Meet the Activists Fighting 2021’s Onslaught of Anti-Trans Bills

A diverse group of civil rights advocates, businesses, and everyday citizens are working to stop lawmakers from attacking trans youth.
Transgender people and their supporters gather in Parliament Square to protest
Wiktor Szymanowicz/Getty Images

 

When Elliot Vogue was a sophomore in high school, he knew he needed to create his own community while transitioning.

The 17 year old lives in a self-described “small, conservative, homophobic” town in South Dakota, an unwelcoming climate that inspired him to create a Gay-Straight Alliance at his high school. His hope was that queer kids could find each other and foster a supportive space while navigating their teenage years. After the school’s administration refused to greenlight the club, Vogue formed his own on-campus group, meeting without faculty supervision and in secret to avoid harassment.

Despite the potential risk of being discovered, Vogue said that organizing the group — which numbered around 10 students — was a matter of necessity. Before creating the GSA, his transition was hard. Family members would repeatedly tell Vogue that his identity was “just a phase.”

“I went through school feeling pretty alone,” Vogue tells them., “especially when I came out in middle school and basically all my friends dropped me.”

Now, Vogue is four months into taking testosterone and said he is “at a great point in his transition” as he prepares to go off to college in Iowa. Before he leaves, he is working to get his name and gender marker changed on his documents, but unfortunately, his home state has attempted to stand in his way.

Earlier this year, South Dakota attempted to pass House Bill 1076, a legislative proposal that would have made it illegal for trans people to change the gender marker on their documents. The bill was introduced by state Rep. Fred Deutsch (R-Florence), the author of several previous anti-trans bills put forward in the Mount Rushmore State. In 2016, Deutsch sponsored a bathroom bill vetoed by former Gov. Dennis Daugaard, and he has since signed on to legislation seeking to allow health workers to turn away patients in the name of their religious beliefs, among other efforts.

But with Vogue’s help, trans activists were able to defeat HB 1076 — one of a handful of anti-trans bills put forward in the South Dakota legislature in 2021. After having been put in touch with legislators by The Transformation Project, a South Dakota-based group that supports trans youth in the state, Vogue testified before the Senate committee to help defeat the bill.

“I need to be living my life worrying about college and not my rights being taken away,” he told a committee earlier this month, in comments cited by the Associated Press.

As he testified that day, Vogue said he thought about everything that his fellow LGBTQ+ classmates had gone through just to have a safe space to be themselves. “It really hurts having to hide away because just when we feel safe and understood, South Dakota legislators remember how much they hate trans people,” Vogue says. “I just wanted to be a kid.”

The efforts in South Dakota show how activists have coalesced to fight back as Republican lawmakers rapidly advance anti-trans legislation aimed at harming trans youth. Over 20 states have introduced similar pieces of legislation in 2021, which are mostly centered around banning trans girls from participating in high school sports and banning doctors from treating trans patients. But while the attacks on their right to exist are unprecedented, trans youth and their allies have joined together to ensure that no one has to be invisible just to survive.

The Transformation Project, one such group, has been instrumental in helping form a coalition of LGBTQ+, civil rights, and other advocacy groups that pool efforts and resources to oppose anti-trans legislation. According to its executive director, Susan Williams, South Dakota’s small population gives it an advantage: Lawmakers are easier to contact, so when the legislature is not in session, advocates work to better educate politicians about trans youth.

In addition to forming relationships with legislators, Williams says the coalition hosts letter-writing campaigns, organizes protests, and even offers workshops and trainings to help create the next generation of young activists.

“Once [legislators] are able to meet a trans person, or a family with a trans child and hear their stories, they are able to realize that this is a human issue, and not just an issue that's on paper on a bill,” Williams tells them. “What we see is, once we can share a personal story with them, then they're much more open to being educated, and see this as an issue that actually affects real life.”

Activists have formed similar coalitions in Montana, the home of House Bill 112, a proposal that seeks prevent transgender girls from participating in school sports. The legislation was one of two bills authored by state Rep. Jon Fuller (R-Whitefish), who also sponsored a proposal to criminalize doctors for providing trans-affirming healthcare to children under the age of 18. While the latter piece of legislation, known as HB 113, died on its third reading in the Montana House, HB 112 passed in January by a 61-38 margin.

A group called the Free and Fair Coalition has formed to stop the latter bill, bringing together local business leaders, local clergy, LGBTQ+ rights organizations, and trans people affected by HB 112’s potential passage.

As was the case in South Dakota, the coalition has also brought families from Montana to testify to share their stories in an effort to win over legislators. Helena parent Jamie Gabrielli — who has a trans son, Justin — felt she could not sit back and watch legislators debate his existence. After Gabrielli and her son were approached to testify this year, she originally put the issue on the backburner before realizing how quickly legislators were moving to pass these dangerous bills.

“These are bills that are causing harm for kids who already are more vulnerable and need extra support,” Gabrielli tells them. “At the end of the day, the real issue we're debating with these bills is whether or not transgender kids have the same rights that all kids have. In my mind, that's not a debate. That's just the truth.”

Having been an advocate for survivors of sexual and domestic violence in the past, Gabrielli sprung into action working to help defeat these bills. In addition to drafting written testimony, she has been giving as many interviews as possible and helping others connect to their local lawmakers. When HB 113 was voted down, she started calling as many legislators she should that voted against the bill to thank them, expressing relief that her son would continue to receive life-saving health care.

“That night was really a huge surge of reaching out and saying: ‘This is what this meant for me as a mom,’” she says, adding that the bill would have been “devastating” for her family if passed.

A common denominator pushing these bills is Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative lobby group that helped draft Idaho’s HB 500, the first anti-trans sports bill signed into law in the United States. As them. previously reported, the Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group has a long record of pushing legislation trying to undermine the rights of LGBTQ+ people. The organization has fought against the legalization of homosexuality, pushed anti-trans bathroom bills, and lobbied to preserve laws forcing transgender sterilization in Europe.

It’s unclear if ADF will be successful at lobbying Montana or South Dakota to discriminate against trans youth, but civil rights attorneys are prepared to do whatever is necessary to protect this vulnerable population. Before HB 113 was voted down by the Montana House, ACLU of Montana Executive Director Caitlin Borgmann told them. that her team was already exploring legal action against the birth certificate bill.

“There’s no doubt,” she said at the time. “We will sue.”

Utah Lt. Governor, Spencer Cox
“If you have not spent time with transgender youth, then I would encourage you to pause on this issue,” he told state lawmakers.

The ACLU has already been successful in past efforts to stop anti-trans legislation. After Idaho’s HB 500 was signed into law 2020, the organization sued the state, saying the law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. A U.S. district court agreed, issuing a preliminary injunction stopping the law from going into effect. The courts also blocked HB 509, which would make it illegal for trans Idahoans to update their birth certificates to reflect their gender.

Since the defeat of South Dakota’s own anti-trans birth certificate bill, Vogue has continued the process to update his gender marker while he prepares for college. His paperwork is filed, and he has a court hearing on March 1.

The process has been exciting — and thankfully, a little anticlimactic. Despite the frustration of jumping through hoop after hoop, Vogue says he cannot wait to have an ID that doesn’t feature his deadname or an “F” marking his sex. No longer will he face being potentially outed to total strangers, along with invasive questions about why the name and gender don’t match his gender presentation.

“It is annoying to have a whole hearing for it,” he says. “I don’t see the necessity, [but] in the eyes of the law, I’ll be male and they can’t change that. It feels like I’m finally being recognized for who I am.”

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