Here’s why I’m optimistic about transgender rights
This year, more Americans than ever are talking about the rights of transgender people, as states across the country introduced dozens of bills to restrict transgender people’s access to opportunities and freedoms the rest of us take for granted.
Unfortunately, these conversations are often based on misinformation – rather, disinformation promoted by politicians trying to stoke fear and advance harmful policies.
But when harmful stereotypes are replaced by real conversations with transgender people and accurate education, we see that the American people are in fact strongly on the side of inclusion for transgender and LGBQ people, and we have unfinished business in making that full inclusion real.
Throughout my decades as an LGBTQ civil rights lawyer, I’ve seen each step forward for inclusion met with someone repackaging old tropes about our communities. When I was preparing to argue for marriage equality in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, I heard countless predictions about the demise of marriage and civilization if same-sex couples could legally marry.
But soon the personal stories of gay couples – people who fell in love and committed to a life together against all odds – broke through into our national understanding, and more Americans came to realize that LGBTQ people simply wanted to marry for their love and commitment to another person.
Today, we see efforts in statehouses to limit transgender people’s access to public spaces and to bar transgender girls from participating in school sports activities with their friends, but a clear-eyed governor in North Dakota, along with governors in Kansas and Louisiana, vetoed these bills as arbitrarily hurting some while accomplishing nothing for others.
Throughout the years, we’ve pushed to catch legal rights up to public support, and we can do so again. For instance, public support for the freedom to marry climbed to a strong majority leading up to the Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling in 2015 and has continued to grow since.
Last year, the court ruled that workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is prohibited by law. Polls show support – among voters of every political persuasion, across faith traditions and in every state – for enacting federal nondiscrimination protections like the Equality Act for LGBTQ people in housing, health care, education, federal programs and public spaces.
Where lack of familiarity and understanding once led to LGBTQ people being treated as outcasts and outlaws, time and connection have brought us to a moment where we have a real opportunity to pass the Equality Act to update our civil rights laws for the modern era.
Take, for example, my home state of Maine. Calls to include LGBTQ people in the Maine Human Rights Act date to the 1970s, advanced in earnest in 1995, and took another decade of work by LGBTQ people and others to become law.
Once the people of Maine embraced that inclusion in 2005, they affirmed it again and again – overwhelmingly rejecting efforts by special interests.
Just one year later, in 2012, Maine became the first state to affirm the freedom to marry at the ballot box, and two years after that the state’s highest court issued a landmark ruling for inclusion of transgender students in schools.
This summer I’m proud that Maine again showed us how we can move forward, defeating a bill that would have banned transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports from kindergarten through college.
As one sports medicine doctor noted, the notoriety of a few trans athletes winning a few competitions shows these are the exceptions that prove the rule: The vast majority of students play simply because they love the game.
These bans aren’t about elite athletes; they’re about school children who just want to share that team experience with their peers.
Among the lessons of marriage equality is that when we all get to know each other, familiarity replaces fear and inclusion seems obvious.
As people heard from loving and committed couples, they could see that we simply wanted to live our lives. That’s just as true for transgender young people today.
The legislative efforts and lawsuits underway are showing young transgender people making a simple point – this is just who I am – and their families and classmates are standing next to them and for their common humanity.
As time has proved again and again, we all benefit when we are open to walking in another’s shoes, when our laws require fairness, and when we further equality, inclusion and opportunity for everyone.
Cincinnati’s Jim Obergefell sued the state of Ohio in 2013 because it did not legally recognize his marriage to John Arthur after Arthur, Obergefell’s partner of 22 years, died of ALS.
Mary L. Bonauto is the civil rights project director at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders and a long time champion for the rights of LGBTQ+ people, including successfully arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court in the historic case Obergefell v. Hodges.