While most national media coverage is focused on the deeply concerning directive Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott sent to state agencies about gender-affirming health care and child abuse, Alabama lawmakers have quietly pushed forward legislation (HB 322) to bar trans students from using bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity while at school. The vote came out to 72-24 and now heads to the Alabama state Senate, as reported by NPR.
The bill requires students from kindergarten through 12th grade to use multiperson facilities, like bathrooms and locker rooms, that match the sex on their original birth certificate. This means that for students who have gone through some legal steps to affirm their identity—like updating their photo ID or birth certificate—they’ll have to essentially go back into the closet if they want to have consistency. It’s a hateful, unnecessary nightmare.
"You've got males who are dressing up as females, who are identifying themselves as females, and wanting to use the female bathrooms," Republican Rep. Scott Stadthagen said to lawmakers during a two-hour debate in the House of Representatives on Tuesday. He also suggested this discriminatory bill is about protecting (cisgender) girls. In reality, trans women are far more likely to face harassment and violence in the bathroom. Trans women are not using the women’s bathroom to do anything except literally use the bathroom.
Even the basic language Stadthagen used is transphobic—trans people aren’t playing dress-up. They’re just living like everyone else. Trans women are women, not “males who are dressing up as females.”
Even still, Stadthagen brought up sexual assaults in schools. A problem? Absolutely. But as lawmakers pointed out, there’s nothing to suggest these attacks are disproportionately perpetrated by trans women. In fact, Stadthagen couldn’t offer a number of cases at all.
If you’ve been following anti-trans measures coming out of conservative lawmakers, you won’t be too surprised by this. Republicans continue to say, for example, that people are “concerned” or “worried” about trans girls taking spots on the girls’ team and leaving their cisgender girls in the dust—but no one is citing examples of that actually happening in their communities. People suggest trans women are predators trying to get into bathrooms and locker rooms with cisgender women, but that’s just transphobia talking.
Democratic Rep. Neil Rafferty pointed out that this bill is ultimately just “demonizing” an “already vulnerable” population to “win cheap political points.”
This take sums up the anti-trans movement in general, really. Republicans are eager to distract from their numerous failures—whether it’s COVID-19 deaths, unemployment rates, or poor school performance in their districts—and they’re seeing how easy it is to trick people into being outraged against a vulnerable group. It’s the same method that’s behind critical race theory hysteria and book bans.
That this should happen in Alabama is not terribly surprising as in 2021, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed an anti-trans sports bill into law, targeting trans girls who want to play sports at public schools in the state. More recently, a Senate committee pushed forward a bill to ban gender-affirming health care, like puberty blockers, for people under 18.
In covering trans issues, I’ve noticed situations don’t tend to get a lot of discussion until they’re really, really bad—like the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida or the directive to report gender-affirming care as child abuse in Texas. But all of these bills come from the same place of discrimination and exclusion.
A number of allies have started big Twitter threads about helping trans youth move out of Texas, for example, and while the thought is deeply kind, it’s also short-sighted. Trans people cannot simply move from place to place on the whims of (Republican) lawmakers. Especially not when this discrimination is being written into law all over the country. It’s never been just about sports or the bathroom. Do I understand why the parents of trans children might consider moving? Of course. I’d never tell anyone not to do so. But it’s not a sustainable reaction on a large scale. It leaves the poorest, most vulnerable people behind.
And, frankly, not everyone wants to leave their home—they just want the equal rights they should be guaranteed everywhere. And that’s what we have to hold lawmakers to, no matter what part of the country they represent.
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