Understanding and combatting the surge of anti-LGBTQ legislation
This year has seen the largest number of anti-LGBTQ bill proposals in several decades. Although anti-LGBTQ proposals have long been a staple of American politics, their breadth has increased tremendously in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the court case that nationalized same-sex marriage. In 2016, immediately following the Obergefell decision, the number of anti-LGBTQ proposals skyrocketed to 175. Since then, the number has steadily increased each year, culminating in over 300 anti-LGBTQ proposals in 2022 as of late April. Why have state and local governments increasingly attacked the LGBTQ population through harmful legislation? What might movement organizations and the public do to help abate these proposals?
The current wave of anti-LGBTQ proposals began to pick up in 2015, when Christian nationalist groups pivoted away from focusing on same-sex marriage and, instead, focused their state-based activism on curtailing the rights of transgender people. For example, in June of 2015, just before the Obergefell decision was announced, the Family Research Council released an issue analysis report that placed the blame for what it called the “assault on the sexes” on three waves of progressive movements: the “modern feminist movement,” “the homosexual movement,” and the “transgender movement.” The report proposed a series of policy solutions targeting the transgender community, including legislation prohibiting governments from allowing gender changes on identity documents, prohibiting insurance companies from covering gender-affirming care, and prohibiting transgender people from using sex-segregated facilities that conform with their gender identities.
Why have state and local governments increasingly attacked the LGBTQ population through harmful legislation? What might movement organizations and the public do to help abate these proposals?
Following this report and other advocacy like it, state legislators began to introduce a number of anti-LGBTQ bills focusing on the transgender community. In 2016 and 2017, a wave of “Bathroom Bills” were introduced to restrict access to restrooms and other sex-segregated facilities based on a limited definition of sex or gender “consistent with sex assigned at birth or ‘biological sex.’” In the face of intense opposition from a broad coalition of advocacy organizations and corporate boycotts, the vast majority of the “Bathroom Bills” failed. However, this legislation provided an opportunity for Christian nationalist groups to mobilize grassroots support for anti-transgender bill proposals, build organizing networks, and amass resources. Consequently, when the political tide turned in 2020 following the election of President Biden and increased national anger over public schooling in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, these groups were prepared to storm statehouses with a new surge in anti-LGBTQ bills focusing on the transgender community.
2022 provided a unique opening for the new surge. Unlike in 2016, corporations in 2022 have been much less likely to openly oppose or boycott anti-LGBTQ legislation. In fact, corporate and conservative donors have supported anti-LGBTQ legislation this year, likely in the hopes of mobilizing GOP voters for the 2022 midterm elections. Transgender youth and racial and ethnic minorities have proved to be convenient scapegoats for anger over larger national issues like COVID-19 school closures. Transgender people and LGBTQ people of color have also been less supported than other groups within the wider LGBTQ community.
investigates coalition formation among LGBTQ, immigrant, and labor rights activists in the United States, revealing how these new alliances impact political movement formation.
Notably, this is not the first time either community has been targeted by Christian nationalist organizations. Scholars Tina Fetner and Didi Herman have previously documented how Christian nationalist groups have targeted the LGBTQ community in prior decades. In prior decades, broad, intersectional coalitions at the grassroots often helped to stymie anti-LGBTQ legislation. Fortunately, it is possible that similar coalitions will emerge in the wake of the anti-trans legislation surge of 2022. There is much potential, for example, to combat anti-inclusive curriculum proposals like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law through an intersectional coalition that encompasses LGBTQ, civil rights, immigrant rights, and other progressive organizations. In my book Queer Alliances », I argue that broad coalitions often form when minority communities are attacked by similar opponents. The anti-inclusive curriculum bill proposals of 2022 are a perfect example of cross-community attacks from the same core of opponents. Just months before states focused on limiting LGBTQ education in schools, many successfully passed anti-critical race theory bills designed to ban race and ethnic studies in K-12 schools. This momentum dovetailed into a focus on eliminating LGBTQ inclusive curriculum from schools.
Furthermore, as scholar Zein Murib recently noted, the laws targeting trans youth today often play upon myths about white childhood innocence – contrasting myths of Black masculinity with the assumed vulnerability of white girls in need of legal protection. Such myths are based in racial stereotypes that obviously resonate beyond the LGBTQ community. We have not yet seen the emergence of intersectional grassroots coalitions challenging anti-LGBTQ laws because of how they mirror similar anti-curriculum laws and stigmas aimed at racial and ethnic minorities, but the potential for cross-community alliances powerful enough to stop this legislation is there. The question is – what will these groups do now that they find themselves the subject of similar rights-based threats like anti-curriculum laws designed to erase minority experiences in the K-12 system? Will they form expansive alliances for social change?
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