Despite Monday's Filibuster, Trans Future Hazy, Outlook Not Good.

Federal inaction is probably enough to create hell for trans people in much of the country.

How do I update the firmware for this thing? Image by Deborah McCormick.

Since Monday’s victory in the US Senate, filibustering a bill that would have prohibited trans participation in school sports, it’s been easy to think we’ve turned a corner on these anti-trans attacks.

Democrats Strike At Heart Of GOP Darkness, Kill Anti-Trans Sports Bill

This is true even despite the next day’s speech by someone who wouldn’t dream of voting for societal inclusion of trans people and advocated for a return to a decade when the government distanced itself from families, the country lavished money on national defense, and patriotic unity demanded all people support the government, right or wrong. But enough about Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin.

Despite the growing hope that the Senate Democrats might be able to smuggle enough feck over the southern border to block the worst of Republicans’ legislative agenda, the trans legislation Magic 8-Ball still says, “Outlook not so good,” because the situation in the states is, whoo boy.

The problems here are two-fold. First, at the state level it is very hard to find red states where Democrats have the power to block hateful laws. Governor Andy Beshear in Kentucky can veto bills and legislative Dems have had some success sustaining those vetoes, but in most places where Republicans have majorities in state legislatures, Democrats have had a difficult time fighting back.

In Iowa last week Republicans rolled back civil rights by defining sex as all about gametes and then by removing gender and gender identity from various statewide nondiscrimination provisions. Rights have been rolled back before in the USA, but rarely if ever has a statewide anti-discrimination law been rewritten this way, setting a frightening precedent.

In Montana this year their Legislature has been moving a bill through the House (now referred to the Senate) which would separate indecent exposure into two crimes, one requiring an intent element (e.g. exposing oneself for the purpose of humiliating another person), and one with no intent element, but a location element instead. In this second crime, if anyone catches a glimpse of your nipples or your downstairs and you’re in a bathroom, changing room, or similar location, then you can be charged with a crime. Wait! You might say. Isn’t someone supposed to remove some clothing in a bathroom or changing room? Well, yes. But don’t worry, the second crime only applies to trans people.

Texas, too, is getting in on the anti-trans action with one bill that amends the ban on gender affirming care for youth to ban gender affirming care for “persons.” So, that’s not extreme. But everything’s bigger in Texas, so we were half expecting something worse, y’know?

Hold on. This just in. An Erin Reed report says that … Texas’s legislature is also considering a bill to put every single person in jail who describes their gender to any employer, potential employer, or government entity as anything other than their sex assigned at birth. The way it’s written, it would even include a tourist just showing a home state driver’s license to a cop who asks for their ID. It’s a new crime, “Gender Identity Fraud”! See, Texas. We knew you had it in you.

Other than Iowa’s pro-discrimination effort which has already been signed into law by Governor Kim Reynolds, it’s unclear precisely how many of these bills will be passed this session. But it’s clear that in red states, at least, the ethics trolley is still barreling down the track towards that group of trans people. And some of these bills will pass. A low chance of enactment is not no chance of enactment. With the ACLU tracking 456 bills currently (and more, surely, to come), the nation is sure to see reductions in the rights and safety of anyone who is trans or who might someday be mistaken for trans (that’s all of you cis folks, if you weren’t aware).

The New York Times might say that some might say that this is no big deal since trans and gender-non-conforming people survived the last four years when state-level anti-trans bills were also common. That, however, is where things get difficult.

While the federal government cannot eliminate its laws protecting trans people so long as the Democratic filibuster holds, the enforcement of those laws is almost entirely discretionary. The New York Times (:spits:) just reported yesterday

the [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] also asked judges to dismiss six other lawsuits the agency had brought that accused a range of companies, from a pizzeria at Chicago O’Hare International Airport to a hotel franchise in western New York, of subjecting transgender and nonbinary workers to hostile work environments and then often firing them when they complained.

The EEOC is the nation’s most important force for holding employers accountable for workplace discrimination. In red states with EEOC equivalents starved for resources by their legislatures or with administrative heads uninterested in doing something so DEI as to ask employers to follow the law, it’s federal help that is often the only effective resource. Now it has dropped or “paused” all of its cases alleging discrimination against trans or non-binary workers — a move the EEOC argues is necessary to evaluate how Trump’s gender essentialist Executive Order 14168 affects the work the agency is able and willing to do.

The Federal Trade Commission’s role is somewhat analogous to the role of the EEOC, but protecting consumers rather than employees. That agency, too, has been reshaped by Trumpian cissexism. Yr Wonkette reported last year that a front-running candidate to lead the FTC under Trump wanted to use the agency to punish doctors who provide gender-affirming care rather than actual scams like, for instance, taking money for therapy promising to convert trans and non-binary people to straight, cis husbands and wives — therapy we know doesn’t work. Even if the FTC doesn’t get around to persecuting doctors at the federal level, when Texas AG Ken Paxton takes the same actions under his state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act, who is left to stand up for the honesty of doctors following best practices or protect gullible parents who have swallowed anti-trans lies from the religious snake-oil salesmen promising to regender their kids?

Changing federal enforcement priorities is effortless for the new Trump agency heads, but they can increase the damage by also changing regulations created by those agencies. And in the case of independent agencies, see rule: There are no independent agencies. In many cases there is no law corresponding to important regulatory protections because Congress felt as long as the regulations existed, no law was needed. And that turns out to be a hell of an oversight in some cases. Just last week the Department of Homeland Security decided to edit out of its regulations the little bit that said it could not initiate investigations solely on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Whoops! Even though there is (as yet, still looking at you, Texas) no law making being trans a crime in itself, the inability to jail queer and trans folk on sight is irrelevant if DHS can investigate QTs for the hell of it and then turn over any “evidence” they find to state and local governments happy to do the jailing for them.

All over the country, but especially in Republican-dominated states, everyday workers and consumers, residents and tourists, depend on federal enforcement of the law to keep their money, their freedoms, their bodies, and their lives safe. Blocking terrible laws as Dems did on Monday is always helpful, but laws don’t need to change to inflict terrible harm. The states are more than willing to wield the stick, and without Uncle Sam’s shield a lot of people are going to be beaten down.

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What If The FTC Stopped Going After Corporate Fraud And Went After 'Trans' And 'Anti-Discrimination Law' Instead?

DEATH BEFORE DETRANSITION

Trump Am The Law

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ACTION ITEM!

What can you do in these horrible times? As yr Wonkette told your face just yesterday, Al Green was this week’s Legislative Hero We Needed. But he’s been criticized by anonymous sources reported to be Senate Democrats for violating expectations of decorum and now the House Republicans want to censure him! If you want more fight in your Capitol Hill team, it’s not enough to call and complain when something’s wrong. It’s important to step up, praise, and defend the people who are doing it right. Call or send a message to Al Green’s office telling him how much you love him, then follow up with a message to Speaker Hakeem Jeffries or your Democratic Senators making it clear you stand by your man.

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