“As of a recent count from Trans Legislation Tracker, over a third of the 120 trans medical care bans already proposed in 2024 include provisions restricting trans adults’ access to care: 41 in total. [...] Lawmakers in 13 states have proposed restrictions on adult health care this year, including Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Wyoming.”

“Most of the newly proposed sex definition laws would mandate that the legal definition of a woman is someone with a reproductive system that can produce eggs. Such a limited definition ignores the existence of intersex people, many of whom are women, as well as women with conditions like primary ovarian insufficiency. [In 2023], bills that aimed to redefine sex in various states did not always define men and women based on their reproductive capacity; now, that has apparently become the defining feature of such legislation.”

“At first, anti-trans lawmakers claimed they were simply worried about so-called irreversible surgeries on children. Then they took aim at gender-affirming care more broadly, and then moved on to measures forcing school officials to use trans kids’ birth names and pronouns. Now these legislators have embraced vaguely worded drag bans that weaponize obscenity laws as part of a broader attack on trans existence.”

“Groups such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Research Council, the Liberty Counsel and the American Principles Project are behind a multimillion-dollar effort targeting LGBTQ rights through 'parents' rights' bills.”

“Across the right, major players are characterizing trans people not just as “groomers” ― an attack that plays on centuries-old fears of LGBTQ+ people targeting children ― but as violent actors.”

“Michael Knowles, a popular right-wing podcaster at The Daily Wire said — and I quote — 'There can be no middle way in dealing with transgenderism. It is all or nothing.' He went on to say, and again I quote, 'Transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.' [...] And the right is now making trans people their political target. And the most ambitious conservatives are competing not just in rhetoric, but in policy, to make their lives harder, to try to push them out of the boundaries of public life. [...] The right’s aim is to use the power of the state to eradicate the ability of trans people to live as themselves in public or to be able to become themselves. And again, this is policy. It is not just rhetoric. It is not just tweets.”

“Today's Christian nationalists believe that America is an inherently holy, Christian land, and that it's their duty to restore God's kingdom in order for Jesus to return. Part of this means that they think the country's laws, policies and cultural institutions should reflect evangelical Christian values [...] As a result, contentious cultural and political issues, like drag queen story hours and “critical race theory” are perceived as Satanic. Indeed, the Devil came up in the leaked emails.”

“The goal isn’t just to punish trans kids seemingly for existing but to limit the imaginations of everybody else. If schools aren’t allowed to use language that suggests trans people exist and if trans kids aren’t allowed to pursue treatment, then the hope of these lawmakers seems to be that by never allowing discussion of these ideas, boundaries are placed upon the imagination.”

“The history of gender becoming cis overwhelmingly suggests that the many inconsistencies, contradictions, leakage points and hypocrisies of gender are, precisely, its fundamental strength. Endlessly adaptable, and quite immune to being proven wrong or caught in a lie, making policy based in the fantasy that the state can tell the difference between trans and non-trans people is what makes it so flexible and resilient. Because it can never successfully do what it promises—draw a hard line between trans and non-trans people—the cis state can ignore all of its failures as equally irrelevant. That is another way of defining impunity.”

“Advocates for these laws argue that such treatments, which usually involve hormones that delay the changes associated with puberty, are unproven and dangerous and that the legislation is necessary to protect children. That is unscientific and cruel.”

“Right-wing personalities now routinely—and falsely—refer to LGBTQ people as “groomers” and “pedophiles.” They’ve also accused teachers of “grooming” children, while claiming doctors “mutilate” and “sterilize” minors. The result has been an escalation in threats targeting trans-inclusive hospitals and school districts generally, as well as specific workers within them.”

“Lawmakers’ arguments in support of these bills stress that girls must be protected from losing opportunities in sports against “biological men.” That idea displays deep-seated assumptions about gender, as trans women are portrayed as a threat to cisgender girls’ academic and economic opportunities. As this argument has been repeated across the country, trans people and LGBTQ+ advocates tell The 19th that their existence is being called into question.”

“Medical professionals who are found “guilty” of providing gender-affirming healthcare to youth would be classified as felons and could be subject to up to a lifelong term in state prison. ”