Monday Mini: Trans Laws in the US

Anney and Samantha take a survey on recent proposed legislations and initiatives around trans rights in the United States.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Danny and Samantha, and welcome to stuff.
I never told you protection of I heart radio. Yes,
I don't know if we've never talked about this, but
were you. Were you into sports in school? Uh? So?

(00:26):
I really wish I could say yes, because I enjoy sports,
so once I get caught up in something, I really
really like it. So for a little while, I was
really into football because I really liked college football. And
this was after I left college, which is funny. I
really wish we had a soccer team. I would absolutely
have tried to play that. I think I would love that,
but we didn't have that available in little Ela j, Georgia.

(00:47):
So growing up I really wasn't into that much of sports.
I was more into I did do some cheerleading. I
know everybody likes to debate about what that is, but
I loved it. I love the dancing, I love the stunts.
It was really fun. But yeah, outside of that, not really.
I think I just got two winded when I was
like and I needed money, so my path went down

(01:09):
jobs rather than extracurricular activities. Right. Yeah, I was really
into spurce. I was really into soccer and volleyball. I
loved volleyball, but my school was also small and they
didn't have a team. But after I left the town
I came from to lon Aga, it's grown quite a
bit and now they have a volleyball team and I'm
really mad about that, but good for you. But right

(01:29):
my school did too. Of course, I think it was
like ten years after, so like immediately after, but there
was soccer because I think my niece was playing. I'm like,
good for you playing a soccer I really wish I
could have. Yes, yeah, me too. I'm just saying like
I was kind of lightly into a lot of like
I played a lot of basketball with my friends, and
I'm swimming. I loved swimming. Of course I didn't really

(01:50):
have access to a pool because that was kind of
a also came after I I left, But when I did,
it's great. Yeah, But then, as I guess before, I
did get really selfconscious about my body and I kind
of dropped out of all of those things, which bothers
me to this day. And then I was in marching band,
which isn't a sport, but it was physical, it was competitive.

(02:13):
It was competitive. I had to go twenty five yards
of the room between my legs while playing a clarinet
in less than ten moves. God, that's weird. It was impossible.
They had to change it because we kept falling over.
I want to see the blooper will on that lie.
I think it exists. And we got judged on a

(02:33):
competition once and I just remember the judge saying so
dryly like, oh, there goes a clarinet down to the ground.
So you had a commentator that's even better. It was
quite embarrassing. So today we wanted to talk about and
this is going to come back into play in this episode.

(02:55):
I promise we're going to talk about some laws around
trance people that have been passed in the United States.
We sently are laws that have been floated. Yeah, we
want to discuss some of those. Disclaimer the data's March
one as we record this, and things do change very rapidly.
Soon after taking the office, President Joe Biden released the
Memorandum on Advancing the Human Rights of Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer,

(03:16):
and intersex Persons around the World, calling on American agencies
operating internationally to quote ensure that United States diplomacy and
foreign assistants promote and protect the human rights of lgbt
q I plus persons, among other things, It decrees that
these organizations should work to decriminalize the l g b
t q I plus community in their respective countries, providing

(03:37):
protection for l g b t q I plus refugees
and asylum seekers, addressing human rights abuses, and joining forces
with other international organizations that are similarly aligned. And this
was after Obama did something similar inn So here's a
quote from them, the random quote around the globe, including
here at home. Brave Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and

(03:58):
intersex or the lgbtq plus activists are fighting for equal
protection under the law, freedom from violence, and recognition of
their fundamental human rights. The United States belongs at the
forefront of the struggle, speaking out in standing strong for
our most dearly held values. You shall be the policy
of the United States to pursue an end to violence
and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity,

(04:21):
or expression, or sex characteristics, and to lead by the
power of our example and the cause of advancing the
human rights of lgbt q I plus persons around the world,
and biden instead of this, when we defend equal rights
of the people the world over, of women and girls
of LGBTQ individuals, indigenous communities, and people with disabilities, the
people of every ethnic background in religion. We also ensure

(04:43):
that these rights are protected for our own children here
in America. The memorandum gives one hundred days for the
administration to undo any directives or initiatives that conflict with it,
specifically calling out the Trump era stuff that came out
of the Trump era. Biden's administration also aims to halt
the HI the AIDS epidemic, tackle violence against trans women
of color, ending exemptions to anti discrimination laws against the

(05:06):
lgbt Q plus community, and combating homelessness amongst that community.
This administration also repealed Trump's ban on transgender people serving
in the military, and just a f y I data
suggest almost nine thousand trans people served at the military
in twenty nineteen, and Biden signed an executive order that
cited post doc versus Clayton County, Georgia to direct federal

(05:27):
agencies to adhere to that ruling that found that discrimination
in the workplace based on sexual orientation or gender identity
violated Title seven of the Civil Rights Act of nineteen
sixty four, So to address violence targeted towards the trans community,
Biden pass an executive order called Preventing a Combating Discrimination
on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation. It

(05:48):
decreed that Jim's health centers and shelters should not discriminate
against women. As you might imagine, that was an unfortunate
and media backlash to all of this and is a
continued debate. As we see. On Biden's very first day
in office, the hashtag biden erased women trended on Twitter.
This was largely based on the misguided and transphobic idea
that doling away with MP's definition of quote biological women

(06:11):
would really mess up the fairness of sports. Yes, and meanwhile,
conservatives all over the United States have introduced and in
some cases passed anti trans legislation, particularly in the world
of sports. In Montana, for instance, lawmakers proposed banning transgender
girls from participating in competitive sports. Tennessee Representative Bruce Griffey said,
when arguing for such a bill, what if one of

(06:33):
the boys is not doing well so he pretends to
be transgender to win. I'm protecting a discriminated class that's
girls and women in sports, and there was the same
Women's Sports Act in South Carolina. North Dakota House passed
a ban on transgender students from joining teams that matched
their gender identity, as well as withholding funds from events
that do allow trans athletes to play on teams aligned

(06:55):
with their gender identity. Right. And also there's somethings going
around in Georgia which I just don't even want to
mention her name, Green was trying to pass about actually
giving exams, uh, gender exams, and it's just an absurd
and that has not passed obviously, that's just being floated around.
But the way people are kind of backing her up,
and when I say people, I mean her supporters, it's

(07:17):
really sickening. And just to be clear, there is no
research to back this assertion up none, And in fact,
what research that has been done on young trans athletes
found that they face extremely difficult obstacles. They face gender dysphoria, trauma,
and discrimination, to name a few. And we already know
the amount of hate crimes and the amount of just

(07:39):
bullying for any l g pt q I plus is absurd,
and especially those in the transgender community. So this is
this is kind of that same argument about the band
on the bathrooms? What anyway? And according to the author
of Whipping Girl, a trans sexual woman on sexism and
the scapegoating of feminity, Julia Serrano, quote, there's a certain

(07:59):
amount of society respectful wanting to be a man. People
are a lot more disturbed concerned by feminine boys than
they are by masculine girls. And um Idaho became the
first state to institute quote, sex examinations as a prerequisite
before playing sports, and a federal judge allowed for a
preliminary injunction, saying, quote, the state has not identified a
legitimate interest served by the act other than an invalid

(08:22):
interest of excluding transgender women and girls from women's sports
entirely regardless of their physiological characteristics, calling the examinations quote humiliating.
Then you've got South Dakota Representative Fred Deutsch, who last
year attempted to criminalize surgery and hormone blockers related to
trans people after hundreds protested it failed, But he wasn't done,

(08:42):
proposing a bill that would prevent people from changing the
sex on their birth certificates, barring clerical error. There's also
Alabama's Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act proposing felony charges
for healthcare workers who offered prescriptions or surgeries to that
quote intended to alter the appearance of a miner's gender
our delay puberty, with certain exceptions, enlabeling these procedures and

(09:04):
medications dangerous and uncontrolled human medical experimentation. According to the
a c l U, a record year in terms of
anti trans bills, and after Biden reinstated protection for trans folks,
over a dozen states challenged said protections. Forty four trans
people were killed, and the highest on record, many of
them black and brown women. So, yeah, there is so

(09:25):
much work to do, and this is just the beginning,
and there are a lot of things happening right now
and things that are conversations that are being had, and
a Biden administration has taken some good steps, but there's yeah,
always more to be done. And uh, I would love
to to keep this conversation going and and let any

(09:47):
listeners let us know if there are pieces of this conversation,
especially around the world, that we can touch on. And
didn't want to say congrats to Elliott Page. I'm becoming
the first transman to appear on the cover of Time magazine,
right and it was such a really inspiring article. Also,
we're still watching and seeing what's happening with Dr Rachel Levine,
who may be one of the first transgender cabinet level appointee,

(10:09):
so we'll definitely be watching that as well. Yes, yes
we will. So let us know if there's anything else
we should be keeping an eye on. Listeners, We're counting
on you. You can email us at stuff in Your
mom Stuff at ihara dot com. You can find us
on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram as
stuff I Never Told You. Thanks as always to our
super producer Christina. Thank you Christina, and thanks to you

(10:30):
for listening Stuff I've Never Told his protection of I
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