Sanjana Samudrala

20 June 2023

With every day and every age, a new group of people seem to be targeted. In the 1900s, it was gay people. People were told that they were grooming children, that their way of life was a sin. People were taught that homosexuality is a sin, one that should not be practiced. Now the target is trans people. The same rhetoric, the same hate speech, the same reasons, are now being directed towards trans individuals. In this article, I will discuss three areas in society where trans people are being targeted and discriminated against through state legislation: bathroom bans, healthcare bans, and sports bans. Some of the legislative examples I will explore are bathroom bills, bills on banning gender-affirming surgery, and Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.

Introduction

Transgender people have existed since ancient times. Many cultures across the globe have recognized the existence of multiple genders, while science has distinguished a difference between sex and gender[16]. Public organizations, like the Women’s Health Organization recognizes that sex refers to biological differences in males, females, and intersex people, while gender is a social construct of characteristics that are given to men, women, boys, and girls[19]. Despite all this information and knowledge, backed up by scientific research and peer-reviewed studies, policymakers are passing laws and introducing new legislation to discriminate against transgender individuals. These laws actively violate Title VII, which “makes it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against someone based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” and Title IX, which “ protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance”[17][18]. These laws have significant impacts on the lives of transgender individuals, especially on trans youth.

Bathroom Bans       

“A bathroom bill is legislation that seeks to allow or ban transgender individuals from using public facilities, particularly bathrooms, that correspond to their gender identity rather than to the sex they were assigned at birth”[1].

In 2016, at least a dozen states passed some form of repeal on anti-discriminatory laws against the LGBT community. Among those states was North Carolina, which was one of the first to implement bathroom bills[2]. North Carolina passed a law known as the House Bill 2, or HB2, which was “An act to provide for single-sex multiple occupancy bathroom and changing facilities in schools and public agencies and to create statewide consistency in regulation of employment and public accommodations”[3]. The bill was based around public bathrooms and changing rooms being used by people based on their biological sex at birth. Fortunately, in 2017, House Bill 142 was passed to repeal House Bill 2, which allowed for the “access to multiple occupancy restrooms, showers, or changing facilities,” which made bathrooms more inclusive for trans people, allowing them to use bathrooms . However, this only repealed part of the effects, as House Bill 142 still prohibited the government from passing anti-discriminatory laws intended to protect the LGBT community in North Carolina. This leaves room for private companies and institutions to still discriminate against marginalized communities[4].

Although North Carolina was not the only state to pass bathroom bills, it’s one of few that actually got passed. States like South Dakota and Tennessee in 2016 tried to pass their own bathroom bills as wells.

South Dakota introduced a bill known as House Bill 1008, entitled “An Act to restrict access to certain restrooms and locker rooms in public schools.”  However, the difference between South Dakota’s HB 1008 and North Carolina’s HB2 is that with HB 1008, accommodations could be provided for trans and intersex students, “if the student’s parent or guardian consents to that assertion in writing to a public school administrator,” or if the student is an adult and does so themselves[5]. This bill was vetoed by the governor and was never passed.

Likewise, Tennessee in 2016 considered a bill known as SB 2387, which required students in public schools and institutions of higher education to use bathrooms and locker rooms that corresponded with their biological sex[6]. This bill was also not passed.

One common factor in all these bills is that they limit trans people’s use to these public spaces based on their biological sex, which is determined by what is on their birth certificate. However, these bills mention nothing about students who have had gender-affirming surgery, and these states have even gone as far as to preventing basic healthcare steps for trans individuals to help them feel more comfortable and themselves in society.

Healthcare Bans

Although there is no federal healthcare bans aimed at trans people, states have enacted steps to prevent trans youth from getting the healthcare they need to transition in society. Healthcare bans often refer to restrictions on certain medical procedures with the intention of banning “transgender youth from accessing affirming healthcare.” Those procedures include hormone therapy and/or gender affirming surgeries, which are “in line with current medical best practices”[7].

For example, in 2021, Arkansas passed a law which banned transgender minors from getting gender affirming surgeries, becoming the first state to enact such a ban. However, after a trial over this bill in 2022, a ban was placed to reverse the bill, as medical practitioners and trans youth were able to prove that gender affirming surgeries are beneficial to health and wellbeing of young trans individuals[8].

Another state, Iowa, has recently made headlines on this matter as well. They signed two bills in regards to trans minors. One was Senate File 482, which is a bathroom bill to prevent trans students from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity. The other one was Senate File 538, which “prevents doctors from administering gender-affirming care to those under 18”[9]. Care that is prohibited includes gender affirming and transition related surgeries, but also puberty blockers and hormone therapy.

One of the biggest issues about these healthcare bans, especially on minors, is how the argument always seems to be that lawmakers are trying to prevent children from making life-altering decisions that one may regret in the future, which is not backed up by science. Especially in terms of puberty blockers, which were originally used on cisgender kids who were going through puberty to early or too quickly[10].

Sports Bans

Bans on trans people also extend to more social aspects of society, like sports. Sports bans are based around restricting trans individuals, mainly trans youth, from participating in sports that align with their gender identity.

Currently, 19 states have laws that ban “transgender students from participating in sports consistent with their gender identity”[11]. There have been many forms of state legislation that aim to prohibit trans youth from integrating themselves into sports. One of those is the House Bill 972, or the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act. This bill “would protect opportunities for women and girls in athletics by ensuring women are not forced to compete against biological males playing on women’s sports teams”[12]. There are three states that have passed this bill in their state: Idaho, Arkansas, and Florida.

Idaho became the first state “to impose an outright ban on participation of transgender athletes”[13]. Florida followed suite as well, but added a few tweaks to their legislation. Unlike Idaho, Florida’s bill doesn’t discuss the differences in sexes, but rather places emphasis on the designated sex at birth. This bill mainly affects public education systems, and private institutions are exempt from these set of rules[15]. In Arkansas, however, they took it a step further with SB 450, making the definition of sex more rigid and binary, as well as making public schools and institutions more broader[14]. As a result of that, Arkansas is also allowed to take legal action against schools and institutions that violate these bills.

Conclusion

Bathroom bans, healthcare bans, and sports bans, being discriminatory in nature, are often disguised under the false pretenses of protecting cisgender individuals and children. They completely disregard the physical and mental wellbeing of trans people and trans youth by forcing youth and students into uncomfortable environments, putting them at risk and compromising their safety. Institutions that implement these prejudicial bans go against the basic principles of equality and human rights, harming trans people and gender nonconforming individuals. Public establishments have a duty to the people they house, including transgender individuals, and must account for their needs as they would for everyone else. These bans violate that duty, and there needs to be some form of accountability to mitigate institutions from harming marginalized groups.

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1. https://www.reconcilingworks.org/resources/justice/bathroomfaqs/
2. https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/explaining-bathroom-bills-transgender-rights-and-equal-protection
3. https://www.ncleg.gov/Sessions/2015E2/Bills/House/PDF/H2v3.pdf

4. https://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2017/Bills/House/HTML/H142v5.html
5. https://sdlegislature.gov/Session/Bill/6978/39415
6. https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/default.aspx?BillNumber=SB2387&GA=109
7. https://www.equalityfederation.org/tracker/anti-transgender-medical-care-bans
8. https://apnews.com/article/health-business-arkansas-american-civil-liberties-union-4d93ef6d5f1978832949f8a46da2a871
9. https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/iowa-enacts-transgender-bathroom-bill-ban-gender-affirming-care-minors-rcna76301
10. https://www.vice.com/en/article/epnzjk/no-one-had-a-problem-with-puberty-blockers-when-only-cis-kids-took-them
11. https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/sports_participation_bans
12. https://www.repstephanie.com/News/27534/Latest-News/Fairness-in-Women’s-Sports-Act-Gains-Momentum-in-State-House
13. https://www.aclu.org/cases/hecox-v-little
14. https://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/Bills/FTPDocument?path=%2FBills%2F2021R%2FPublic%2FSB354.pdf

15. https://casetext.com/statute/florida-statutes/title-xlviii-early-learning-20-education-code/chapter-1006-support-for-learning/part-i-public-k-12-education-support-for-learning-and-student-services/student-extracurricular-activities-and-athletics/section-1006205-fairness-in-womens-sports-act#:~:text=-%20(a)%20It%20is%20the,benefits%20that%20result%20from%20participating
16. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5824932/
17. https://www.justice.gov/crt/laws-we-enforce#:~:text=Title%20VII%20of%20the%20Civil%20Rights%20Act%20of%201964%20(Title,and%20gender%20identity)%3B%20or
18. https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/tix_dis.html
19. https://www.who.int/europe/health-topics/gender#tab=tab_1