About I month ago I wrote a post about a bill introduced to the Washington State House that would prohibit minors’ access to gender-affirming care. Recently, an article came out from the Washington State Standard listing all the bills that didn’t survive the Washington State Legislature. Among those bills was House Bill 1038, the gender-affirming care ban.
It was very unlikely that the bill, predominantly endorsed by Republicans, would have passed in Washington’s majority Democrat-run Legislature. If anything, it shows how emboldened members of the GOP have become in revoking trans people’s rights after President Trump made several executive orders targeting them.
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What is actually going on
In the article, we’re told that Democratic leaders within the House received numerous calls from parents of trans youth expressing their fears about the bill. Senate Leader Jamie Pederson of Seattle said his office received over 500 emails from citizens about the bill.
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This bill thankfully won’t see the light of day, but there are still plenty of bills out there that attempt to eradicate trans care and existence. Being trans in the United States is already hard enough. Transgender people and parents of trans youth across the country are forced to uproot their entire lives and move to sanctuary states, and even in those sanctuaries our lives are still under threat, the recent murder and torture of Sam Nordquist being a dark reminder of this.
Despite the cruelty of our world, it’s still worth celebrating that over half a thousand people came together to say no to HB 1038. It proves we can have an impact, and writing to lawmakers is an effective method of doing so, reminding them that they serve the people and never the other way around.
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