The anti-trans laws are all about erasing LGBTQA people and controlling women
Mark Joseph Stern has written an interesting article on Alliance Defending Freedom, the organization that has written most of the transphobic laws in the US right now.
This organization has spent years which has spent years fighting against reproductive women’s rights and LGBTQ equality:
Over the last 28 years, the ADF has defended laws prohibiting same-sex intimacy; opposed marriage, adoption, and surrogacy for same-sex couples; attacked LGBTQ non-discrimination laws, as well as bans on conversion therapy for minors; argued in favor of laws that require transgender people to undergo sterilization before legally changing their gender; challenged access to contraception; and supported the criminalization of abortion at any stage of pregnancy.
Its work stretches beyond the United States; ADF has, for instance, championed Belize’s archaic anti-sodomy law, which allows for the persecution and imprisonment of gay people.
The ADF’s overarching position on gay people is that they should either be converted to heterosexuality or fired from their jobs and imprisoned because of their sexual orientation. This stance has earned the group a controversial designation as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
So ADF is basically trying to use the government to force the American people to live up to its 19th century ideas of proper gender roles and sexuality. The goal is to force LGBTQA kids back into the closet and entice the the rest of the population to police the same kids out of existence.
First they tried to get the local governments to implement bathroom bills, stigmatizing trans kids. That did not work. Now they are trying two different tactics: Using sports to discriminate trans kids and using the health system to erase their existence.
Note that none of this is based on popular demand. They know that they are losing “the culture war”, as they call it. The younger generations support trans people. This is why they are now declaring war on compassion and decency, appealing to prejudices instead of facts.
There is simply no evidence that transgender women are dominating student sports and denying cisgender women the benefits that come with athletic excellence, like scholarships, as Stern points out.
And given the transphobia found in our societies the idea that kids chose to be trans because it is fashionable makes no sense. Moreover, no one is allowed to transition on a whim. Not socially and definitely not medically. The problems are all made up.
It is blatantly clear that they now are using fear of harassment to stop LGBTQA youth from acknowledging their true selves:
North Carolina’s Youth Health Protection Act takes the principles embodied in previous ADF-approved anti-trans laws a few steps further. Under the bill, it’s not just minors who cannot access gender-affirming care, but also adults aged 18–20. Schools are not only required to discriminate against transgender students, but also to out them to their parents. Schools must also inform parents if their children are gay, bisexual, and nonbinary students, since these identities also qualify as “gender nonconformity.”
Did anyone really think this was going to stop with bathrooms? Stern asks. I would add: Do you really think they are going to stop with transgender kids? Of course not: They will go after the rest of the LGBTQA spectrum next, while at the same time intensifying their attacks against women.
Originally published at https://trans-express.lgbt.
