When the Supreme Court ruled that the same sex couples had a constitutional right to marry, national Democrats and LGBT rights organizations began to focus on non-discrimination laws. At present, there are very few federal protections that prevent people from being fired or denied housing or services because of who they love or who they are. Most states don’t even have those protections, even though they’re such a no-brainer that 90 percent of Americans believe they already exist.
Republicans tried to direct the conversation to a handful of bakers and florists who wanted the right to break the rules of the market. But whenever they tried to legislate based on this logic, they were widely criticized and often forced to walk back the laws.
Then an ordinance came up for a vote in Houston that would have banned discrimination against LGBT people. Houston had a lesbian mayor at the time. Despite that, the city voted 61-39 to keep discrimination legal. Five months later, when Charlotte’s city council tried to treat all of its citizens fairly, the state government stepped in and blocked it. So far the governor has refused to budge while faced with the pressure that used to work in more conservative states.
What changed? Socially conservative activists realized that demonizing gay people was a lost cause. They moved on to using the public’s lack of trans people for one last salvo of hate.
You’ve almost certainly heard their arguments: Allowing trans people into bathrooms makes women unsafe. Trans people are probably deviants or perverts. They didn’t used to exist back in the good ol’ days. If we let them exist, we’ll have to explain things to our children we don’t want to. Kids aren’t really old enough to know their identity. It’s usually just a phase. Trans people are really just mentally ill. They’re a tiny fraction of the population. God hates them.
Every one of those lines was routinely used against gay people a couple years or decades ago. Most Americans have realized they have no merit at all. The only reason those same arguments work now against another group of people is that the public really doesn’t know much about trans people. Positive media depictions have been rare in the past. Even now, the world’s most famous trans person is kind of an idiot.
So let’s go over the facts.
Trans people identify as a gender other than the one they were labeled with when they were born. Historically speaking, the idea that there are only biological men who identify as male and biological women who identify as female is kind of strange, especially since the lines between biological male and female can be pretty blurry. Cultures from the Roman Empire to India to Oceania to the pre-Columbian Americas have had some concept of trans or gender non-binary people. We also have evidence of them throughout American history, so it’s not even new here.
Being trans used to be heavily stigmatized by the medical and mental health communities, as well as society as a whole, which made getting treatment difficult and discouraged some people from transitioning. When people did transition and get medical care, they were often forced to cut all ties to their past and never acknowledge it in the future. Even when that wasn’t forced, being openly transgender was a risk. Blending in and staying quiet had benefits. Publicly trans people used to be less common and talked about less seriously, when talked about at all. But they aren’t new.
Until a few years ago, gender identity disorder was viewed as a mental illness. Then the mental health community changed their minds, as they did decades ago on homosexuality, and replaced gender identity disorder with gender dysphoria. Dysphoria is distress caused by being trans. Being trans is not a mental illness, and not all trans people have dysphoria. Every major medical organization acknowledges that the best treatment for dysphoria is affirming health care combined with treatment for other mental health issues, such as depression, stress or anxiety. Access to proper medical care and a supportive environment both dramatically lower suicide rates for trans people. Discrimination, bullying, conversion therapy, rejection and denial by friends and family members all tend to make outcomes worse.
To dispel some other myths, very few trans people regret transitioning. People can’t really choose to not be trans or be tortured out of it. If you can’t choose to not be trans, you probably can’t choose to be trans. If people can’t choose to be trans, you’re probably not going to make your kid trans by explaining what trans people are.
Trans students can’t just use the nurse’s bathroom because that means they have fewer places to pee than other students, often in remote places. Trans people do not have a magical ability to hold their pee in public. In fact, the most commonly used anti-androgen in America is also a diuretic. No one has ever falsely claimed to be trans to attack someone in a bathroom. Filming someone in a bathroom, harassment and sexual assault are already illegal in bathrooms, even for trans people. There is also no evidence of a trans person doing any of that in a public facility in America. In fact, trans people are frequently harassed or even assaulted in bathrooms.
The politicians shouting about men in women’s bathrooms know that there isn’t a real issue for women’s safety. They often slip up and say that. The Family Research Council puts their suggested bathroom policies under a page on trans people instead of with a guide to reducing sexual assault. A Republican candidate for North Carolina’s attorney general concluded a rally in defense of the state’s law by promising to “keep our state straight.” The people who testify at school board meetings have a nasty habit of bringing up “the homosexual agenda” when they meant “women’s safety.”
Furthermore if trans people existing actually posed a threat, it could have been dealt with before. They’ve been here since the beginning of the nation. Some places have had anti-discrimination policies for decades. The world didn’t end. There’s not even a clear event that could cause panic when legislators didn’t care before.
What changed was that it became less and less effective to throw lies and hatred at one vulnerable group for personal gain. So the bullies did what bullies do. They found a new, weaker group to attack so the public likes them and their policies again. Over the last decade a majority of Americans have rejected the idea that a bully in Congress or a governor’s mansion, can take rights away from American citizens. I have faith that with more information, Americans can move the country closer to equality again.