THE FIGHT FOR RIGHTS

By Khalil Gillespie Editor-In-Chief

Since the start of 2023, the Human Rights Campaign has tracked about 341 anti-trans youth bills. Among those bills, which range from the topic of drag queens to banning gender-affirming health care, there is undoubtedly an underlying goal: the eradication of transgenderism in this country. It is imminent and, without strong pushback from you and the rest of the community, there will be the blood of countless transgender youths on lawmaker’s hands.

In Indiana, on Apr. 5, lawmakers passed a bill that would ban all transgender youth from receiving any form of gender-affirming care. Youth who are already on hormones or who are receiving other forms of treatment such as puberty blockers, have to cease all care within the next six months. Stopping care will reverse some of the main effects of the hormones and result in major dysphoria. Lawmakers have made it impossible for kids to continue their care, even if both the youth and their parents or guardians consent fully.

In my experience, after coming out in seventh grade and speculating my gender before that, hormones were an ultimate goal in my life. In fact, I would consider them a necessity for me. Without hormones, my life would be extremely different and ultimately less happy. As a transgender man, when I started my hormone journey almost five months ago, I became so much more happy and comfortable with myself. Even within the first few weeks, I saw small but notable changes. Some that may seem small to others who are not trans, but that made a difference for me. Things like a little bit more facial hair or a small amount of raspiness in my voice made me feel comfortable in my body for the first time in my life. For so long, I felt like I was in the back seat watching my life go by, but now, I feel like my own person. For many others, the experience of starting hormones is similar.

Fenway Health states that between the ages of 14-15 years old, being on hormones decreases the amount of discomfort and mental health problems drastically. The process is invasive and sometimes painful, as well as expensive to keep up with, so, realistically, transgender people such as myself would not go through the hormone process for the rest of their lives over something that they were not completely sure of. We need to allow people to know their bodies and act accordingly.

As someone who hasn’t been 18 for very long, it’s devastating to me to think about what I would have done during these times if I were impacted. One of the main reasons that transgender youth want to go through treatment earlier than later is because it stops some of the early effects of puberty and replaces it with the desired effects of puberty of whatever hormone they are on. Treatments are already tough enough to locate and the complete erasure of healthcare is absolutely unacceptable.

This is not just an issue in Indiana, though. Across the rest of the country, bills like this are seemingly popping up everywhere. In Tennessee, some of their proposed bills want to do a plethora of entirely unconstitutional and unfair things. For starters, they have an almost identical record to Indiana with their ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Tennessee has even started to focus on other bills,

There are 18 anti-trans laws in Indiana. 3 have been passed into law and 15 have been defeated

92% of trans youth continued to socially transition consistently for a minimum of 5 years such as a ban on drag queens in the presence of children. Some places around the states have also started to attempt all gender-affirming care regardless of age.

These lawmakers have a lot of conflicting controversial ideas that really shows us that all of this is coming from a place of bigotry. Lawmakers in anti-trans states push for the idea of “saving kids,” yet they refuse to ban any form of a gun, even heavy assault rifles. Since the start of 2023, there have been 202 mass shootings. Among those mass shootings, eight trans people were killed. This has nothing to do with saving kids. It is about taking control over situations that don’t follow their traditionalist mindset.

I feel like a major part of the issue is a lack of true understanding. The constant stream of new bills and other hateful speech spread by right wing media is extremely draining for everyone involved. Specifically, Bill 480 has sparked a lot of outrage in the community and the American Civil Liberties Union or ACLU has taken action and filed for a lawsuit against the state on the basis that it goes against our constitutional rights.

The American Civil Liberties Union is planning on fighting back and has started the process of suing the state. The ACLU states that “The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Indiana today filed a lawsuit on behalf of four transgender youth and their families, as well as a doctor and health care clinic, challenging an Indiana law that prohibits health care professionals from providing or even referring transgender young people for medically-necessary health care. The lawsuit, filed in federal court, alleges that Senate Bill 480 violates the U.S. Constitution on multiple fronts, including the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

If more of these bills are proposed or passed, they will have an extremely detrimental effect on trans people. Scientific American states that more than 30,000 transgender people report less mental distress and discomfort after taking hormones. This study sparks the question of how much longer will kids have to dread whether or not they can break free of their depression and finally live in the body and brain that they deserve? How many kids will commit suicide before they realize their mistake?

These are just the early steps of the process, but what the community can do to continue the fight can be anything from reposting or spreading information via social media to getting out and protesting where there are opportunities or calling your representatives and other officials to let them know how upsetting the recent legislature is. This is not something that will go away on its own or something that is just talk as a country. We are moving in the wrong direction and if it gets any more extreme than the current situation, people will have their civil rights and personal freedoms ripped right out of their hands. Kids will die, mothers and fathers will lose their children and at the center of it all will be lawmakers working purely off of their own beliefs rather than the good of transgender youth. For more information, visit the ACLU website to keep up to date with anti-trans legislation across the country.