A History of the Rise of Anti-Trans Legislation in the United States
December 22, 2016If you aren’t transgender, you probably think that transgender discrimination can be easily reduced to public restroom access. Who can really blame you? After all, it’s pretty much all the media and government officials (particularly conservative ones) seem to focus on. However, if you ask the average transgender person in the United States about the most important issues facing them, you’re bound to get a different response. Health care and employment are often at the tip of their tongues.
That’s because the current backlash against transgender and gender-nonconforming (GNC) individuals in the United States didn’t just materialize out of thin air. Rather, it has been brewing for years, at the same time that there has been in the LGBTQ rights movement a decades-long erasure and sidelining of our narratives and experiences. Gender justice advocates must be clear on our history as they strategize how to fight for equality under a presidential administration that is slated to be less supportive than the one they’ve gotten accustomed to over the last eight years.