HOW WE GOT HERE

Current and continuing anti-transgender sentiment.

Words by CM McCambridge

Art by Freddy Toglia

Let’s start simple. Why now? Why trans people?

America’s right wing likes to use fear tactics as its motivating force. The last several years have been spent with fears spread about “dangerous rioters” at peaceful protests, “antifa thugs” being made out to be a domestic terror organization, and plenty more.

This strategy has long proven successful; it motivated elections — especially those of George W. Bush and Donald Trump, the former of whom started a war and invaded a sovereign nation on false pretenses, and the latter of whom has been indicted on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in the first degree.

The current target of this group is one they have unsuccessfully attempted to attack before: the transgender community. This community was the focus of multiple speakers at the Conservative

Political Action Conference, with Daily Wire contributor Michael Knowles even stating that “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.”

This was only one of the multiple comments made about the community, with additional ones from Knowles, Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Riley Gaines, and more — the full clown car, if you will.

The year is 2014. Katie Couric is interviewing Carmen Carrera and Laverne Cox in an episode of her show meant to focus on transgender people. Couric asks Carrera about pain from surgery and when Carrera talks about plastic surgery, Couric redirects the question to her genitals. Carrera doesn’t answer those questions, and they go to commercials.

Couric interviews Cox next. She notes that people are “not familiar with transgenders,” and that Carrera, shockingly, didn’t seem to want to talk about her genitals. Cox shuts this question down too and manages to capture the trans experience in a phrase.

“By focusing on bodies, we don’t focus on the lived realities of that oppression and that discrimination,” Cox says. Later this year, she would be on the cover of Time for a piece titled The Transgender Tipping Point, addressing civil rights issues as such.

The year is 2023. Fourteen states, over a quarter of the United States of America, have passed some form of a gender-affirming care ban, often targeting teenagers. That same group of people, transgender teens, have one of the highest suicide rates, with over 80% having considered it according to a 2020 study. Per another study in 2022, this dropped by 73% in transgender youth who received genderaffirming care. Fourteen states have decided that death would be better.

The year is 2015. Multiple states are attempting to push “bathroom bills,” ways in which to push transgender people out of using the bathroom which aligns with their gender. They largely fail, but the conservative news outrage machine gives the topic almost non-stop coverage for months. This will be one of the worst years on record for anti-transgender legislation until 2021. This would worsen in 2022. This would worsen again in 2023.

The year is 2023. Over 450 bills have been proposed in the United States in order to limit the rights and access to healthcare of transgender people so far this year. This line is being written in April. These bills are often rushed through committees, or placed on the schedule to be heard on the floor with testimony very shortly before the hearing starts.

The year is 2018. Mina Brewer, a model, is both unknowingly outed and misgendered on the cover of The Atlantic . The author of the article, Jesse Signal, would be called out by GLAAD for his antiLGBTQ+ rhetoric. The article in question, Signal’s When A Child Says She’s Trans was filled with stories of detransitioners, focusing primarily on those who are not transgender.

The year is 2023. Many of the same antitransgender activists are seen at the hearings, traveling from state to state to offer testimony. Faux medical organizations are used with names eerily similar to existing ones to promote speakers who refuse to cite actual data. One such organization, the “American College of Pediatricians” is used solely for this purpose, mimicking the established professional organization “American Academy of Pediatrics.”

“Right now, the slate of legislation is nonstop,” said transgender legislative researcher Erin Reed. “Every single day I have 10, 15, 20 new bills that drop. Five, 10 new hearings that are going to happen the next day. It seems like every day the legislators are coming up with new creative ways to target my community.”

The year is 2021. President Biden makes a statement to the transgender community that “your president has your back.” He then proceeds to do nothing for them. Conservative outlets will spend the latter part of the year covering transgender college student Lia Thomas, a swimmer who has started competing on the women’s national team after two years of hormone replacement therapy.

The year is 2023. Worsening transphobic sentiment has spread across the U.S. The Biden administration proposes an addendum to Title IX, preventing blanket bans of transgender athletes in schools. This same addendum provides clear and simple steps to follow to ban these athletes anyways. No other protections have been implemented as of April.

The year is 2022. The Supreme Court makes the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, a direct attack on reproductive rights, informed consent, and more. Many far-right groups call it a first step to banning gender-affirming care. Some lawmakers realize that transgender people are not a majority in any place on earth, and can be legislated out of existence.

The year is 2023. Anti-transgender sentiment and misinformation are on the rise. Antitransgender hate crimes are on the rise. There is a new scapegoat for far-right movements, with rallies held across the globe decrying the evils of the community. Many of these rallies are attended by neo-nazi groups. Over 3000 emails are leaked showing far-right groups have been coordinating with legislators for at least two years.

The year is 2023.