Fischer, 12, missed the first field hockey game of the season.
Her dad, Brian, says he was thrilled when Fischer joined the team, allaying some of his fears that his daughter, newly out as transgender, might have trouble finding her place in the thorny world of middle school. But then, on the day of the first game, the middle school’s athletic director called and said Fischer wouldn’t be able to participate in the game because of existing guidelines from the Kentucky High School Athletic Association that barred trans students from participating on a sports team aligned with their gender identity.
“That was the low point of being a parent so far,” Brian says. “It was heartbreaking to tell her that. Her face crumpled. It was a bifurcation where you end one life and start another. That was the first time that being the parent of a trans girl felt different in the scary, uncertain way that you’re worried about.”
Now, in addition to the Athletic Association's rules, the Kentucky legislature has advanced bills that would make exclusionary policies banning trans students from sports law. Stories like Fischer’s are echoing across the country: In Arizona, Skyler worries that if a failed bill to block gender-affirming care for trans youth were resuscitated, she and her family would have to leave her home state. After missing days of school to protest anti-trans legislation, Elliot watched a similar sports ban become law in South Dakota, making it the 10th state in the nation to enact such a law. And in Texas, a mother watches the governor criminalize certain types of gender-affirming healthcare, akin to child abuse.
This year is on track to be a record-breakingly bad year for anti-trans legislation, which is advancing through state houses and local governments across the country. According to the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), there has been a “rapid increase” in bills targeting transgender people – and more specifically, transgender youth. According to internal tracking by NCTE, in 2020, 79 anti-trans bills were introduced; so far in 2022, 157 anti-trans bills have been floated. Of those 157 bills, 65 are youth sports bans; 37 are healthcare bans; 29 are curriculum bans; and the remaining cover issues from so-called bathroom bills to birth certificates.
These bills — whether or not they’re passed — have deep consequences. In addition to banning trans youth from certain spaces, Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen of NCTE says these bills are also damaging on a mental and emotional level. “Even in states where we succeed in blocking these bills from becoming law, it’s still really damaging to have your legitimacy debated by government leaders,” Heng-Lehtinen says. “It is such an insult to your dignity and downright scary to feel like just the fact that you happen to be transgender is something to be treated as a political football.”
Brian pushed back and Fischer was able to play the rest of the games of her field hockey season, but the emotional weight lingers. Fischer says that knowing politicians are working to keep her off the field makes her want to take a nap and pretend these bills aren’t advancing. “You wanna pretend like everything’s fine but it’s exhausting,” Fischer says. “Being a trans girl and wanting to play sports in Kentucky means that you’re going to have to fight for a lot of your rights.” To Brian, the root of each anti-trans bill is the same: “It’s the violence of saying… we don’t believe you and what you say about your identity.”
As bills banning transgender athletes from competing advance across the country, South Dakota governor Kristi Noem has enshrined one into law. At the signing, Noem said the bill will make sure girls are given “an opportunity for a level playing field, for fairness, that gives them the chance to experience success.” Elliot Vogue, an 18-year-old student who spent his teen years protesting anti-LGBTQ legislation in his home state of South Dakota, says Noem’s logic is lacking. “To be blunt, if a trans girl is better than you at her sport, it’s not because she’s trans. It’s because she’s better than you,” Elliot says.
Though researchers have said justification for anti-trans sports laws is not rooted in science, advocates say politicians continue to use strawman arguments and scare tactics to advance their agenda. According to Heng-Lehtinen, attacking trans youth has a larger goal: “They see going after trans youth as a way to get a foothold into eroding LGBTQ rights writ large. It's a conscious strategy.”
Anti-trans bills targeting bathroom use started to be introduced in state legislatures in 2015 — the same year the Supreme Court legalized same sex marriage. According to NBC News, many of these bills, and the sports bans since, have reportedly involved one organization, the Alliance Defending Freedom, which has been called an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (ADF has refuted this characterization). This, experts have claimed, indicates a coordinated attack against trans people.
Heng-Lehtinen worries how these attacks will affect the mental health of trans teens, who are already at higher risk of suicidal ideation, self-harm and depression. For Skyler, a 13-year-old trans girl living in Arizona, not being able to access gender-affirming healthcare as a defeated Senate bill sought to ban for trans youth, would have deeply affected her mental health. “I can’t imagine living my life as a boy,” Skyler says. “I am a girl and will always be a girl. It would ruin my life.”
If another bill banning gender-affirming healthcare were to advance through the Arizona state government, Skyler says she and her family would be forced to leave the state and move to somewhere that is friendlier to LGBTQ people. And there’s a reason for the pit in Skyler’s stomach: in 2022, Arizona politicians have introduced the most anti-LGBTQ bills of any state, according to NBC News. And, a form of the bill that threatened to make Skyler move out of state has been brought back to the table. “It’s such a scary, horrible feeling that I’m not safe in my state,” she says. “I can't live a normal life without having to fight for my human rights.”
Amber Briggle, whose young son is transgender, brought the fight to a more personal ground: her dinner table. In 2016, Amber hosted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and his wife for dinner. Her motivation was simple: “it’s hard to hate up close,” she says. “We’re hardworking, we go to church and drive a minivan. We have dinner around the table and get our kids to school on time. We’re no different from your family.” The evening was “lovely and boring” as the families avoided talking politics and instead chose more common ground like discussing their family pets. Paxton and Amber’s son did magic tricks for each other, Amber said.
Six years after eating dinner with her family, Paxton called certain types of gender-affirming healthcare “child abuse” and said the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services “has a responsibility to act accordingly.” Amber calls Paxton’s about-face a betrayal. “He broke bread with my family. He engaged with my children and saw with his own eyes that my husband and I are the opposite of child abusers,” Amber says. “Then he says families like mine shouldn’t exist because one of my children is transgender and I support him. It’s a betrayal.”
On Wednesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signaled support for Paxton’s changing interpretation of the law, directing state agencies to conduct “prompt and thorough” investigations into gender-affirming care for children. A spokesperson for the Department of Family and Protective Services told the Dallas Morning News that it will interpret the law as outlined by Paxton’s opinion though it is unclear if that will lead to a change in action.
In the wake of Paxton and Abbott’s directives, Amber hopes allies are experiencing a wake-up call in Texas and other states. “These bills are coming at your kids,” she says. “My son is no different than your son and deserves all the same rights and protections.”
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