By Joanie Juster–
As we careen past election season (sorry, still some PTSD there), through the holidays (joyfully and defiantly counting those blessings and rights that still exist), and headlong into the New Year (fasten your seatbelts), let’s take a moment to contemplate with some amount of awe the sheer audacity of those ever-reliable purveyors of ridiculously hateful legislation, the Texas State Legislature.
In their eagerness to claim bragging rights as being in the most anti-trans state in the union, Republican legislators pre-filed a whopping 32 anti-trans bills on the very first day of the new legislative session’s pre-filing period. It must have taken some serious effort to come up with 32 different ways to make trans Texans feel unwelcome and unsafe in their own state. You have to wonder what other horrors they will come up with during the rest of the session.
It is efforts like these that make me miss the late great Texas reporter and columnist Molly Ivins, who regularly skewered the Texas Lege, and whose keen reportage and wickedly caustic wit made it possible to get through the Bush years.
But seriously, the ACLU runs a fascinating/ frightening/ infuriating/ enlightening page on their website where they track all the anti-LGBTQ+ bills proposed during the current legislative session. As of this writing, they were tracking 574 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in 42 state legislatures. (That’s right; there were eight states, including California and, surprisingly, Arkansas, where no anti-LGBTQ+ bills were proposed during the 2024 session.)
These are 574 bills whose sole purpose is to demonize, stigmatize, and make life harder for LGBTQ+ citizens, and trans people, in particular. They lean heavily toward regulating bathroom use, outlawing drag performances, banning books from schools and libraries, prohibiting trans athletes from competing in sports against cisgender athletes, and denying gender-affirming care to trans youth. And since that isn’t enough, they are also working hard at making it practically impossible to update legal documents to match one’s gender identity.
While many of these bills are clearly unconstitutional and will either never be signed into law or will be challenged in lengthy court battles, the very fact that they are being proposed, and that state legislatures are so heavily invested in these hateful and ridiculous laws when they could be doing something, oh, I don’t know—useful?—brings harm to LGBTQ+ people everywhere. And, in the even bigger picture, by diminishing the rights of the LGBTQ+ population, they are damaging the very nature of our country. Equal protection under the law? Not really.
The hysteria over trans athletes became a major story right here in the Bay Area these past few months, as several teams in the Mountain West Conference forfeited games against the San Jose State University (SJSU) women’s volleyball team, rather than compete against a trans woman on the Spartans’ team. The three-ring circus kicked off in September when the team’s co-captain joined a lawsuit against the NCAA, claiming that the NCAA’s rule allowing transgender players to play women’s sports created an unfair advantage, and would be potentially dangerous to other players—despite absolutely no proof to support that claim. That led to opposing teams forfeiting seven games against SJSU. Boise State even forfeited a game against them in the conference semifinal tournament, thanks to political pressure from conservative politicians and donors.
There are approximately 520,000 NCAA athletes, of which maybe 30–40 identify as trans, according to Athlete Ally, a nonprofit LGBTQ+ athletic advocacy group. Even fewer trans athletes go on to compete at the professional level. The full weight of 42 state legislatures, and, soon, the U.S. government, is being brought to bear on this very small group of people who are simply trying to compete in sports like any other athlete.
This trend threatens to become even worse during the upcoming administration. To follow the status of these bills, or to support the vital work the ACLU is doing to fight them: https://tinyurl.com/ACLUtrack
Solidarity in the Streets
The Women’s March in Washington, D.C., has evolved into the People’s March, billed as a feminist-led march on January 18, 2025. While their website promises affiliated marches everywhere, I haven’t been able to find any signs of a march that day in San Francisco, or even in the Bay Area. For more info on the Women’s March: https://www.womensmarch.com/
For those who do want to hit the local streets in January, mark your calendar for Monday, January 20, 2025, for the 14th Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day Commemorations, organized by the San Francisco Interfaith Council. Each year, they lead a march from the Caltrain Depot at 4th and Townsend streets in San Francisco to Yerba Buena Gardens. While organized and led by the faith community, everyone is welcome to join the march and the program at Yerba Buena Gardens. This is an inspiring and empowering event each year, and I suspect it will carry even more impact this year. The march will begin promptly at 11 am at the Caltrain Depot, and organizers suggest getting there early.
That’s it for now, folks. See you in the streets.
Joanie Juster is a long-time community volunteer, activist, and ally.
In Case You Missed It
Published on December 19, 2024
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