Less than a month into 2025, Montana has become the first state to advance an anti-trans bill this year. House Bill 121 determines “exactly two sexes” to exist within the state, and will affect all traditionally gender-separated areas such as restrooms, changing rooms, and sleeping areas. The two sexes the bill outlines, male and female, are to be solely determined by their “corresponding sets of gametes” and would apply to all state-funded institutions such as public schools, domestic violence shelters, prisons, and other public buildings. Being in a gendered space with someone of the “other” sex (or what someone determines to be another sex) would be able to be punishable by lawsuit against whoever is in charge of the public area.
The bill, sponsored by Montana House Representative Kerri Seekins-Crowe, had hearings on January 10 and passed on it’s second reading on January 15 in a 58-to-42 vote along party lines (with trans members of the House present). The next step is debating it in the state’s Senate, which hasn’t occurred yet, and isn’t yet slated to due to some bureaucratic gridlock. Speakers at the hearings included an anti-trans campaigner named Riley Gaines, and a representative from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a far-right legal group. In addition, Seekins-Crowe has made some concerning comments, including saying publicly that she would rather her own child kill themselves than let them transition to another gender in 2023 (she later claimed that the comments were taken out of context).
This is far from the first anti-trans bathroom bill passed on a state level, despite being the first this year. For example, Texas passed a bill in November of last year that places a bounty on trans people using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. Concerningly, this reflects on a national scale somewhat as well; on his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order intending to declare everyone the sex they were assigned at birth (and, within the wording, has accidentally made every U.S. citizen female). On a legislative level, a series of proposed changes to Title IX under the Biden administration that would add disallowing discrimination based on trans and beyond-binary identities to the law was struck down and is being actively acted against in the House at this very moment. The best course of action within these scary times is to speak with your representatives, get involved on a local level, and take care of yourselves the best you can.
