When it comes to anti-trans legislation, most of the news coverage we can offer is, unfortunately, depressing. Republicans are doing a great job when it comes to demonizing vulnerable trans people, including and perhaps especially trans youth. While some anti-trans bills have fizzled out in committee, a growing number are not only making it to governors' desks but being signed into law. One glimmer of good news worth celebrating, however, is an anti-trans health care bill that died out in Arizona—thanks in part to a Republican.
State Sen. Tyler Pace voted against SB 1138 on Wednesday, siding with three Democrats on the Health and Human Services Committee. Pace’s vote led to a 4-4 split, which ended the legislation. SB 1138 would have banned gender-affirming, safe, age-appropriate health care for trans youth.
Like with other hearings, trans folks and allies appeared to speak to lawmakers. As Daily Kos has covered, countless trans youth have bravely spoken their truth and appealed to those in power on the basis of humanity, sharing personal stories and anecdotes to try and get conservatives to understand lives beyond their own. No one—and especially not minors—should have to pour out their traumas or “prove” themselves to get equal rights and protections, but with the way Republicans behave, vulnerable people have had to do exactly that time and time again.
At least in this one case, it seems to have made a big difference.
"The testimonies we heard today about the many people who are using these avenues of medical treatments to save lives, to improve lives, I don't want my vote to stop those great things," Pace stated in part during the meeting on Feb. 9.
"When you meet our kids and you see them and you meet our community, a lot of those biases that people carry are dispelled,” Lizette Trujillo, who spoke to NBC News in an interview, said about Pace’s vote. “Because we're just families trying to do the right thing.” Trujillo is the parent of an openly trans son who testified before lawmakers.
As some background on this bill, it forbade any health care professional from providing gender “transition” procedures to anyone under the age of 18. Health professionals would also have been forbidden from referring the patient to any other professional for said treatment. The only exception would be if the person was intersex. Barred treatments would include surgeries as well as hormonal therapy, such as puberty blockers.
The legislation would have also barred any public funding from going toward health care workers or organizations that provided gender-affirming care, including state and local facilities or physicians and other health care workers employed by the state.
The legislation, like others, defines “biological sex” as being based on sex chromosomes and “nonambiguous” genitalia “without regard to an individuals psychological, chosen, or subjective experience of gender.” Even here, transphobia shines out of the legalese by implying that being trans is a choice or subjective “experience” and not someone’s actual, accurate identity.
I’m never eager to give Republicans fanfare for doing the basic, humane thing, and I also don’t want to suggest that we should expect trans people to endlessly expose themselves emotionally to stop this sort of legislation from becoming law. But it’s important to celebrate wins when we have them and to remember that people’s lived experiences can be a poignant way of reaching others. The responsibility of all allies is to speak up alongside and (when appropriate) on behalf of trans folks so they’re not carrying this entire burden on top of everything else.
