Trans Rights are Human Rights

Liz Cory & Rachel Peterson

March 31, 2021

Anti-Transgender Legislation on the Rise

Only three months into 2021, US legislators across 33 states have introduced an historic number of bills threatening the rights and wellbeing of transgender people — 93, as of this writing. During the 2020 session, 79 anti-transgender bills were filed, the previous record-high.

Most of the bills proposed this year specifically target trans children. Several seek to criminalize providing gender-affirming healthcare to trans youth, defying scientific research that demonstrates the safety and lifesaving capacity of medical therapies, such as puberty-blocking hormones. Many other bills aim to bar trans kids from participating in sports with their cisgender peers. Beyond reifying their inherent inequity, passage of anti-trans sports bills would mean refusing already vulnerable students access to a crucial resource linked to better mental health outcomes.

The enormity of this discriminatory policy has ignited public discourse. On Twitter, calls for action have resounded under the hashtag #TransRightsAreHumanRights.

Beacons of Resilience and Solidarity

The map below shows the number of anti-transgender bills introduced by each state in the 2020 and 2021 legislative sessions. Each blue dot represents a tweet from the same period that included “#TransRightsAreHumanRights.” Click on each dot to see when and where the tweet was written.

Legislation Themes

Themes in anti-transgender bills have shifted significantly over the past four years. In 2018 and 2019, bills regulating bathroom use were the second most common and gained broad media coverage. Anti-trans legislators have largely changed tack in 2020 and 2021, submitting only a handful of bathroom-related bills compared to dozens that would bar trans kids from participating in sports or ban gender-affirming healthcare.

Stay Informed

Follow these trans activists and journalists on Twitter:

• Chase Strangio: @chasestrangio
• Jo Yurcaba: @JoYurcaba
• Katelyn Burns: @transscribe
• Kate Sosin: @shoeleatherkate
• Raquel Willis: @RaquelWillis_

Read recent news coverage:

• Parents of Trans Kids in South Dakota Are Exhausted — But They’re Still Fighting (them., 3/31/21)
• Record number of bills look to restrict trans rights in the U.S. (PBS, 3/30/31)
• Visibility Alone Will Not Keep Transgender Youth Safe (The Nation, 3/30/31)
• Arkansas passes bill to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth (NBC, 3/29/21)
• Why Transgender Girls Are Suddenly the G.O.P.’s Culture-War Focus (NYT, 3/29/21)
• Megan Rapinoe: Bills to ban transgender kids from sports try to solve a problem that doesn’t exist (Wapo, 3/28/21)
• What's Driving The Spate Of Anti-Transgender State Legislation? (NPR, 3/15/21)

Take Action

Call your legislators:

Find more information about bills proposed in your state and contact information for your legislators at TransAthlete.com. Curated by Chris Mosier.

Donate:

Descriptions below copied from Twitter or Instagram bios.

• Black Trans Travel Fund. “A Black trans-led collective providing Black trans women with financial & material resources needed to remove barriers to accessing safer transportation.”
• GLITS Inc. “Gays & Lesbians Living In a Transgender Society is a grassroots organization dedicated to supporting the LGBTQIA community internationally.”
• inTRANSitive. “Resilient Trans folks in Arkansas Venmo: @ intransitive Cashapp: $Transcoins”
• New York Transgender Advocacy Group. "We are a Trans-led org advocating for more inclusive gender-based policies that benefit Transgender & Gender Non-Conforming/Non-Binary (TGNC/NB) New Yorkers."
• Marsha P. Johnson Institute. “We defend and protect the human rights of Black transgender and gender non-conforming people.”
• MA Trans Political Coalition. "MTPC works to ensure the wellbeing, safety, and lived equity of all trans, nonbinary, and gender expansive people in Massachusetts."
• TKO Society. “A southern centered grassroots movement founded and led by black, transgender, queer, and gender non-conforming people.”
• Transgender Emergency Fund. "Since 2008, the Transgender Emergency Fund of Massachusetts has been providing critical assistance to low-income transgender people in MA."
• Trans Justice Funding Project. “A community-led giving initiative supporting grassroots, #trans justice groups run by and for trans people. Apply! Donate! Spread the news!”
• Transgender Law Center. “TLC does what it takes to keep trans and gender nonconforming people alive, thriving, and fighting for liberation.”
• Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund. "TLDEF is committed to ending discrimination based upon gender identity and expression and to achieving equality for transgender people."

Methods: Tweets were gathered from a full archive search of the Twitter API v2. We queried tweets from 1/01/20 to 3/26/21 that included "#TransRightsAreHumanRights" and filtered for those containing place information at the city level. Coordinates for each tweet were calculated by first averaging the bounding box coordinates marking the city and then applying a random jitter to avoid point overlap. Anti-trans bill information was gathered from the ACLU's page on Legislation Affecting LGBTQ Rights Across the Country and was last updated on 3/17/21.

Completed for ARTG 6100 Spring 2021, IDDV Program, Northeastern University