start what are called puberty blockers, which is really just meant to, to get more time so that they can get to 14 or 16 years old. So they can have a better understanding of what you know, taking hormone replacement therapy, it would, would, would entail and allows them to, you know, explore your gender issues more and be able to, to continue and really figure out everything. And so it's really just to give more time.

Jill: This kind of disinformation runs rampant in the conversation around the trans community. Wherever you turn, in every corner of the internet, there are lies being spread to manipulate the public into believing the anti trans rhetoric, being pushed by the far right. It shows no signs of slowing down or stopping.

Alejandra: There's just this... disinformation out there that's like, and just, I mean, they just don't even bother with it. They just call it crude terms like mutilation and grooming and all of those things.

Eli: There are people who are genuinely concerned. There's been so much disinformation about the trans community. So with such a severe lack of education, it's easy to believe the first thing you hear. And unfortunately with many states banning basic education on queer and trans issues in schools, this decade is the first time many people are hearing about transgender people.

Jaime: The misinformation that's out there is coming from, specifically from politicians, and it's regarding healthcare. A lot of the fear mongering tactics have been, you know, including language like genital mutilation and surgeries on children and castration and all these ridiculous claims, which are absolutely false.

And so I think a lot of it is, you know, people don't understand. And so they're thinking that we're just like, you know, experimenting on children and, you know, also that they're too young to know who they are. Which is, we hear a lot but I often say to people, you know, when did you know that you were a girl? When did you know that you were a boy? And people's typical response is, well, I always knew. Well, she always knew too. Unfortunately, a lot of, a lot of it is about the healthcare aspect of it.

And that, you know, for some strange reason that my child is, you know, dangerous to other children and that we see often as well. It's agonizing as a parent. It's sad to think that there are people who are afraid of my kid. There's people who think I'm abusing her by letting her be who she is. It's, it's, it makes me sad, but it also makes me really angry.

Jill: So what kinds of anti trans bills are being pushed forward at the local, state, and national level? It's important to take a closer look if we really want to understand what's happening in our own government at the hands of our elected officials. Let's go back to the beginning.

Alejandra: You know, there was a kind of a bit of a false start with some of the anti trans legislation in 2015. You know, we saw that the bathroom bill in North Carolina that led to Pat McCrory losing re-election and that sent like a really powerful political signal at the, you know, targeting the trans community was not politically popular.

And I think after that, with Trump's election and just kind of COVID and everything else we started, like start really in 2019, I think we really started to see kind of this, this re-uptick and, and anti trans legislation and, and the 2020 in particular with the election that year, state legislators were certainly going to try and put some more of that, but it got derailed by the pandemic.

And I think 2021 is where we really… so that's like kicking the high gear, but in 2019 and 2021, that infrastructure behind this anti trans push had been building. A ton of organizations had been secretly funded and started we started seeing groups like GenSpect, Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine, which is an anti trans org, Parents for Ethical Care it, it just, it, like a ton, a slew of orgs that didn't exist before in 2019 that all spawned in this period between 2019 and 2021. And that's when we really started to see these bills that were trying to provide criminalized penalties or criminal penalties for providing gender affirming care to trans youth.

Eli: One example that I like to give is Moms for Liberty. It's what we call an astroturfed organization where it is a group of people operating on local levels that are receiving funding from, I mean, the Koch Foundation, large evangelical organizations, far right Christian nationalist groups, and they are spreading their message through these campaigns of disinformation and fear mongering to target local school boards where they can actually make change.

That's the unfortunate part. We're not going to see anything on the federal level except discourse, discourse, disagreement, and lots of debate. And trans people are unfortunately not very involved in that. It's primarily coming from this fear mongering and I mean, just frankly bigoted rhetoric that has no idea who we are or what our movement is focused on. And it's these local levels that are deeply intertwined with the national levels. I mean, organizations like Moms for Liberty, Independent Women's Council, Heritage Foundation, they're operating both nationally and locally to push these bills. And it works very well for them. They're getting more donations than ever. They're pushing far right politicians. It helps voters and constituents show up for these conservative causes. I mean, if you heard that there was a group that was, like, mutilating children, you'd probably be concerned. And if you had no idea who that group was, I, I think that's a very reasonable concern to have assuming you know nothing and have read nothing.

And so the movement's artificial. It is also kind of grassroots where you do see people who know very little about the trans community advocating against us. And then the state level is where we're seeing the most widespread change, where some states are honestly doing great and passing safe haven laws for trans people and parents who are supportive of our community. And then on the other hand, we have the 23 or so states that are passing anti trans bills that are and have been killing young trans people. And now they're moving on to other groups, to abortion, to the LGB community, and to trans adults, too. And they're not going to stop until the moral panic is soothed over.

Jill: Politicians aren't going to stop with the trans community. This is just a step forward in their long term plan.

Alejandra: Trans people are kind of a gateway issue, like trans sports was the gateway issue to broader anti trans legislation. Trans people are the gateway to broader anti LGBTQ legislation. And we're seeing this, it's applying now to drag, right. And that's primarily a staple of the gay community. And the don't say gay bills. It's insane to me, like the level of reactionary backlash, this has been able to push and, and just the kind of, they're not satisfied and this broader push against Target and Bud Light, like, this is, this is not about just trans people. This is about all LGBTQ people. They want us all out of public life.

Jill: So who's behind these attacks? Who's using their power and influence to create such a dangerous and destructive narrative?

Eli: I see a problem with a lot of pundits trying to pin this on one group or one motivation, but really it's this coalescence of a manufactured campaign spanning. I mean, really decades, but particularly the past five years or so. Some of the main reasons that we've seen include the wedge issue of trans people, so Republicans latching on to a group that not many people know about. I mean we only make up one, maybe two and a half percent of the population and then demonizing us in every way and trying to vilify anyone who supports us. There are certainly large pundits and politicians who are responsible for a lot of the harm that's being pushed. I mean, you see Ron DeSantis trying to win the presidency by demonizing trans people. And how that seeped into discourse, like on Fox News or other conservative politicians are driving it.

Jaime: I don't really think that politicians really care about trans people. I think that they are using it as a, as a political pawn, if you will, to get people riled up and to get elected. I don't think they really care. I think the only thing that upsets them is that people like my daughter and families like ours are visible and they would rather that we just disappeared and went back into, you know, hiding.

Jill: But why? Why have politicians chosen this community to launch attacks against? They must be getting something out of this, right?

Alejandra: There's a reason why it's only passed in red states, because this is, this is all being done by the Republicans and they only have an incentive not to lose their primary. It's an obsession. They're just so singularly obsessed. It's being incentivized by social media, by engagement on social media and all these kinds of broader like incentives, but they also view it as a, as a broader recruitment tactic for the far right.

And so it really sucks when you're part of a community that is like anywhere from half a percent to 1% of the total population, right? Trans people are very small and trans youth are an even smaller proportion of that. And you have basically this kind of 5 or 10% of society that is singularly obsessed with your existence and is trying to eliminate it.

Eli: It rallies up their base. It gets them loads of money from not just their voters, but also well funded foundations, local action committees, and other groups who normally might not fund certain politicians you would consider more moderate, but they're willing to when they demonize trans youth and try to legislate out our health care.

And along with that, there is a coordinated effort coming from all sorts of different parties spanning from Republican donors, Catholic church, evangelicals that are manufacturing an outrage against trans people and particularly trans youth. So they all have a lot to gain from it, particularly Catholic and Evangelical organizations to provoke this outrage and disinformation about the trans community.

Jill: These Christian conservatives are the same figures that fought against the legalization of same sex marriage and achieved the decades long goal of overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. Groups like Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Policy Alliance, and the Heritage Foundation play a prominent role in creating and promoting these bills under the guise of protecting their religious freedom. To be clear, not everyone who is religious supports these ideas. What we hear are the loudest voices.

Alejandra: The anti trans bill has been heavily pushed by the Catholic Medical Association and members of the Catholic Medical Association. So, and the Conference of Catholic Bishops there, that like, they have been using their own lobbyists to push this. So this has been very much influenced by religious groups pushing this stuff.

Even the term that we've heard, “gender ideology,” right? That's a term coined by the Catholic Church in the early, in about 2010. So, and they, they originally meant this to be kind of a catchall for feminism, for basically anything that is progressive on views of gender, anything that's not basically sanctioned by the Catholic Church as being, you know, gender ideology. And it's becoming this catchall and that's kind of caught on.

But, you know, this is just to kind of show the religious background of all of this. And it's, it's frustrating to me as someone whose family is all Catholic, was raised Catholic, like to see this attack by this group that, you know, I don't even think represents main mainstream Catholics.

Eli: It's interesting because it's one of the first times I've seen the religious right work so closely with the new atheist right, the intellectual quote, unquote, right. It's very complicated because it's also this compounding collaboration between Catholics, evangelicals, certain other forms of Protestant churches, and also deeply un or even anti religious far right groups. And so it's, I mean, it's partially about religion. It's all about power.

Jill: The battle against trans rights is having an impact on our country. That much is clear. But is it working in their favor? While support of restrictions is rising, the majority of Americans still reject anti trans bills against trans youth. A 2023 poll done by PBS NewsHour, NPR, and Marist show that over half of Americans say they oppose these strict laws despite the constant political attacks telling them to believe otherwise.

On the other hand, there has been a 15% increase in support of laws that criminalize providing gender transition related medical care to minors. And that's only since April of 2021. So while the majority of Americans see how dangerous these bills are, there is still, unfortunately, some movement in the wrong direction, but that doesn't mean it translates into political success.

Alejandra: We saw in the midterms in 2022, over 50 million spent messaging anti trans ads, and all the purple states that they messaged this stuff in, in Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, they lost. They lost, right? And so, you know, it just is not a winning issue. It doesn't motivate. It doesn't turn out independents or convince them. And so it is a bit asymmetrical when you have this, like, basically 5% of the country that is like obsessed with trans people. They want to eradicate trans people. This is what they want to do. They want to eradicate us from society.

Jill: We can't let that happen. What we need to do is refuse to sit on the sidelines and instead follow the voices of the trans activists that need our support. Listen to what they have to say.

Eli: I say it all comes down to listening, listening to what trans youth need, listening to how they want to be respected, listening to how you can show up for them. The majority of people support us transitioning, the vast majority. But we have a very powerful minority in this country who holds disproportionate political appointments that are finding that they can rally their bases by demonizing a small percentage of the population. So it comes down to listening. It comes down to showing up. It means even donating to organizations, reading about trans issues, getting educated, and speaking out.

Jaime: Talk to a trans person. And, and that's the truth. Talk to someone that's trans. They're just regular people. They just want to live their lives. And there certainly isn't any, you know, I hear often is trans agenda. There is no trans agenda. Dempsey doesn't have any agenda. She just wants to, you know, make that next video and hang out with her friends. I often say if you could spend maybe 10 minutes with Dempsey, you'd see that she's just a regular 11 year old. You know, she likes to hang out with her friends. She likes to make TikTok videos. She is absolutely obsessed with skincare beyond any 11 year old should be. Okay? She's just a regular kid.

And, and it's interesting because, you know, being trans is just one part, you know, one facet of who she is. She is so many other things, you know, she's, she's an actress. She auditions all the time and she, you know, got to walk the red carpet in New York at the GLAAD awards. And she's funny, and she's just, she, I, I'd like to say she's just a regular kid but she's so extraordinary in so many ways that she's not really regular. She's special and I can't wait to see what she does in the world and what these kids will all do when they grow up.

And that's really the agenda that, this non agenda, is just to have these kids grow up and be adults. That's it. Survive and thrive.

Jill: And how can we help our kids survive and thrive? Well, we can start by using resources from organizations such as Red Wine and Blue, which harness the power of women to make a difference in our communities. And we can also prevent these politicians from making it into office in the first place by voting all the way down the ballot. But most of all, we need to listen and learn and do whatever we can to protect our kids.

The Cost of Extremism

Anti-Trans Bills Are Harming LGBTQ+ Youth

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