It’s been another week of LGBTQ+ headlines. Well, two weeks, technically — we took a week off for Thanksgiving. There’s been plenty of focus on queer people in the news as the Capitol anti-trans bathroom skirmish continues and healthcare access for trans youth made its way to the Supreme Court.
With Trump having won the White House in the November election, anti-LGBTQ+ voices have felt emboldened to call for things like the banning of gay marriage. While some of these have been met with ridicule, it’s all emblematic of the fight that the community is going to have to take part in over the next few years. But there are glimmers of hope in the headlines too, and we’re already seeing some small victories in those battles.
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Panels from the AIDS Memorial Quilt were displayed at the White House yesterday.
The Supreme Court hears arguments related to a gender-affirming care ban
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The biggest news this week concerns healthcare access for trans people as SCOTUS heard oral arguments on Wednesday in the case of United States v. Skrmetti. The case challenges a Tennessee law banning both hormone treatment and puberty blockers for anyone under 18 if the treatment is related to gender dysphoria. The treatments are commonly used for treating conditions in cis minors, but those cases are exempt from Tennessee’s ban. The case has the potential to set a precedent for trans care bans across the country, either marking them as unconstitutional, or making them harder to fight.
While we won’t know the results of the case until summer 2025, people are already working to read the SCOTUS tea leaves. The conservative majority on the Supreme Court might be expected to follow the line that has been seen on the campaign trail, but some Democrats are hopeful. While the conservative justices seemed skeptical, Erin Reed (who was at the court for the arguments) noted that Justice Amy Coney Barrett seemed to be at least considering the merits of arguments against the ban. Similarly, various other LGBTQ+ organizations have spoken with optimism about the potential outcome. Either way, history was made on Wednesday when ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio addressed the court, becoming the first openly trans person to argue before the Supreme Court.
Elon Musk, presumably still mad that his trans daughter won’t speak to him, weighed in with a spectacularly strange take, calling for the ACLU to be defunded. It’s possible that the incoming “Government Efficiency” figure doesn’t know that the American Civil Liberties Union is a non-partisan non-profit and not a government-funded organization. Meanwhile, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke outside the Supreme Court but it’s hard to know what she said as she was booed with extreme enthusiasm.
The fight over trans bathroom access in the Capitol continues
In an effort targeted against Sarah McBride and spearheaded by Nancy Mace, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has banned trans people from using the correct bathrooms in the Capitol. This week saw trans activists protesting the ban. On Thursday, activists held a dance party in a women’s restroom in the Capitol as well as a sit-in. Activists included prominent figures like Chelsea Manning and Raquel Willis. Capitol police disrupted the protest, arresting 15 of the activists. They were arrested under a D.C. ordinance that prohibit crowding, obstructing, or incommoding, but the police also reportedly threatened charges of sexual misconduct.
Meanwhile, a different version of the story has unfolded in Montana. A bill was proposed that would have banned trans people from using the correct restroom in the Montana State Capitol, a move targeting newly-reelected Representative Zooey Zephyr. The bill failed to pass, with several Republicans standing against it, with one noting that regardless of his personal feelings on the matter, he felt the bill was “a distraction from the work we were elected to do.”
Related
Sarah McBride has come under fire for her response to Republican bathroom bills. It isn’t perfect, but she shouldn’t be the target of our ire.
After gay birds, Walmart pulls Pride merch & donations
Despite recently releasing an unintentionally gay line of Christmas decorations, Walmart is moving to remove its Pride merch. The chain appears to be pulling from its online stores anything related to “trans,” as reported by Alejandra Caraballo. They are also pulling their DEI initiatives, including funding for Pride and the Center for Racial Equity.
Walmart will now be purging it's online stores if anything trans related because they equate it as sexual and harmful to children. What the actual fuck.
— Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer.net) November 25, 2024 at 10:34 PM
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Trump plans for another trans military ban, despite costs
Donald Trump’s first term might feel like a lifetime ago, but one of his defining anti-LGBTQ+ moves during that term was his ban on trans people serving in the military. Trump is now reportedly set to reinstate that ban. That ban will seek to medically discharge 15,000 trans personnel across the armed forces.
On a human level, the move is unconscionable, but that shouldn’t be much surprise coming from this impending administration. However, banning trans people from the military doesn’t even make sense on any other level beyond hating that trans people exist. The military is already struggling with recruitment, and it will be hard to fill those positions left empty by the ban. Additionally, organizations have pointed out that the cost to retrain people, assuming that they can be recruited, would cost around $1.8 billion. Last time, Trump made the claim that the medical costs for trans service members was too high, but the relatively small increase in trans medical bills is nothing compared to the cost that discharging so many people will incur.
Trans rights in the United Kingdom
On the other side of the Atlantic, the United Kingdom is dealing with its own issues around trans rights. This week saw the staging of a “die-in” protesting the country’s puberty blocker ban. Trans Kids Deserve Better led a group of activists to stage the event at Victoria Station in London before relocating the protest to the Department for Health and Social Care. The protest takes place as the UK Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on the legal definition of a woman. A case brought by the anti-trans group For Women Scotland seeks to question whether a full gender recognition certificate can legally define someone as a woman for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act. Everybody’s favorite anti-trans author JK Rowling threw some of the proceeds from her Harry Potter empire behind the case with a donation of £70,000 to For Women Scotland.
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Please consider how many (not all) trans individuals, out or not, might see your posts and excitement about Harry Potter and view them as an implicit sign that you value Rowling’s work over trans lives.
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