Mix of setbacks, gains unsettles many transgender Americans

For transgender Americans, 2018 has been marked by series of advancements and setbacks. The steps forward have included numerous legislative actions and court rulings buttressing civil rights and a victory by a transgender candidate in Vermont’s Democratic gubernatorial primary. The steps back have included the Trump administration rolling back protections, and anti-transgender vitriol that caused an Oklahoma town’s schools to be closed for two days in August after adults made threatening comments on Facebook about a 12-year-old transgender student’s use of a girls’ bathroom. And the coming weeks may be even more unsettling, ahead of the first-ever statewide vote on whether anti-discrimination protections should extend to transgender people. On the Nov. 6 ballot in Massachusetts is a measure drafted by conservative activists that would repeal a 2016 state law - passed with bipartisan support - that provides such protections in public accommodations, including bathrooms and locker rooms. Though Massachusetts is among the most liberal states, and the first to legalize same-sex marriage, recent polls indicate voters are closely divided on the ballot measure. Transgender attorney Kasey Suffredeni, co-chair of the campaign seeking to preserve the 2016 law, calls the measure “one of the single biggest threats to equality in recent memory.” If the pro-repeal side wins, he predicts, opponents of LGBT rights will try to scale back nondiscrimination protections in other states. Uncertainty about the outcome in Massachusetts has added to a sense among some transgender Americans that their recent civil rights gains are fragile and their acceptance by fellow citizens is far from universal. “I just try to focus on the long run,” said Jennifer Finney Boylan, a transgender writer and professor. “We’re in this less for ourselves than for our children, whom I pray will grow up in a world less cruel than this one.”