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      The GOP’s push for anti-trans laws: Politics Weekly Extra

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      Republican lawmakers have introduced the highest number of anti-trans bills to be filed in a single year in 2021. Joan E Greve speaks to Sam Levin about why some in the GOP are trying to ban transgender children from certain sports teams and limit their access to gender-affirming healthcare.

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      Up to 2% of the youth population of the US are trans children, but lawmakers have introduced more than 110 bills in 2021 regulating their access to healthcare and sports teams. That is the highest number of anti-trans bills to ever be filed in a single year. The volume of laws proposed and the coordinated campaigns behind some of them suggest that this issue has become a central focus of the GOP culture war. But what is the full extent of the proposed legislation? And how many of these bills actually have a chance of becoming laws? Sam Levin and Joan E Greve discuss. Archive: CBS, ABC7, ABC11, PBS News Hour Send us your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More

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      Mapping the anti-trans laws sweeping America: ‘A war on 100 fronts’

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      On the first day of Pride month, the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, signed a law banning transgender girls from participating on girls’ sports teams in middle school through college.It was just one of 13 anti-trans bills conservative lawmakers in the US passed this year, and one of more than 110 bills that were proposed – by far the largest number in US history.This extraordinary legislative attack on trans rights has primarily targeted children and young adults and has dramatically escalated over the last several months, establishing anti-trans policy as a signature priority for state Republicans. The results could be catastrophic for vulnerable children, advocates and affected families say, given that the bills target healthcare, recreation and school life, with policies that intensify discrimination and exclusion of trans kids.The proposals have spanned 37 states, affecting nearly every region of the country, according to Freedom for All Americans, a not-for-profit that has tracked the bills and compiled data for the Guardian.While most legislative sessions have now ended and a majority of the bills failed, there are at least six anti-trans bills that remain active, in addition to the 13 laws that passed.“What we saw was unprecedented, and it was an avalanche,” said Jules Gill-Peterson, a professor of gender, sexuality and women’s studies at the University of Pittsburgh, and an expert on trans kids. “There’s this relentlessness and exhaustion. How do you fight a war on 100 fronts simultaneously?”The most common target: trans athletesThe most common anti-trans proposals were focused on sports, many of them specifically seeking to ban trans girls from competing on girls’ teams. Sports bills limiting the access of trans girls to teams have been passed this year in Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi and West Virginia. Bills that more broadly ban trans kids from playing on the teams that match their gender were signed into law in Alabama, Montana and Tennessee. (Arkansas also passed a second sports-related law that creates an enforcement mechanism for its ban.)In South Dakota, the sports bills failed, but the governor instead signed two executive orders banning trans girls from girls sports teams in K-12, and in college. There are several states where the legislative sessions are ongoing and these types of bans are still under consideration, including Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In total more than 60 sports ban laws were proposed this year across 36 states.“It’s a piece of your life that you work so hard for, and for it just to be taken away is hard,” a 12-year-old swimmer and trans girl in Utah told the Guardian earlier this year. The proposed ban in her state ultimately failed.Other bills target gender-affirming healthcareThe bulk of the other anti-trans bills sought to outlaw gender-affirming healthcare, with at least 36 proposals related to medical treatments across 21 states. In April, Arkansas passed the first ban on affirming healthcare for youth, with a policy that threatens to discipline or revoke the licenses of doctors who provide it. Experts and clinicians had strongly objected, arguing that the state was prohibiting care that is considered standard and best practice, and advocates said it was one of the most extreme anti-trans bills to ever be enacted.Tennessee later adopted a more narrow anti-trans medical bill, which prohibited hormone treatments for “prepubertal minors”. Advocates noted that youth do not receive hormones pre-puberty and that this law would not disrupt existing care, but was nonetheless sending a hateful message.‘No goals here except discrimination’Five states also considered anti-trans bathroom bills, with Tennessee ultimately passing two separate laws. One prohibits trans kids from using bathrooms and locker rooms at school that match their gender. Another requires that if businesses allow trans people to use the correct bathrooms, they have to post a sign that says, “This facility maintains a policy of allowing the use of restrooms by either biological sex, regardless of the designation on the restroom.”Montana passed a law banning trans people from correcting the gender marker on their birth certificates if they haven’t undergone affirming surgery.“State legislatures prioritized mean-spirited, dangerous and unnecessary bills targeting transgender kids at a moment when states are still recovering from the pandemic,” said Hannah Willard, the vice-president of government affairs with Freedom for All Americans. “It was unconscionable.”Civil rights groups have begun filing lawsuits challenging the bills, some of which are scheduled to go into effect in July. These court battles could overturn or temporarily block the laws, but families have already reported fleeing their states to protect their kids. Some advocates have called on people in power to defy the laws, and the district attorney in Nashville has said he would not enforce one of the bathroom bills.Trans youth, who have repeatedly traveled to their state capitols to testify against the bills, said the political debates about their lives have worsened their mental health and anxiety.“It’s hard to describe the magnitude of damage that has been done,” said Gill-Peterson. “Even in the states where the bills didn’t pass, trans young people are living in an environment where prominent politicians have stated that it’s open season on their lives, that they don’t deserve basic human rights, that their lives are expandable or wrong, and that the people who love and care for them are somehow enemies of the Republican party.”She said she feared that the next legislative cycle would bring even more extreme bills, adding, “There were no goals here except discrimination, and cheap political points. And now, we are living in a more policed, more dangerous country for trans young people.” More

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      Caitlyn Jenner opposes transgender girls competing in girls’ school sports

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      Caitlyn Jenner, the former Olympic champion and reality TV personality now running for California governor, has said she opposes transgender girls competing in girls’ sports at school.The 1976 decathlon Olympic gold medalist, who came out as a transgender woman in 2015, told a TMZ reporter it was “a question of fairness”.“That’s why I oppose biological boys who are trans competing in girls’ sports in school,” Jenner said on Saturday in a brief interview conducted in a Malibu parking lot. “It just isn’t fair. And we have to protect girls’ sports in our schools.”It was Jenner’s first comment on the controversial issue since announcing her candidacy to replace Governor Gavin Newsom in a recall election.Dozens of US states propose to ban transgender women and girls from competing in women’s sports, moves at odds with President Joe Biden’s push for greater LGBTQ inclusion.In March, the International Federation of Sports Medicine (IFSM), which represents 125,000 physicians in 117 countries, said data is scant on the advantages or otherwise of trans athletes, but that each sport needed rules to meet its own physical demands.Trans men have sparked less controversy, as the extra strength that comes from testosterone taken for transitioning is widely seen as no barrier to safe and fair competition.The global debate has united social conservatives and some top sportswomen against trans activists and supportive athletes. Opponents say trans women have advantages gained in male puberty that are not sufficiently reduced by hormone treatment.Jenner was married to Kris Kardashian, creating the setting for the Keeping Up with the Kardashians reality TV show. A Republican, she supported Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election but criticized his administration for discriminatory actions against transgender people.Many transgender-rights advocates have criticized Jenner, saying she has failed to convince them that she is a major asset to their cause. More

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      Florida lawmakers pass ‘cruel’ bill banning trans women and girls in school sports

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      Transgender women and girls will be banned from participating in school sports in Florida, if the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signs what critics call a “cruel and horrific” bill rushed through by state legislators in a controversial late-night session.The politicians revived, then passed, the bill that prohibits trans athletes competing in high school and college sports in short order on Wednesday, employing what opponents have called “shady, backroom tactics” to bind it to unrelated legislation on charter schools.A previous, standalone bill passed the Florida house earlier this month, but died in the state senate after warnings from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) that it would not stage championship games and tournaments in states with discriminatory policies.“It’s horrific,” said Gina Duncan, the director of transgender equality at Equality Florida. “This bill shows not only their lack of humanity but their astounding ignorance about the transgender community, not understanding that trans girls are girls and transgender women are women.“Despite impassioned pleas by legislators who have gay and transgender kids and grandkids imploring supporters of this bill to understand the harm that it will do, Republicans followed their marching orders to implement this orchestrated culture war and move this bill forward.”The move in Florida, where both chambers are controlled by Republicans, is part of a wave of anti-trans legislation sweeping across the nation, with dozens of measures proposed or passed in numerous states.Earlier this month, Asa Hutchison, the governor of Arkansas, vetoed a state law banning gender-confirming treatments for trans youth – which the state legislature immediately overturned.Joe Biden reacted to the Republican anti-trans push in his first joint address to Congress on Wednesday night. “To all transgender Americans watching at home, especially the young people: you’re so brave. I want you to know your president has your back,” he said.The House of Representatives passed the landmark Equality Act in February, but it faces an uncertain future in the equally divided Senate.The sponsor of Florida’s original trans-sports bill, the state representative Kaylee Tuck, told colleagues the law was necessary because trans athletes had an unfair advantage in women’s athletic competitions. “We don’t need to wait until there’s a problem in Florida for us to act,” she said, acknowledging that there was no evidence of the issue causing problems in the state.Both the NCAA and the Florida high school athletic association have policies that allow trans athletes to compete on teams consistent with their gender identity, and opponents of the new bill say it would result in girls being kicked off those teams.“This cruel legislation is creating an issue where one doesn’t exist, picking on young people for political gain,” Charlie Crist, a Democratic US congressman and Florida’s former governor, said in a statement that called on DeSantis to veto the bill.“I challenge Republican legislators in Tallahassee to imagine being a kid who is in this situation, what it says to them to be singled out by lawmakers in such a mean-spirited way.”Crist said he had a different message for every trans kid in Florida. “You are welcome here and you are loved. And millions of Floridians feel the same way as I do. We’re ready to fight for your right to play and live as exactly who you are.”The earlier version of the bill, which passed the Florida House 77-40 on 14 April, contained a dispute resolution clause that would have allowed a school to inspect the genitals of any athlete subject to a complaint. The amended version of the bill passed by the Florida senate allowed scrutiny of a student’s birth certificate to suffice.“We are told it’s a compromise because we’re no longer inspecting the genitals of children in schools,” the Democratic house representative Carlos Guillermo Smith, who identifies as LGBTQ, said on Wednesday during the house debate. “Members, not inspecting children’s genitals is not a compromise.”Duncan, the Equality Florida activist, said opponents will lobby DeSantis to reject the bill.“It’s terribly harmful to our transgender young people, and there will be substantive revenue drains from passing this bill because the NCAA has made it very clear that they are going to be collaborating with states that do not discriminate, that are inclusive and welcoming for all,” she said.“Economic recovery from the pandemic is so critical to states and to the country. Instead of focusing on that, and on how we provide funding to support people, feed people and house people, we’re passing a bill to discriminate against transgender young people?”DeSantis has not indicated if he will sign the bill. The governor was heavily criticized in 2019 for omitting from a remembrance proclamation that many of the 49 victims of the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando came from the LGBTQ+ community.Staffers blamed it on a mistake and the proclamation was reissued. More

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      Arkansas governor vetoes bill banning medical treatment for young trans people

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      The Republican governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, has vetoed a controversial bill which would have stopped anyone under the age of 18 getting treatment involving gender reassignment surgery or medication in the southern state.Arkansas would have been the first state to take such a move. Its Republican-controlled legislature could still enact the measure, however, since it takes only a simple majority to override an Arkansas governor’s veto.The bill, known to supporters as the Safe Act, would prohibit doctors from providing gender-confirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery to anyone under 18, or from referring them to other providers for the treatment.Hutchinson’s veto followed pleas from pediatricians, social workers and parents of transgender youth who said the measure would harm a community already at risk for depression and suicide.A number of measures targeting transgender people have advanced in states controlled by Republicans this year. The governors of Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee have signed laws banning transgender girls and women from competing on school sports teams consistent with the gender identity.Hutchinson recently signed a measure allowing doctors to refuse to treat someone because of moral or religious objections, a law opponents have said could be used to turn away LGBTQ patients.Last month, the Guardian interviewed a number of young transgender Americans about such threats to their rights and what they can do to fight them.Corey Hyman, 15 and from Missouri, said: “It’s going to take a lot of us to stop these bills. It’s going to take a lot out of us, out of our parents, out of our supporters. [This fight will] probably go on for many years.“I’m worried and I’m scared that even more bills are going to be put through. Sometimes we don’t get notice about the bills until 24 hours before. It’s like, ‘By the way, tomorrow’s a senate hearing that could quite literally end your life.’“They just don’t care.” More

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      'We shouldn't still be fighting for equal rights': LGBTQ+ bill faces tough battle ahead

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      Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterThe US House of Representatives voted to pass a landmark bill that would establish federal anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people, setting up a tough battle in the Senate to turn the proposal into law. “We shouldn’t still be having to fight for equal rights,” said Nic Talbott, a 27-year-old Ohio resident, who was forced to abandon his plans of joining the military due to Donald Trump’s ban on trans service members. “We should be able to go to work, find housing and just live our lives without having to worry about whether or not we’re going to be excluded just for being transgender or gay.”The Equality Act passed the Democratic-led House in a 224-206 vote, with three Republicans joining the Democrats. The bill amends existing civil rights laws to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation and provides clear legal protections for transgender and queer people in employment, housing, education, public accommodations, federally funded programs and other sectors.But the proposal’s future is uncertain. Joe Biden has said signing the bill into law is one of his top priorities, but it first has to clear the Senate, where GOP lawmakers could block the legislation with a filibuster. The Equality Act builds on the landmark US supreme court ruling last year prohibiting employment discrimination against LGBTQ+ workers. Biden has already issued executive orders to defend trans rights, undoing some of Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ policies and directing federal departments to follow the guidance of the supreme court decision. But advocates say the Equality Act is vital because it would enshrine protections into law beyond employment, and prevent future administrations from rolling back anti-discrimination rules.The act would be particularly significant for LGBTQ+ residents in the 27 states that do not have anti-discrimination laws on the books for trans and queer people, where it is legal to deny them housing based on their identities.“Legislation like this is crucial for shifting the tides for trans folks, especially in red states,” said Aria Sa’id, the executive director of the Compton’s Transgender Cultural District, a community group in San Francisco. Trans people flee to California from other states where they have fewer rights or access to services, she said: “We’re coming from other places in the US where we are not safe. We come to San Francisco for refuge … We should be protected in the law no matter where we live.”The Equality Act fight comes amid unprecedented attacks on trans rights in the US and overseas. Republican lawmakers in at least 20 states are currently pushing local bills targeting trans people, backed by rightwing groups. Many of the bills seek to block trans-affirming healthcare or ban trans youth and adults from certain spaces, including by prohibiting them from using the correct bathroom or participating in sports teams that match their gender.Some extremist GOP members of Congress have supported those efforts and have been promoting misinformation and transphobic hate speech this week as the House debated the Equality Act.David B Cruz, a constitutional law professor at University of California, Los Angeles, said federal protections would, in effect, make it illegal for states to enforce discriminatory rules meant to exclude trans people. The Equality Act would also make it harder for the supreme court, which has become more conservative since last year’s ruling, to carve out trans rights in the next LGBTQ+ discrimination case it reviews, he said.Legislation like this is crucial for shifting the tides for trans folks, especially in red states“It would be a monumental achievement,” said Cruz. “It’s not always simple or easy for people to enforce their statutory rights, but even having a federal law that expressly protects those rights on the books, by itself will deter discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.” It would help disrupt “cycles of poverty, due to anti LGBTQ+ prejudice”, he added.Some Republican legislators are vocally opposing the act by citing concerns about religious freedoms. But Cruz noted that a super-majority of Americans in every state support anti-discrimination laws for LGBTQ+ people, including a majority of Republican voters.Khloe Rios-Wyatt, the president at Alianza Translatinx, a Latinx trans rights group in Orange county, California, said she faced discrimination for being trans when she was terminated from her first job out of college: “It can be traumatizing. You lose your income and then you’re facing potential homelessness.”She said she regularly talks to trans people who were denied housing even though they qualified: “You show up in person and they tell you it’s no longer available. It breaks my heart and it has to change.”Bamby Salcedo, the president of the TransLatin@ Coalition in Los Angeles, noted that 2020 was the deadliest year on record for violence against trans and gender non-conforming people, the majority people of color. While the Equality Act could make a difference for the broader LGBTQ+ community, it would not end discrimination for trans people, she said.“The reality is that even in California and places that are super progressive, trans people continue to experience discrimination while trying to obtain employment, housing, healthcare and the basic things we need to exist … There is still a lot of work that needs to be done.”There are at least nine LGBTQ+ members in the House and two in the Senate, and supporters in Congress spoke of their trans and queer family members while championing the bill. Polling released earlier this week confirmed that more Americans than ever before now identify as LGBTQ+. More

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      Republican lawmaker apologizes after mocking Biden's trans health nominee

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      A Pennsylvania legislator has apologised for sharing an image mocking the appearance of the recently departed state health secretary, Dr Rachel Levine, a transgender woman nominated to serve in the Biden administration.State representative Jeff Pyle, a Republican from Armstrong and Indiana counties in western Pennsylvania, said on Facebook he “had no idea” the post mocking Levine “would be … received as poorly as it was”, and said “tens of thousands of heated emails assured me it was”.“I owe an apology and I offer it humbly,” Pyle said, not specifically apologizing to Levine or other transgender people. He later apologized “to all affected”.Levine has not commented. The state health department did not immediately respond to an email seeking a reaction to Pyle’s post or his apology. Comments on his Facebook page had called for him to resign.Joe Biden tapped Levine a day before his inauguration be assistant secretary of health, leaving her poised to become the first openly transgender federal official confirmed by the US Senate.Pyle, who was first elected in 2004, cited a conversation with the Democratic leader in the state House “who explained the error of my post”. He said he did not come up with the meme but merely shared it, though he said he should not have done so.“From this situation I have learned to not poke fun at people different than me and to hold my tongue,” he wrote. “Be a bigger man.”Pyle wrote that he would leave Facebook “soon” but was not resigning and would focus on a Butler Community College project and the economic revitalization of Pennsylvania amid the Covid-19 pandemic. More

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      Trans women in Ice custody already suffered sexual harassment and abuse. Then came Covid-19

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      [embedded content]
      It was August, and Katalina stood sobbing in the middle of the cell at the La Palma immigration detention center. She tried not to touch anything – she had seen guards escort out a man who was coughing and trembling just minutes before.
      It felt like punishment. Shortly before, she had reported being sexually harassed by another detainee in a male unit of the La Palma correctional center in Arizona where they were being held. Now, she was standing in an isolation cell.
      Katalina was worried about contracting Covid-19. The cell she had been placed in hadn’t been cleaned. After standing in the room for five hours, she withdrew her complaint. She had heard that other detainees had spent weeks in segregation after speaking up. It was a risk she wasn’t willing to take.
      When a detainee grabbed her arm and left a bruise a few months later, Katalina didn’t say anything either.
      Covid has torn through immigration detention centers across the United States. Since the start of the pandemic, at least 7,202 people held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) have been infected with the virus, and at least eight have died. LGBTQ+ populations in immigration custody have echoed the stories of other detainees who have complained that Ice has failed to institute adequate protocols to curb the spread of the virus and has not provided ample protective equipment and medical care. But LGBTQ+ people in La Palma say the pandemic has created further challenges, making it harder for them to escape the gender-based harassment and violence many of them have long faced while locked up. More