New transphobic bills are gathering steam as more anti-transgender sentiment comes to a head in America. These bills seek to cut off trans access to trans rights. A poll form the Public Region Research Institute shows that between 2016 and 2021, American support for policies that limit trans access to bathrooms in public spaces has risen to 47 percent. This is a 12 percent increase within the last five years, according to them.
This is only a piece of what’s been occurring. More than 147 similar proposed laws target the rights of trans people. There are 19 that have already been signed into law, including 13 that affect trans rights and another six that directly impact LGBTQ rights. These are being proposed in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee, and West Virginia in order to limit or outright rescind trans rights to gender-neutral bathrooms. These legislations also limit all activities that a trans student, child, or everyday citizen would enjoy the right to access or participate in, according to Huffpost.
“It’s clear that the anti-trans bills that are centered around sports really just want sports to be something that trans people don’t participate in.” says Rudaján Woods.
The bills range from disallowing trans people access to gender-neutral bathrooms to keeping trans students from participating in sport teams congruent to their gender identity.
The proposal of these bills is part of a larger movement against trans people that started in 2016 with the election of Donald Trump. The then-president of America immediately reversed a decision made in 2016 that allowed trans people to serve in the military. As with everything he did, the first signal that clued the people into this action was a tweet made by Trump on July 26, 2017, “….Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming …”, according to The Hill.
It is unclear if this wave of transphobic sentiment will rescind, but experts such as Rudaján predict it will worse. “We’re only six months into 2021, and it’s already been a devastating year for protecting transgender people, expectation that quite a few more of these will pass in the next few months.”
