Shelby Chestnut remembers turning on the news in 2016 and hearing something he didn’t expect.
asserted
he → remember → something
Then- attorney general, Loretta Lynch, had just announced a federal lawsuit to block HB2 in North Carolina, otherwise known as the “bathroom bill”.
asserted
general → announce → bill
Lynch said the law, which made it illegal for transgender people to use a public restroom that did not align with the sex listed on their birth certificate, was reminiscent of those passed during the Jim Crow era that restricted public facility use by race.
asserted
that → say → race
Then, she addressed transgender Americans directly:
asserted
she → address → Americans
“But no matter how isolated or scared you may feel today, the Department of Justice and the entire Obama administration wants you to know that we see you; we stand with you; and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward.”
uncertain
we → feel → you
HB 2 was repealed within the year.
asserted
HB → repeal → year
Chestnut said he thought at the time: “Oh this is the next phase of protections for trans people.
asserted
this → say → people
But instead of the beginning of legal protections for transgender Americans – the past decade has become the exact inverse.
asserted
decade → become → Americans
This was made abundantly clear during the midterm elections, where even during a “blue wave” of tsunami proportions, ballot initiatives targeting transgender people were passed even in Democratic strongholds like Washington and Colorado.
asserted
initiatives → make → Washington
Just how much have things shifted?
asserted
things → shift → ?
North Carolina experienced mass boycotts of the state in 2016 over that bathroom bill – including almost 200 corporate leaders asking for the repeal of the law, and the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament pulling seven games from the state in protest – a huge economic and cultural blow.
asserted
tournament → experience → protest
But this year Kansas and Idaho have both passed bathroom bill laws without any kind of similar public outcry, though facing challenges in court.
asserted
Kansas → pass → court
In Idaho, a person who uses the bathroom of the gender that does not match the sex they were assigned at birth could be charged with a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison for the first offense.
uncertain
they → use → offense
The second offense would be considered a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison – for using the bathroom.
asserted
offense → consider → bathroom
The intervening decade changed the rhetorical, political and legal landscape to be nearly opposite of that in 2016 regarding the civil rights of transgender Americans.
asserted
decade → intervene → Americans
Meanwhile, culturally the transgender population has gone from a curious minority (approximately 1-3% of Americans are transgender) that needed protecting to an outright punching bag.
asserted
that → go → bag
Former college swimmer Riley Gaines has made a career out of speaking out against trans women participating in sports.
asserted
women → make → sports
Fox News spent three weeks of the summer airing at least 130 segments whipping up concern about the possibility of trans athletes playing in the WNBA – a league where no trans women have ever played.
asserted
women → spend → WNBA
Books that mention trans characters are routinely banned from schools and libraries, and Disney erased a trans character’s storyline from an animated Pixar series in 2024 before the show could even be released.
uncertain
show → mention → 2024
While Trump often took rhetorical shots at social issues during his first term, he only used executive power to specifically target the rights of transgender Americans a couple of times, often simply to undo ways the Obama administration had specifically sought to protect them.
asserted
administration → take → them
His second term has taken a vastly different tack.
asserted
term → take → tack
But why did laws targeting this particularly tiny part of the American population grow so rapidly?
asserted
laws → target → population
“It’s been a long, long 10 years, to say the least,” said Chestnut, the executive director of the Transgender Law Center.
asserted
Chestnut → say → Center
Back in 2016, before the November election, it had been just one year since the supreme court decision on Obergefell v Hodges made marriage equality the law of the land.
asserted
equality → make → land
The LGBTQ+ movement was at a “high point” in terms of political capital, says Marie-Amélie George, a professor and legal historian at Wake Forest Law School whose research focuses on the history of LGBTQ+ legal rights.
asserted
research → say → rights
“There was a renewed movement for all types of anti-discrimination protections to expand upon the victory of the marriage equality campaign, and the [response to] HB2 was really very much a sense of commitment to LGBTQ rights,” George said.
asserted
George → be → rights
This often took the form of legally applying anti-discrimination laws to trans people, according to Elana Redfield, a federal policy expert at the Williams Institute at UCLA.
uncertain
This → take → UCLA
“At the time, there was this open question about whether laws that were designed to protect against sex discrimination applied to transgender people,” Redfield said.
asserted
Redfield → be → people
While the Obama administration had made some overtures towards protecting trans people under those laws, Trump mostly followed a more restrained legal tactic, by rescinding Barack Obama’s moves.
asserted
Trump → make → moves
So while the Obama administration ended a ban on transgender troops in the US military, and passed official memorandums and executive orders that medical providers could not deny access to trans patients under nondiscrimination rules, that trans prisoners should be housed based on their gender identity, and that Title IX protected transgender students – the Trump administration issued rules withdrawing guidance on all these fronts in his first term.
uncertain
administration → end → term
At the same time, these moves were a clear signal to groups like the Transgender Law Center that it was time to get ready for a backlash, according to Chestnut.
uncertain
it → get → Chestnut
Until then, the Transgender Law Center had been one of the only litigation groups arguing that laws and ordinances banning trans people from bathrooms or other public spaces were an infringement on civil rights – cases they had largely won.
asserted
they → argue → rights
But the situation seemed ripe for a turning of the tides.
asserted
situation → seem → tides
“At that point, we convened a coalition which birthed some of our guiding principles over the last 10 years,” Chestnut said.
asserted
Chestnut → convene → years
By the last year of Trump’s first term, Idaho passed a law targeting trans athletes playing school sports, saying that transgender athletes were not allowed to play on women’s or girl’s sports teams.
asserted
athletes → pass → teams
It was the first such state law to pass and was highly controversial.
asserted
It → pass → ?
When Joe Biden took office in 2021, he again rolled back the executive orders and mandates Trump had made regarding the ways federal anti-discrimination law could affect trans Americans, including lifting the ban on trans troops, and including trans students in Title IX protections – swinging a pendulum back the other way along ideological lines.
uncertain
law → take → lines
And during the four years of the Biden presidency, the backlash arrived as a hurricane.
asserted
backlash → arrive → hurricane
By 2024, 26 states had passed laws similar to Idaho’s banning trans students from playing school sports.
asserted
states → pass → sports
So-called “red states” didn’t stop at sports participation, either.
asserted
states → call → participation
…and 60 more, not listed.
The Aporia
