Leading Off: Texans and Iowans Aren’t Going Along Gently With Anti-Trans Bigotry
Pushback in two hotbeds of anti-trans legislation. Trump deals more cruelty and confusion for trans veterans. The top story lines as the week begins.
by Assigned Media
In Leading Off we highlight a few trans news stories to watch as each week begins.
Texas, a hub of governmental anti-trans bigotry, returned to center stage Friday as the attorney general, Ken Paxton, unilaterally asserted that state agencies should revoke all previous court-ordered gender changes made to Texans’ documents. Such court orders are costly and time-consuming for individuals to obtain, chron.com's Gwen Howerton noted.
Lambda Legal and the ACLU are already working up a legal challenge to Paxton’s opinion, which they note is not legally binding, The Dallas Voice reported. Paxton’s tactic is consistent with the Trump administration’s lawless approach of defying and disregarding court orders on trans issues.
At the same time, hard-line state legislators in Austin pushed ahead with a bill that would enshrine into law a policy barring trans Texans from amending birth certificates. Malicious and discriminatory document measures are a major tactic in the hard right’s effort to impose anti-trans bigotry nationwide.
“It's primarily about exclusion, discrimination, and wanting to make trans people’s lives unlivable,” Landon Richie, policy coordinator for the Transgender Education Network of Texas, told Assigned Media.
Iowans are pushing back on the legislature’s move last month to strip trans people of civil rights protections. More than 1,000 businesses have already signed on to a pledge to promote trans inclusion and equality after the legislature removed gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act, the first such rollback in the nation, the advocacy group OneIowa reported.
In Iowa City, people have reacted by making the annual Trans Day of Visibility a weeklong series of events, running March 27-31, that will celebrate trans lives and highlight the attacks on our rights. “This legislation pushed people back into the closet, making it even more important to resist,” a local advocate told the Iowa City Press-Citizen.
The Trump administration sowed further fears and confusion among trans veterans late Friday, when NPR reported that the Veterans Affairs Department was reversing a policy that had protected gender-affirming care. “Transgender veterans now have to ask themselves: ‘Is it worth it for me to get my care at VA? Am I safe to do so?” one veterans group told NPR.
The Trump administration has been pushing ahead at the same time with its disgraceful effort to oust transgender members of the military. Bree Fram, a trans colonel and astronautical engineer in the U.S. Space Force wrote eloquently about the issue in the Advocate. She has the last word this morning:
“I look around at my fellow transgender troops and see their fighting spirit. They are not broken—far from it—they are the bravest people I know. They stand up for who they are and for what's right in the world despite overwhelming obstacles.”
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