National Crisis Brewing in States Around the Path Forward for LGBTQ+ People [Video]

Earlier today, the Human Rights Campaign and six pro-equality state legislators came together to speak out against the slew of coordinated legislative attacks on the LGBTQ+ community – especially LGBTQ+ youth – underway in statehouses nationwide. With more than 300 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced this year, pro-equality legislators are playing a bigger role than ever before.

Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

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thank you so much for joining us here today for this really important conversation
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as i’m sure folks are aware this has been an incredibly difficult legislative
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session for the lgbtq plus community but particularly for the transgender
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community and even more particularly for transgender children this is a very concerted effort by um
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opponents of lgbtq equality from major national groups who have been
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working with legislators across the country to introduce legislation that
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discriminates against lgbtq plus people but as i said particularly transgender children
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this year the human rights campaign is opposing more than 320 bills from across
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the country and unfortunately 2022 is the third legislative session in which the attacks
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on transgender youth have uh continued to escalate
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in 2020 we had 79 bills that specifically
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targeted the transgender community of course all nearly all anti-lgbtq bills
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in some ways will um impact the transgender community but this is 79 bills that are specifically targeting
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the uh the transgender community that were filed in 2020 at that time that was a record that was
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more bills than we had even had filed in 2016 the year of hb2’s bathroom bill um
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that were targeting trans folks 2021 that number more than doubled or just
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about doubled to 150 bills across the country and this year we are already tracking
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more than 130 bills and it’s not even april i’m pretty sure it’s not even april
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um so this is an incredibly egregious and scary time
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incredibly egregious attack and a very scary time not only for advocates for
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the lgbtq community but for lgbtq people and again particularly transgender kids
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and their parents we have seen attacks on transgender youth from basically
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every direction we have seen our opponents try to take away transgender youth support from
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their doctors from their parents from their teachers from their coaches
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from their teammates from books from curriculum
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entirely and each of these pieces takes another
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another piece of that support away and that has a really incredible impact on
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transgender youth and the people who love them whether you’re talking about texas where it’s actually
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the governor has declared it to be child abuse to get age appropriate
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medically necessary gender affirming care for transgender youth the governor has deemed that child abuse and has
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begun a witch hunt to look for families who in fact have affirmed their children
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and have those children removed from their homes whether it’s that whether
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it’s the don’t say gay and trans bill in florida which is trying to make it so that lgbtq youth aren’t able
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to tell the truth about who they are at school they’re not able to hear that other people like them exist
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and that they’re uh that for kids who have same-sex parents that they’re not
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allowed to um to share that the attacks that we are seeing range from attacks on medical care they range
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to talking about letting transgender youth play school sports school sports
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consistent with their gender identity school where sports are supposed to be about education
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and all of these different pieces come together to create an environment of
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terror and fear we have been very successful we the movement have been very successful
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um from uh it from in defeating these bills across the last several years um with
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about only about 10 of these discriminatory bills passing
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last year um and in previous years have been closer to 5
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but every one of those bills that does pass imposes incredible harm and even just
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having bills introduced imposes incredible harm as people become afraid
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as the rhetoric around the uh around lgbtq people um starts to seep
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in and so i’m really excited to have these very ex very exciting
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guests with us today um to share the leadership that they have been providing in their states in fighting back against
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these discriminatory bills we have a really exciting cross-section of the country here to share with you
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the work that they’ve been doing on all of these different kinds of bills and so i’m really looking forward to hearing
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everything that they have to say thanks ben that’s great thank you so much kate
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we’re going to turn first to alabama representative neil rafferty um just for context alabama is one of the
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progressives oh i think there’s a echo there um
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uh alabama is one of the president aggressive you don’t report to the governor’s desk this is a bill that would make it a felony to provide
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age-appropriate medically necessary gender affirming care to transgender youth and is similar to a bill that was
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unsuccessful last year alabama’s also been seriously considering a bathroom bill in the style of north carolina’s
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reviled hb2 representative rafferty uh has been a leader in fighting back
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against these bills so representative um
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gonna try speaking now unmuting
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there’s a weird feedback loop why don’t we if it’s fine with you maybe what we can do is um
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is come back to you uh in a second does that make sense okay
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let’s turn to florida senator chevron jones for context last year florida passed a
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bill preventing transgender students from participating in school sports programs consistent with their gender
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identity which uh governor desantis championed this year uh florida has been in the national spotlight for two sets
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of bills which currently are on the governor’s desk one is known as the stop woke act and the other is known as the
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don’t say gay or trans bill the brazen discrimination of both these bills has captured national attention and senator
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jones has been on the front lines and pushing back senator jones thank you so much ben and good afternoon
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to all of you i have the great honor of representing porsches of both miami-dade uh and
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southern portions of broward county in florida and in 2020 uh i was elected to
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to the state uh senate as the first lgbtq person to be elected to the state senate it’s a travesty that in this past
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legislative session governor desantis and his gop allies have once again
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generated headlines for florida for all of the wrong reasons when we should be dealing with the insurance heights in
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florida when we should be dealing with the rent crisis that we’re dealing with in florida we didn’t deal with any of
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those things we dealt with ron desantis culture war that he continues to plot go
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across the country and the state of florida uh saying that we are the free state of florida uh it’s a travesty that
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we are still dealing with this uh the don’t say gay bill as it has came to be known as colloquially was one of many
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attacks on our most vulnerable communities in desantis’s cultural war agenda as he ramps up his 2024 primary
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bid for president beyond my perspective as a gay man and a state lawmaker i’m also a former public
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educator that’s one who’ve been in the classroom with children one who’ve been able to listen to students as they came
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to share some of their most pressing issues that they could not even share with their parents as an elected
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official as elected officials period we all have a responsibility to improve people’s lives their daily lives to move
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the ball forward when it comes to safer schools and safer communities and i think that’s why we all are here that’s
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why hrc has brought us all together to bring to light uh what the what legislatures all across the all across
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the country are doing and they are on their own agenda and not on the people’s agenda and this is blatantly hostile
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legislation that’s doing the total opposite then what we should be doing and bringing bringing everyone together
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every florida student including our lgbtq plus kids deserves to learn and
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save inclusive environments where they are treated with dignity and respect not be further isolated stigmatized or
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dehumanized because of who they are conversations about gender identity and orientation are not taboo topics uh by
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the florida legislature so this bill was rich coming from the party that conveniently wraps itself in small
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government rhetoric that they continuously uh talk about uh every every chance that
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they get but this is another staying on florida’s history and history will hold every last one of us accountable even to
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the ones who are fighting right now uh we will be held accountable and what we say and what we don’t say and i believe
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that’s why we are here today classrooms should be places of inclusion where every florida child can learn safely and
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ask questions but not in ronda sanchez’s florida already countless teachers across the state have already said that
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they will leave the profession amidst a teacher shortage altogether due to this and due to the other cultural wars that
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has been going across the state of florida in the final days of session that just wrapped up early last week
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many on the other side uh they said the quiet parts out loud the opponents have
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called this bill uh the the rumors they called us groomers because we supported the bill that schools are socially
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engineering children uh the the florida family policy council president called this uh don’t turn my son into a
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daughter bill or that children are confused in conversations behind the scenes some of my colleagues have made
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it extremely clear what they are trying to do they want to silence our voices but i’m here to let it be known you
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can’t silence our voices you will not silence our voices and that’s why we are here today we’re going to push back now
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and we’re going to continue to push back until we let it be known that we have a right to be here and we have a right to
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raise our families in the same communities that they are allowed to raise their feminism thank you once
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again for having me and thank you for pulling all of us together to push back on these hateful legislations that’s
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making its way across the country thank you so much for that senator appreciate it um next we’re going to
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turn to kentucky senator karen berg for context kentucky has about a dozen anti-lgbtq bills filed uh this
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legislative session ranging from religious refusal bills to bans on age appropriate best practice gender
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affirming care for transgender youth to bills that would prevent transgender students from participating in school sports programs senator berg has spoken
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eloquently about the harms done by anti-lgbtq legislation and how these bills impact the well-being of
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transgender youth um senator thank you and i really appreciate you
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all um having me here this morning this is um this is something i care deeply about
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i am a state senator here in kentucky historically here in this state our kentucky high school athletic
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association was completely in charge of making determinations as to um eligibility and
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who was allowed he wasn’t allowed to play on a team and somehow um even though in this state we have never
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once had a complaint either with the high school athletic association or through any other um
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um school venue we have never had a complaint about
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who’s been playing on what team our legislature decided to bring forth
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a bill that basically in the house version would have eliminated basically all
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children from participating in school sports um from kindergarten on on the senate
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side it started in in i believe first grade i was able to at least put an amendment to
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let first through fifth graders play but these bills guys are being brought
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in from national organizations given to state legislators and they are
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being asked to pass these simply because they think
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these are polling well no consideration to the harm that this is doing to children
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so here in this state the sponsor of the bill on the senate side i you know i was like why is this guy
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sponsoring this bill it’s because they feel that he’s in a tough primary and they want to give him something to
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help him my republican colleagues are actually using this
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as a political ploy to get votes
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no matter who it hurts and you know as the parent of a trans child trying
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trying to to navigate the the world of middle school and high
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school it takes a village it takes a village to raise a child
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and what what they are intentionally doing is destroying that village so that we don’t have it
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in in an effort to hurt children for their own political gain
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thank you thank you so much uh appreciate that
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next we’re going to turn to kansas representative stephanie byers
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for context kansas has um a terrific track record of beating back anti-lgbtq
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legislation but it’s extremely hard work last year the governor vetoed a bill that would have prevented transgender
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students from playing school sports but the bill is back again uh not once uh but twice representative byers has been
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an important force in resisting these bills and brings both her personal story and her professional expertise to the
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fight um representative
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thank you ben in in kansas it’s been interesting to say the least you know uh serving as the first transgender representative in the
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state of kansas and the first native american who is transgender in any state legislature anywhere in the united
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states there’s so much that falls on your shoulders when you go to the well to to speak against these things because
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although i represent the district 86 here in the kansas house of representatives my constituents lay all
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across the state i get emails and conf and calls and cards from folks
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everywhere across kansas who write to me and say i know that you hear me my own legislator doesn’t hear me my own
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senator doesn’t hear me but you hear me they don’t want to listen to the fact that they’re hurting trans kids and when
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you look at these bills that are coming through kindergarten through 12th grade and on in through college they’re
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they’re trying to ban just trans girls here in kansas not trans guys but just trans girls and when you look at this we
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you take it from the the place of of an imbalance of power the state legislature versus the one trans girl who has signed
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up with our secondary association to be involved in athletics one versus the state legislature there’s
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such an imbalance of power there and we see this as an aggressive attack against the trans community over and over again
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it’s repeated action when you have an imbalance of power and aggressive act and repeated action that’s textbook
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bullying no matter how you look at it and for what reason to get votes from people that don’t really
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they’ve got plenty of things this is kansas there’s a super majority here they do not need to guard these votes on
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the backs of trans kids and picking on trans kids who don’t have a voice and when i come in as a trans woman and
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stand at the well and speak the 125 members of the kansas house of legislators gets completely quiet
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they stop moving they sit down because they know they know when they bring this in they are stepping on human rights
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they understand that and yet they do it anyway and then the next day they have the audacity to come to me and apologize
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to ask for forgiveness and work to try to convince me that they are really nice good people if they’re going to vote
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like this to pick on trans kids and we just see this happening over and over again and not just in kansas we’re seeing this everywhere you know when we
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look around my surrounding states the same bill introduced in missouri we see oklahoma just passed it we saw it signed
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into law in iowa i mean where does this end and where do cancer where do trans families go for safety for sanctity you
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know and we’re talking about just affirming in sports and then the details they bring in
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they lie they don’t add all of it to it they’ll talk about the connecticut lawsuit like it’s ongoing yet we know
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that it ended and we also know that the the cisgender girl that brought the lawsuit in connecticut she beat both the
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trans girls in foot races twice in the next eight days after she filed the lawsuit they’ll bring up statistics that
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don’t give the full value of everything they do they’re they’re stopping sports and the senator the representative from
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idaho that started all this mess she comes in and testifies about things that took place three years ago as if
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they’re happening now because she doesn’t even know you know when we saw in in our senate education
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committee this year 116 opponents 116 opponents to this and there were only a
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handful of proponents another handful of proponents most of them were paid attorneys that were associated with the
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three organizations that have been driving this legislation across the united states this is something that we need to make sure is highlighted that
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people understand these trans kids they’ve got voices now they’ve got us they’ve got the folks that are here on
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this call they’ve got myself they’ve got the other three members of the lgbt caucus that we have in kansas and we
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speak out and we will continue to speak out there are families all across the nation that are speaking out and we need
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to amplify those voices to make sure that people understand that we are citizens we are americans we have all
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the rights that everyone else has as well thank you so much for that
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um we’re going to turn to um tennessee senator rama shakbari
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for context tennessee is one of the hardest states uh nationwide on anti-lgbtq legislation the last three
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years tennessee’s had uh more than 60 anti-lgbtq bills introduced and last year passed two
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bathroom bills the first and only bathroom bills to have passed since north carolina’s hb2 tennessee has major
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fights looming in the next few weeks and senator eckberry is a tremendous leader in ally in this fight senator
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thank you ben and certainly thank you to the human rights campaign for pulling this together it is exactly what you all
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have said it is a slate of hate that is designed to attack states across this country
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and the people who lose are our children our trans kids our lgbtq families and at
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what cost in tennessee like you said we passed the or i should say they because i didn’t vote for those bills
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passed the first bathroom bill since north carolina and they also passed a
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ban on trans kids being able to play sports in k-12 now this year they came
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back and said look we’re going to see what more damaging things we can do there’s a bill currently being
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considered that will take away funding from schools that do not enforce
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the gender on a child’s birth certificate when they decide to play sports
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the one that i think is even more damaging and incredibly hurtful is a pronoun bill where a teacher will not
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have to recognize a student’s preferred pronouns a teacher or administrator and
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if they refuse to do that they cannot be removed from their job they cannot be sued that to me is saying that you as a
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child who is has certain pronouns is not worthy of the dignity and respect that you deserve
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and it is devastating uh i think that i saw legislation in utah and i saw that
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the governor vetoed and i thought wow now that is a hero who recognizes that
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suicide rates are even more pronounced one it’s the second cause of death in teenagers but even more pronounced than
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our trans kids why would you put them in a position where they would feel less than when they already have a difficult
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battle ahead we also have legislation that will specifically ban
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um men trans men from participating in college sports i i said it earlier it’s a slate of hate
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that does not move tennessee forward the business community is against it it makes tennessee a state that is not
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welcoming if you’re an lgbtq family why would you want to locate in a state
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where representatives and senators are constantly attacking your values and your very being are putting your safety
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and your dignity in danger so i stand firmly and proudly as an ally i will do everything that i can and then some to
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fight for our lgbtq community and specifically our trans kids because
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at the end of the day all children are children and they deserve to grow up in a relation in a
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environment that is safe that is healthy that is affirming so that they can become the adults that we need in in our
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society frederick douglass said that it is easier to make sure we don’t have broken
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children than to try and heal broken men and i think that our legislatures need to take that to heart
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and and i’m a proud christian and i think those who are christians who who use
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religion to propose hate really need to look inside themselves and and wonder is
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this really what jesus would do thank you thank you so much senator uh
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appreciate that um next we’re gonna turn to uh texas representative jessica gonzalez for context uh the texas
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legislature is not in session this year but uh that hasn’t kept governor abbott or a.g paxton from continuing their
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assault on transgender youth in the form of lawless executive action to consider best practice age-appropriate gender
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affirming care for transgender youth as child abuse last year texas had more anti-lgbtq
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bills introduced than any other in the country 60 bills and unfortunately a ban on transgender youth participating in
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school sports consistent with their gender identity was passed representative gonzalez is the leader of
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the lgbt caucus in the state legislature and has been a forceful advocate in
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pushing back on the unrelenting attacks on the lgbtq community in texas
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representative i believe um
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uh she is joining via phone um is it possible to unmute
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her phone henry i can’t do it on my end but here all
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right can you can you hear me now yes
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all right all right um good afternoon uh i’m i’m thank you for having me this uh today uh so last
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session we witnessed the largest assault by texas republicans against the
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lgbtq community specifically focused on her most vulnerable our
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transgender children i worked alongside the the lgbtq caucus
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our fearless parents of our transgender kids uh and our ally allied advocacy
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organizations to defeat over 75 anti-lgbtq bills that were filed
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through four legislative sessions um the only one that that republicans were able to pass unfortunately was a
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discriminatory transgender uh sports ban uh but that was also after many attempts
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and republicans having to create a whole new committee that was stuck of course with with
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republicans to advance this legislation uh and then you know to make matters worse as soon as sessions these sessions
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multiple sessions were over uh and republican primaries began these republican elected officials renewed
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their efforts to push these anti-anti-lgbtq messaging targeting our transgender kids uh they started
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removing um access to mental health care resources uh for for lgbtq youth from
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these from governmental websites removing books from our classrooms that discuss sexual orientation or gender
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identity uh calling for the repeal of same-sex marriage and shutting down hospital programs that
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give our trans youth access to health care um and now our our indicted or
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twice indicted attorney general uh wrote a fake legal opinion that that classified life-saving gender affirming
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terrorist child abuse and the governor then wrote also he wrote a fake executive order directing the department
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of uh family and protective services to investigate these families they have transgender children
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uh and they just simply i mean they’ve just gone too far this time i mean they’re they’re targeting
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uh innocent happy children that are in loving homes and literally they are sending cps investigators to their homes
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um to ask questions and and and they’re scared i mean our families are scared our kids are scared
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they wanna they want to take these children away from their parents um and then accuse their parents of child abuse
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just for simply accepting their child loving their child and giving them um you know the the this life-saving
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medical care um and and put them in this broken foster care system that our state
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has already declared i mean the courts have declared that our foster career system is unconstitutional in the way that it is
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and so they want to put our transgender children in there and take them out of their homes um
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and and we know that it is all just simply for to pander to a small portion
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of the of the electorate um when most the majority of texans um
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don’t support this behavior they’re lawless i mean they’re just they’re being bullies um and so our state i mean
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it it has real issues to worry about um and and and republicans just want to focus on
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being hateful um and discriminatory and texas are starting to see that i
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think on on both sides right um and this year our our ag
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our governor and his slew of anti uh equality statewide officials and legislators are up for re-election
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um and and every session they renew their efforts to attack our community um
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and you know we simply just can’t afford another session like this um with republicans um in charge
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uh and so everyone in texas um and clearly in other states as as we’ve heard um everybody’s we need to pay
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attention everyone needs to pay attention to what is happening um and and make plans to vote in november so we
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can restore our comments you know common sense leadership back in into our states
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um and and we must show that that these anti-lgbtq politicians that there will
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be consequences to their actions and that our community and our allies are not going to stand for their basis
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attacks and that our children are not pawns for for their primary re-election campaigns and and that love will win and
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hate will will lose and and so you know as long as i’m in the texas house um you know i vow to to fight for to make sure
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that every child and every lgbtq person is treated equal and and you know we must continue fighting for that at in
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you know our state level and as well as our you know the national level um so thank you
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thank you so much representative and we’re going to circle back um to our final speaker uh alabama
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representative neil rafferty again just for context alabama is one vote away
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from sending sb184 to the governor’s desk this is a bill that would make it a felony to provide age-appropriate
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medically necessary gender affirming care to transgender youth and is similar to a bill that was unsuccessful last
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year alabama has also been seriously considering a bathroom bill in the style of north carolina’s hb2 representative
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rafferty has been a leader in fighting back against these bills representative
28:49
all right well good morning everyone again thank you hrc for having uh for pulling us all together and thanks
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everyone for joining today um i would say that first and foremost you know i’m just going to echo the sentiments of my
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other colleagues from across across the country here that this is part of a larger national strategy to create a new
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culture war um by the problem is that they’re obviously
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attacking families they’re attacking children they’re using children as political footballs for cheap political
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points we want to talk about alabama’s bathroom bill the sponsor of that bill was brought up the issue of sexual
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assault occurring in uh in in in bathrooms
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i called him out on this when he brought this subject up by
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a that there’s not a single transgender individual that’s been um uh
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put in that has been indicted or indicated to be a perpetrator of any of those crimes
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be we’re not doing anything to actually address the issue of sexual assault we’re not talking about consent we’re not talking about bodily autonomy we’re
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not talking about any of those issues that would be um to be prevented to measures for sexual assaults that this
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uh that the sponsor of the bill was putting was putting forward instead he was using transgender
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children as political pawns as political footballs in order to gain cheap political points once again it is
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primary season here in alabama too so you know it all kind of bleeds in together there we want to talk about
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this gender affirming care ban bill this bill has been introduced and reintroduced and reintroduced for the
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past three years it’s like a bad zombie movie it just keeps coming back up
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um it’s you know only supported by a very narrow margin that is on the very
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fringes of of the of the right uh you know i’ve talked to many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle
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who do not like this bill because hey it is not conservative b it is taking 140
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people that is 105 people in the alabama house and uh 35 people in the
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uh alabama senate and putting us in the doctor’s office and then wagging our finger at the parents saying you don’t
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know what you’re doing you don’t know you don’t love your children why would you um why would you want to to uh to do
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this you don’t know what’s best you know but we’re talking about taking an unprecedented move of taking 140 people
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into the doctor’s office and dictating what a parent what
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parents do with the private family medical decisions with their children and the
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decisions that they make with a team of health care providers so it is despicable
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um it’s terrible and we got to just make sure that we’re standing up that we’re amplifying these
31:38
these voices and that we’re amplifying the dissent and the doubt and just putting the doubt in the air that this
31:44
is not the right thing to do that this is um detrimental to not just the the
31:50
families but also to the these children into the communities and to uh any sort
31:56
of progress for inclusion and moving our state forward i i just know alabama is better than
32:02
this and i know alabama’s uh deserves better than this um
32:07
and i would say you know we will continue to fight to make alabama safe for all who call her home
32:14
thank you so much uh representative rafferty uh we’re gonna go ahead and open it up for uh q a now uh if media
32:21
have questions henry can you just remind folks um how to ask a question here
32:27
should we just put let’s put it in the chat yep put your name in the chat uh in your outlet if you would like to ask a
32:32
question and then we will uh and then we’ll call on you and please let me yourself and ask a question
32:38
awesome so we’ll just give it a second or so for folks to populate questions and
32:44
serena marshall with um now this serena go ahead thanks ben thanks everyone for
32:49
this uh really informative call i was just wondering um if kate you could clarify those 320 bills across the
32:56
country is that an accumulative number from 2020 2021 and so far in 2022 i know
33:02
oftentimes these bills get reintroduced every session so just individual bills i
33:08
was just wondering on what that number would be and then i know um a lot of you talked about how you’re
33:14
working to counter some of these bills but do you have specific campaigns that are happening
33:20
around the country to to address that um or is it just on a state-by-state campaign basis
33:29
well i can answer my part first the numbers that i gave you um are the number of bills that are active this
33:36
year so um 2022 is the second year of several legislative sessions and so there are
33:42
bills that have rolled over from 2021 into 2022 and so the 2022 numbers
33:50
um do um in some cases include that um sorry excuse me but um those are all
33:57
bills that are are active that actually have a possibility of moving and in some cases
34:02
they do um looking at poor uh uh at poor tennessee where that second
34:09
year man we have we had a bill pass um the first day of uh the second
34:16
year of the legislative session because that that means in most states if you have a bill roll over it picks up
34:22
wherever it left off and so that particular bill which was a license to discriminate in child welfare services
34:28
bill which i believe was uh 2020 that that bill passed um it it
34:35
literally passed on the very first day of ledge session so those numbers that i gave you are not cumulative they are um
34:41
for each year great and then does anyone want to speak to the question around
34:48
any efforts any sort of organized campaign efforts um in terms of pushing these bills back
35:01
oh go ahead okay i’ll go ahead and jump in i think that you know we do kind of see
35:06
an organization um that that we talk about you know i know that for myself
35:12
that i studied intently what happened in the texas special session knowing that
35:17
what was going to come to kansas is going to be the same thing we saw last year but to gain ideas on on how we can
35:24
address what happens between myself and the other transgender
35:29
legislators across the country we’re in constant communication with each other we talk and get feedback from
35:34
each other as well as to what we do and how we address these things um as far as there being an overarching national
35:41
organization uh you know we’re we’re trying to get those coalitions built so
35:46
that we can make sure that we do have uh resources to bring about you know no
35:52
matter what state these pop up in that we have folks that are willing to come in and speak and be able to do what we can to stop this hateful legislation
35:58
from moving forward great and i’ll i’ll just say there are uh in
36:05
most states there are state groups that um are fighting back against this legislation um including i believe every
36:12
single one of the states that uh joined us on the call today um there are state groups who are doing this work um lgbtq
36:19
plus equality groups who are doing this work who are in state legislatures who are have lobbyists or our lobbyists and are
36:26
working on trying to defeat the bad bills and pass the good bills and of course at hrc we work in very close
36:32
partnership with those state groups um to do what we can to be supporting their efforts um and there are other national
36:39
groups who do that as well so um we are all working really hard to oppose these bills um and
36:46
uh to the extent that there’s a a coordinated campaign um you know you’re looking at it it’s it’s this group of
36:52
folks it’s the folks who are fighting this um in the states and uh there are as i said there are other
36:58
national groups who are working on it as well just a point of clarity if i may um so there is not then a federal
37:06
campaign to address this on a nationwide level it’s more targeting each state’s
37:11
individual law yeah i mean there are there’s the equality act at the federal level which
37:18
would certainly help with some elements of what we’re seeing in state legislatures um the equality act would
37:23
not solve all of the problems that we are seeing at state legislatures just from a federalism perspective some of
37:29
these are are things that states have the ability to be legislating on and that the federal government doesn’t have
37:35
the ability to take that away um that said you know they’re when
37:40
you’re when you’re fighting state legislation you have to do it state by state and it’s it’s hand-to-hand combat
37:45
in each of these states and the folks that you have seen in front of you today are some of the leaders on this in their states but let
37:52
me tell you um you know we’ve had this bad legislation introduced and i think it’s 36 states this year um and people
37:59
are fighting in every single state thank you so much for that um the next
38:04
question is from sharon lurie at u.s news world report um sharon put in the chat what are the main organizations
38:11
promoting anti-lgbtq bills so uh the two biggest and uh most or uh
38:19
most involved organizations at the national level are um the alliance defending freedom and the heritage
38:25
foundation um they actually have a website that you can go to to get if you’re a legislator to
38:31
ask for uh legislation that would do the things that we’ve been talking about here um
38:38
they’ve been very uh this is not like a clandestine effort they’ve been very open about the fact that they are
38:43
helping push these bills across the country um i will also say and some of the legislators may want to speak to
38:48
what this looks like in their specific states um that’s not necessarily what the the groups are called on the ground
38:54
um they have other groups that they work in partnership with um on the ground who may be the the people who are directly
39:00
handing these bills um over to legislators there may be a middle middle person middle group um but those are the
39:06
folks who are really behind these and that’s why the bills look so similar across the country um i would say that
39:12
the sports bands are about 98 the same from state to state um the
39:18
medical care bills are have a little bit more variation but i would still say we’re talking like 92 93 i’m making
39:23
these numbers up but just to you know give you a sense of of where we are um and the bathroom bills are are almost
39:30
you know carbon copies of each other so um the they’re definitely coming from from the same places and um you know the
39:37
folks there also are um are willing to travel around the country and i think representative byers alluded
39:42
to the the representative from uh idaho who was one of the first folks who worked on these bills um and how she’s
39:49
been traveling around the country i believe on uh on behalf of alliance defending freedom to help other
39:55
legislators pass such bills uh any of the legislative leaders
40:01
interested in touching on this as well here in kansas um
40:07
kansas family voice has been one of the proponents that brought the stuff in of course the kansas family family voice is formerly
40:14
the kansas family policy alliance uh which is an arm of alliance defending
40:20
freedom um and you know so we’re we’re seeing that that combined effort when
40:25
they bring these things in together uh and like we said yeah it’s it’s the same legislation um and even when we look at
40:33
the 11 proponents this time around um most of them either were on payrolls
40:40
from adf or receive significant financial contributions from adf uh
40:45
including the women’s liberation front which you know is works on a grant from adf uh you know
40:52
to to come against these things uh so it’s it’s hard when you look at the fact that you know these proponents are our
40:58
lawyers coming in to talk and we’ve got families and trans kids coming in to defend against it
41:05
representative rafferty did you want to chime in on that as well sure i was just going to add that you
41:10
know one of the the groups here in alabama that’s really been a big proponent and pushing uh particularly
41:16
the gender affirmative care ban bill um has been eager for them that’s been one of the the the bigger pushes that right
41:23
there which you know they consider themselves a conservative religious liberty uh but they but for some reason this is
41:30
an issue that they’ve kind of manufactured a crisis they’ve done all these shock and awe tactics
41:35
with it to try to push and draw more public attention to the bill um even though it’s based off of of lies and
41:42
half truths and just a misunderstanding of uh transgender people uh transgender
41:48
uh the transgender experience and their families um but the eagle forum’s been a huge one down here
41:54
just as you know in every other state you know you have to fight it your own way we’ve been able to develop a broad
42:01
coalition down here of folks that are against it for various different reasons whether it’s from uh
42:07
you know the schools the medical establishment to the business community there’s certain areas of people that all
42:13
hate the bill for one reason or another um so just as uh you fight it in a different
42:19
way it’s also being pushed in a different way from state to state as well that’s why you have to have that state-to-state strategy
42:27
great thank you all for that uh the next question comes from trudy ring at the advocate trudy go ahead
42:38
hi thanks so much for hosting this
42:44
yeah i i have kind of a two-part question um
42:49
at a time when there’s been unprecedented progress for the lgbtq
42:55
community and we have a friendly administration in the white house
43:01
is this this spate of state legislation
43:07
is that backlash to progress or you know what is
43:13
you know what are the factors causing it and secondly specifically on the don’t
43:19
say gay or trans bills how do they differ from the
43:25
uh so-called no promo homo bills we saw some years ago
43:33
well i’ll start with the second question and then i have thoughts to offer on the first question but i suspect others do as well so i’ll make some space for them
43:40
the the second question um about they’re very similar i mean basically that the
43:45
idea between the don’t say gay and the no promo homo or it’s basically the same idea what i would just add just to make
43:51
sure that this is clear for everyone is that this bill in florida um has been in some ways sort of coined don’t say gay
43:58
it’s also very much about trans youth it also is don’t say trans and so i do want to lift that up to make it clear you
44:05
know this is about um trying to erase the entirety of the lgbtq community um and from from
44:13
curriculum from uh from history books from uh from just basic identities being
44:19
able to be expressed in the classroom and and i do think that there’s this sense of um
44:25
a sense that if lgbtq youth don’t know the words for their identities if
44:31
they’ve never seen a role model who is lgbtq that that will then keep them from
44:36
becoming lgbtq which is of course not correct what what uh what’s seeing
44:42
thriving lgbtq adults means what knowing that lgbtq folks are out there what that
44:48
means that does allow for kids to then have the terminology to be able to label
44:53
uh how they’re feeling and to be able to communicate about that it doesn’t impact who they are at any level and that’s
44:59
that’s just silliness um so that’s the second question um and then for the first question do others want to jump in
45:05
on that first
45:11
that was on the question of progress uh i’ll just say and and perhaps others will want to um jump in as they’re
45:16
reminded of the question but the the first the question was is there um a backlash is this about backlash and that
45:22
is absolutely part of it um you know i think our opponents when we’re talking about
45:28
edf when we’re talking about the heritage foundation and to be clear these are not people who are proponents of women’s sports these
45:34
are not people who care deeply about the efficacy of puberty blockers these are
45:40
not people who even truly care about bathrooms these are people whose mission
45:45
is to roll back acceptance of lgbtq people and they did that when they were uh
45:53
advocating for criminalization of same-sex sexual relationships they were doing that when they were advocating
45:58
against marriage equality they were doing that when they were putting the bathroom bills forward there and that that’s what they’re doing now so it’s
46:05
not that they care deeply about women’s sports they have cared about women’s sports for exactly as long as their
46:10
polling information has told them that they can make women sports about hurting trans people um and the same is true of
46:17
the gender affirming care do they care about the efficacy of puberty blockers they do not they’ve cared about that for
46:22
exactly as long as it’s given them the ability to try to make people afraid of what it means for children to be
46:28
receiving gender affirming care and so these folks are desperate desperate to
46:34
score a win they are losing and the more that we have progress the more desperate
46:40
they will become and i think frankly we heard from i think every single one of the legislators brought up the idea
46:47
that this is about being cruel to children to children this is their best work at this point is trying to make
46:54
people afraid of kids and so that’s how desperate they are that’s how far we’ve come and you know we obviously have to
47:01
continue to lean in and help clear up any questions that folks have in order to prevent them from being able to do
47:07
this fear-mongering and this is the best that they have right now
47:13
that’s great thank you for that um the next question is from rebecca
47:18
yeah if i can interrupt you for a second i think representative buyer said something she wanted to add yes oh i’m so sorry go for it that’s fine and yeah
47:26
just banking off of this when you step back and you look at how these came about
47:31
after obergefell that’s when we start seeing the attacks on the trans community after we see the supreme court
47:37
say yes same-sex marriage is the law of the land then it turns this the same legislation to it and i’m i’m 59 years old right
47:44
born in 63 my life kind of reflects the civil rights movements that we’ve had across the united states in this time
47:50
what we see going on it it it’s hard not to look at this and assume that it’s
47:55
just an attempt to push people back in the closet i mean we’ve gone from a place as a nation where we were
48:01
unaccepting to a place where we would tolerate and now we’re moving into full acceptance for every person not just
48:08
same-sex couples not just same-sex relationships but for the trans community the non-binary communities as well we’re seeing that and so this
48:14
backlash comes back it’s almost like they said they think we can push people back in the closet and make it where
48:20
it’s uncomfortable to be out we won’t see this anymore and we can return us back to where we were it’s based on fear
48:26
it’s fear that that their belief system is a part of the past so they’re you know because we’re seeing the future
48:32
around us the acceptance of people is the future we know it’s going to keep moving that way but that fear comes out
48:38
and they begin to try to do whatever they can to to push people back in the closet and pretend that we don’t exist
48:44
anymore and then i’ll just add and add to that it’s a gross miscalculation
48:50
our young people are brilliant and they’re informed and they are not going to tolerate this
48:56
foolishness uh so they really are those who you know push this hate and
49:02
this nonsense they’re really just the last gaps of breath for them because young people are whether it’s
49:09
rights for all or we’re talking about our climate or anything else this is this is the the last end of the road for
49:16
these these people thank you thank you so much uh
49:22
the next question comes from rebecca chung uh next star’s kansas capital bureau rebecca go ahead
49:28
hi uh my question is for representative byers uh representative byers you know if this bill uh the transgender athlete
49:35
ban bill uh if it passes into law this year could you elaborate on maybe some specific steps that could be taken as
49:41
far as potential legal action uh what could that look like and then my second question
49:46
um there are also you know lawmakers in the senate that have been pretty adamant about pushing this issue forward
49:52
expressing what they believe to be serious concerns do you think their sentiments are also fabricated to
49:57
further feed into what’s been mentioned uh as a political ploy
50:02
i would say to answer the second question um absolutely i mean you know we can get down to the level of the fact
50:08
that the person that brought this bill both last year and that and this year in kansas i went to college with her back
50:15
in the 80s in oklahoma i worked with her at wichita north high school together she became an administrator for middle
50:21
schools in wichita schools the same time that i came out and began living authentically and her responses in
50:28
middle school principal meetings about the possibility of myself walking into her school to recruit kids um were such
50:35
negative things that we see this as an ongoing issue this is not new in any way
50:41
shape or form and she is one of the few proponents that really pushes this word comes back to us over and over again
50:47
that people in the republican party in the state house of kansas would really really not want to see this happen they
50:54
get they understand what it does so yeah we we do see that as far as the legal
50:59
ramifications if it becomes law um i if if you’re paying attention to what’s happened the kansas senate when they
51:06
passed it out they passed it out with a veto proof majority um and so i mean it hasn’t come up on the house
51:12
side yet so we’ll see what happens but we we we’ve already had the aclu of kansas engaged with this we’ve got you
51:19
know you can hear the ding ding of the dry cleaning doors opening and closing as attorneys are taking their suits in
51:24
to get cleaned uh they’re they’re ready for this they know this is going to come down uh and and if it does there’s a
51:31
legal fight here we start looking at the equity issues of it why is the only target uh you know trans girls and not
51:38
trans boys we can use the the neil gorsuch application of bostic the but for would this be existing but for the
51:45
fact that these people are transgender you know so we can we can definitely see how these court cases come up about um
51:51
and how it can very easily be proven to be unconstitutional it would be great for everybody for the lawsuit in idaho
51:58
to move forward and come to a resolution uh you know and we’re pretty sure that the end result with it is going to be
52:03
that idaho’s laws will be determined to be unconstitutional but we’ve got to get it moved there
52:10
great thank you so much um the next question comes from michael jones at super creator and i just want
52:16
to remind folks if you want to ask a question just please put your name and media outlet in
52:21
the chat um michael go ahead thank you guys for doing this and thank you for taking my question i just like
52:28
any of you to speak to the specific impact on lgbtq students and youth who
52:33
don’t have the family safety net and rely on school and sports to experience a sense of belonging there’s obviously
52:39
rightfully so a lot of focus on the impact that this has on families but i also i’m curious to know um if any of
52:46
the state lawmakers or anyone at hrc can speak to the impact that this specifically has on uh students and
52:54
youth who don’t have the the family safety net that so many of us rely on
53:03
who’d like to it seems like everyone would like to answer which is great who’d like to take a um
53:09
chance at that first well i could jump in i think that’s what makes these bills so dangerous right
53:15
because they are attacking communities that have been historically marginalized and where instead of building up we’re
53:22
actually tearing down uh so it it i i’m happy that we have groups like
53:28
the aclu like hrc that are actively engaged that sue uh the mess out of
53:35
legislatures and for these bills which is why i always say thank goodness for the three branches of government because
53:41
if the executive and the legislative are doing their thing hopefully the judicial branch will be able to to save us and i
53:48
think also we have plenty of representatives like myself included that
53:54
we tell folks our office is a safe space come in you know we want to get you on the record explaining exactly how it’s
54:00
going to impact you and we’re a safe space and i’ve had people reach out to me and say well my family’s not as supportive but thank you for expressing
54:08
you know and supporting and fighting for us thank you thank you representative byers do you
54:14
want to speak to that yeah i want to go ahead and jump in and and
54:20
for trans kids if they don’t have an affirming home and they can’t find affirmation in
54:27
schools and they’re stuck in that dark place walking walking in the darkness alone
54:33
without a parental hand to hold sometimes without friends hands to hold and then seeing their state is telling
54:39
them that public school which should be open and accepting for absolutely everybody around them is also going to be forbidden for them to be able to be
54:46
themselves no matter what and then we wonder about suicide rates why they increase why they go up um
54:52
because you know it that that pressure this this perception that you are not
54:58
wanted no matter where you are it has a horrible impact on people you know we’ve
55:03
got to find ways to affirm people we’ve got to find ways to tell people that who you are is perfectly fine and wonderful
55:10
and we love you for who you are no matter what and like i said those kids that are that don’t have that those are
55:16
the ones that i worry about the most because those are the ones that we see the newspaper story and the parents like
55:21
they just seem so happy we don’t know what happened because they’re hiding they’ve been hiding this whole time i mean this is
55:28
personal for me because as i said i didn’t begin living authentically until 2014 i was 51 years old
55:37
that is a long lonely walk and no kid needs to have that not in this day and age
55:44
thank you so much representative um representative rafferty did you want to speak to that as well
55:51
well i wanted to say that there is another provision to the gender care firming ban bill where that forces
55:58
teachers and school administrators to out their kid out a kid
56:03
if they uh even suspect that that child is uh tran is transgender
56:09
to the parents and you know when this came before me in committee once before i cited the fact that i you know when i
56:15
came out initially i didn’t come out to my parents first i came out to a very trusted teacher uh or another trusted
56:21
adult for to kind of for some guidance and that teacher never once told me don’t tell my
56:26
parents but that teacher also said you know you’re going to know you’re going to know
56:33
um that your family situation best you’re going to know what you can do and what you uh you know what your parents you’re
56:40
going to know your situation better than anybody else and that’s what’s also terrifying about this is because i know
56:45
that there are trans kids out there who have a trusted adult who then that trusted adult would
56:51
have to betray that trust um in order and out that child by law
56:57
in order to it’s just terribly tragic because
57:03
echoing the sentiments i mean coming out’s hard being a teenager is already hard enough um you know and as i’m
57:09
working and talking with trans youth here as these bills have been moving through for the past three years
57:15
they’re terrified they’re terrified that this is you know alabama’s supposed to be their home they live here they grew
57:21
up here they’re born here um there’s no good reason why they should have a target on their back but
57:26
that is exactly how they feel um and i just you know the best i can do is
57:32
just look at them squarely in the eye and tell them don’t you know i i have your back i have
57:39
your back i’m going to do everything i can to fight for you because i know that they are they’re absolutely terrified
57:49
did you want to chime in at all or i’m not sure that i have anything to add
57:54
in addition to all of that i mean i think that’s also real and you know everybody in their speech in their uh
58:00
remarks talked about the cost to children and and i just want to emphasize the cost to children is not
58:07
just when the laws pass i mean obviously that that is a very very heavy cost
58:12
right the cost to children is when these bills are introduced and representative rafferty i’m thinking
58:18
about alabama you’ve been successful in pushing this medical care ban now um pushing back on it
58:25
but this is the second session that these kids have had to hear third third session third session that
58:31
these kids have had to hear that this medical care which they rely on in some cases this is life-saving
58:39
care that this medical care might go away and that is so
58:45
scary it is so scary and you know i’m also thinking about texas right now where because of the
58:52
governor’s lawless order right there are now families who are truly terrified
58:58
because the department of family services is showing up at people’s houses people who are loving parents
59:05
people who have great healthy strong relationships with their kids whose kids
59:10
are thriving because they are getting best practice medically necessary age
59:17
appropriate care supported by the american pediatric association the american medical association the
59:22
american psychological association and that greg abbott and ken paxton banded together to try to
59:29
take those kids out of their homes out of their homes and why
59:35
to punish the parents to punish the kids it is about the fear it is about the
59:41
cruelty because no one can argue with a straight face that these kids are not being well taken care of no one can do
59:47
that it is a political stunt and the cost of that political stunt is true
59:53
terror for the families who are living under it and these other states these
59:58
bills that just having them be introduced we know has a negative impact on the well-being of lgbtq people
1:00:05
hearing your humanity debated over and over again by the people who are supposed to represent you and what we
1:00:11
know is that these people don’t represent the american public right polling data for uh non-discriminative
1:00:18
support for nondiscrimination has never been higher it’s like between 75 and 80
1:00:23
depending on which state you’re talking about the support is hugely high these
1:00:29
are not things that people want these are not real problems these are not debates that people want this is a
1:00:35
hundred percent about these politicians who are craven who are cowardly who
1:00:40
would rather put the well-being of these kids at risk than
1:00:46
miss any opportunity to try to score points with the furthest far right part
1:00:51
of their primary voter base and it is shameful and it is hurtful and people
1:00:56
are truly suffering in the meantime and these politicians truly don’t care
1:01:04
and i do believe we saw around hb2 in north carolina
1:01:09
the folks who put that bill forward they were certain it was a political winner they were certain it was political gold
1:01:18
and they overreached and it came back to bite them and i do believe that we are
1:01:23
on the precipice of that happening now people are starting to understand the true cruelty of this moment that this is
1:01:31
not about public policy this is not about a real danger this is not about anything legitimate at all
1:01:37
it is 100 about politics and by people who truly
1:01:42
have no bottom thank you for that um
1:01:49
and then i think representative gonzalez is still online i don’t know if representative gonzalez if you want to chime in or not but just uh flagging
1:01:55
that you’re still here for folks um since i know you’re not on camera
1:02:01
um okay we can go to the next question from jim mclean at kansas news service
1:02:07
jim go ahead yes thank you can you hear me yeah okay thank you for organizing this meeting first of all a couple of
1:02:13
clarifying questions for representative buyers i just want to make sure that i understand
1:02:19
uh referencing your your last remarks were you referring to senator erickson uh when you talked about the the actual
1:02:25
personal relationship that you’ve had with her for years yes okay good thank you and the other uh
1:02:32
question for you is you say that uh the uh the aclu here in kansas is poised and
1:02:39
ready uh to initiate legal action should this uh this uh ban bill go all the way
1:02:45
through the process uh my understanding is they are we’ve been working hand in hand with the aclu
1:02:52
of kansas as well as equality kansas as these things come through the state house and building coalitions so that we
1:02:58
can approach this however we need to um also uh constitutional law professor
1:03:04
at kent state university kyle veldt uh she’s been engaged with this as well in in focusing the the the
1:03:11
way the rights lay out when we start looking at legal ramifications she testified at the hearing did she not she
1:03:18
did yes okay and final question for you you you referenced the uh the legal action in idaho can you give a
1:03:24
can somebody on the call give us a status report you say that you know when that finally when the litigation there finally ends and a decision is reached
1:03:31
if it’s declared unconstitutional of course then that has an impact on all these other things where is that right now in the process
1:03:39
you know i would yield to anybody else who may have better experience with it my understanding is at this point in time it has gone through a us district
1:03:46
court and it’s been the law has been stayed as far as implementation goes
1:03:51
but that they’re working through an appellate process that we really expect it to show up in the supreme court at
1:03:56
some point yep i agree with that that’s that’s exactly right it is stayed um there was actually
1:04:02
for folks who aren’t so inclined the decision staying that law um is really
1:04:08
really really instructive um and and interesting it’s by a judge who was appointed by a republican um and really
1:04:15
goes through uh very step by step what the rationales were for passing the law
1:04:20
to what extent those seem to be supportable and not and um as you may
1:04:26
imagine because his decision was to enjoy the law from being able to go into effect he did not find the arguments in
1:04:33
favor of the law to be persuasive but i think it’s extremely well done and worth checking out for anybody who’s
1:04:38
interested do you have any concern that this should go all the way up to the u.s supreme court about what might happen
1:04:43
there given the proclivities of the court at the moment well look i mean these bills across the
1:04:49
country were are all being um challenged um the human rights campaign has some of
1:04:54
those uh challenges uh the aclu has some of those challenges lambda legal has some of those
1:05:00
challenges right there there are challenges that are happening um to to nearly all of the
1:05:05
legislation that has gone into effect over the course of the last few years and we’ll see how they work out but i i
1:05:11
will say this uh if you have a very small group of people a very
1:05:18
small specific group of people and you make a law that targets very very small
1:05:26
specific group of people you have no evidence to show that there’s an actual
1:05:33
problem no evidence very small very specific group of people targeted
1:05:40
and what you can show is discrimination what you can show is animus which you
1:05:46
can show is that the law was passed on the basis of dislike
1:05:52
misunderstanding discrimination that is a violation of equal protection of the laws
1:05:57
so you know the uh the department of education has weighed
1:06:03
in with some thoughts um on some of the litigation um and you know the department of health
1:06:09
and human services weighed in about what was going on in texas um and there are definitely implications
1:06:14
for federal law but you know i i always come back to the idea of just constitutionally it is a violation of
1:06:21
equal protection of the laws for you to pass a law because you don’t like somebody and if you can’t justify your
1:06:28
law with facts and if there is evidence that you don’t like the people that you’re trying to hurt
1:06:35
you have a violation of equal protection of the law thank you also
1:06:41
and we’re also seeing you know like in idaho uh where if families provide
1:06:46
health care you know affirmative health care for trans youth and they to do so they have to take the kids out of state
1:06:51
to get so um they’re saying that that legally the state can pursue them out of state uh to do so and
1:06:58
so we’re also looking at attacks on interstate commerce we’re looking at at laws that haven’t existed since
1:07:05
the slavery laws in the 1850s that made it legal to pursue you know escaping
1:07:10
slaves across state borders we’re seeing things like that come around so i yeah this is there’s not
1:07:16
there’s a whole lot of legal ramifications with this they don’t have much to stand on when they bring the stuff forward
1:07:23
thank you for that i think our next question comes from serena marshall with now this i think did you have another
1:07:28
follow-up actually on um jim and the supreme court that he was uh asking about i i mean we know that the supreme
1:07:36
court last year declined to take up the bathroom bill upholding the fourth circuit court i
1:07:41
mean it sounds like texas is trying to get this back into the supreme court the makeup of the current court they’re more
1:07:48
inclined to take up these contentious issues and push back on some of these uh
1:07:54
this exact area so is there concern then that if it does get taken up that it it
1:07:59
could go against you given the court makeup and or is the real desire for the supreme
1:08:06
court to finally take it up and make a real ruling on it well just for clarity right now what’s
1:08:12
happening in texas the the case that’s challenging the texas um unlawful uh executive action that’s
1:08:19
filed in state court so that is about um you know the state state court uh state
1:08:24
law um not about federal law so that’s not something that is um is working its way through the federal court but
1:08:30
through the state court you know and i i think i you know my answer uh to that serena is the same as what i said to jim
1:08:36
which is look you know the there’s no doubt that the federal judiciary has changed tremendously over the course of
1:08:43
the last few years and that includes of course the supreme court um not going to pretend that that is not the case it is
1:08:49
the case and there are still basic principles of the rule of law and uh i’m a lawyer i was
1:08:57
trained to believe rule of law matters i was trained to believe precedent matters um and certainly you know there’s reason
1:09:05
to have faith in both of those things shaken more recently but i think
1:09:10
fundamentally this question of equal protection of the law to me it’s so clear it’s so clear and so you know am i
1:09:19
anxious to see what whether or not the supreme court agrees with me i could wait i i’m not i’m not anxious to have
1:09:25
them weigh in on that particular question but i do think that as these issues work their way through the federal courts as our issues have always
1:09:33
fared as they work their way through the federal courts there will be wins there will be losses there will be
1:09:38
setbacks there will be challenges there will be victories and so um i have been
1:09:44
doing this work for too long to count out the lgbtq community and um and frankly
1:09:50
the growing acceptance of lgbtq people and that does matter to the court um and i think that these are
1:09:58
last-ditch desperate efforts and uh by our opposition to try to pull back on
1:10:04
equality and i do not believe that they will be successful not in front of the supreme court or anywhere else
1:10:11
great thank you so much kate uh the next question comes from samantha rydel with
1:10:17
them and i apologize if i mispronounced her last name samantha go ahead it’s reedle don’t worry about it
1:10:23
everybody doesn’t um thanks everybody for for being on the
1:10:28
call today and taking the time um i just wanted to ask uh a lot of the
1:10:34
uh conversation today has obviously been about um uh pushing back on on bills that are uh
1:10:42
already moving through legislation and everything but we uh we’ve also
1:10:48
heard from a lot of you saying um that you know there there isn’t actually that much support even from
1:10:55
uh conservative legislators and their constituents um so my question is really um
1:11:01
how do you feel an open question to to anyone who would like to chime in
1:11:07
how do you feel that the the conversation on trans rights and transportations can
1:11:13
be changed so that that level of support
1:11:18
um is actually reflected and we aren’t doing uh quite so much just like uh damage control
1:11:24
as we are today and we’re and we’re thinking more proactively
1:11:33
anyone wanting yeah i’m happy to hop in on that but if anybody else does representative buyers did i see you going for your mute button
1:11:40
okay all right um
1:11:45
uh yeah i mean look i think this is the way the conversation needs to change i think that over the over the course of
1:11:52
uh the last several decades the conversation about lgbtq equality has just changed
1:11:58
tremendously right i mean if you fast forward or i’m sorry rewind um to say
1:12:03
2020 uh uh the turn of the century and there was like 2000 the year 2000 right
1:12:09
the way that we were having this conversation in the year 2000 is not the same way we’re having this conversation now right um people have a completely
1:12:18
different entry point into the issues now than we did then and there are a lot of things that have changed but one of
1:12:24
the most important things is that people know people who are lgb
1:12:30
um for the most part we see that things like marriage equality and support for marriage equality really track with
1:12:36
having someone who’s lgb in your life and even if that’s not somebody who’s your brother your sister your friend but
1:12:43
it’s somebody who goes to your church it goes it’s somebody one of the other parents at school that just being able to have a little
1:12:50
window into the humanity of another person has really allowed the support for
1:12:56
marriage support for same-sex relationships to change dramatically over the course of say i’m just picking
1:13:01
those 20 years but right like that window and we have not seen that same
1:13:06
level of increase there’s been very market and important increase but not that same level of increase around trans
1:13:13
issues and partially that’s because there just aren’t as many trans people and so people are less likely to have
1:13:19
trans folks in their life it’s also been a lot less safe for trans people to come out and so it is also i think extremely
1:13:27
likely that more people know trans people than they think they do because those people are not out to them
1:13:33
because those folks don’t feel safe and so that is part of what we have to do is a part of a chicken in an egg situation
1:13:40
right where we can’t ask people to come out if they’re not safe when they’re when they do come out and people are
1:13:46
going to be much more interested in coming out once they’re safe and and and people coming out is going to help us make it more safe right so it’s a cycle
1:13:53
and we do have to work on that and i think the reason our opposition has chosen
1:13:59
trans kids to go after is because even for folks who are fair-minded and who believe in
1:14:06
equality generally speaking they might not have all of the information on what it means to be a
1:14:12
trans eight-year-old they might not have all the information on what it means to be a trans 15 year old and so if the
1:14:19
opposition comes in and starts filling people’s minds with lies and misinformation and fear
1:14:27
people don’t necessarily have enough information to say well that doesn’t sound quite right
1:14:33
right and then they start entertaining a conversation that has no no business being entertained we don’t have to have
1:14:39
a hypothetical conversation about what happens when trans girls and women participate in sports because trans
1:14:45
girls and women have been participating in sports for decades all around the country at every level right so we
1:14:52
actually know we know we don’t have to worry that if we start allowing trans girls and women
1:14:58
to participate in sports that women’s sports is going to fall apart we know it won’t we don’t have to talk about it in
1:15:03
the hypothetical we don’t have to worry about it we know for sure that it’s going to be fine and so the same thing
1:15:09
is true when we’re talking about the medical care bands right where suddenly the opposition is just so concerned about what the long-term
1:15:16
effects of puberty blockers are on trans kids only they don’t seem to be interested in the fact that these are
1:15:21
all medications that are routinely prescribed to cisgender kids and even in some of the places
1:15:27
where allowing gender affirming care has been banned they’re explicitly making exceptions for
1:15:34
cisgender kids receiving the same medication so that’s not about a concern about whether or not the medication is
1:15:40
safe that’s discrimination is what that is right and so what we have to do is help people understand there’s nothing
1:15:47
scary about an eight-year-old who’s transitioning for kids who are not
1:15:54
of age to be going through puberty transition is social it is using a different name it is using
1:16:00
a different pronoun it is presenting yourself in a different way it is not about medical intervention and it is
1:16:06
certainly not about surgery medical intervention and intervention begins at puberty and is usually and in
1:16:14
many cases a trans young person going through puberty will be prescribed puberty blockers and that will keep them
1:16:20
from going through puberty and having their bodies irrevocably changed by puberty
1:16:25
and then once they are of an age to give informed meaningfully informed consent
1:16:33
that is when they start making the changes to their body that are more permanent and so this entire
1:16:39
conversation has been completely fabricated by people who know that fair-minded people
1:16:46
don’t understand everything that i just said and so they get nervous and they start wondering and then they start
1:16:52
asking questions and then the next thing you know they’re they’re having their minds filled with
1:16:58
this poison that the opposition is putting forward right and so i think that’s how the conversation has
1:17:03
to change we have to lean into this moment we have to help people understand what’s true about trans kids we have to
1:17:11
help people understand what’s true about the transition process about what happens to a person’s body why sports is
1:17:18
not the scary proving ground that people seem to think it is right we are having
1:17:23
conversations that simply have been manufactured they are manufactured crises for us to be uh spinning in
1:17:31
because that’s where places like adf want this conversation to be because they know there’s misinformation and
1:17:37
lack of information so that’s my answer to you is that we have to get in there and really educate people about what it
1:17:44
means to be trans what it means to be a trans kid and to shut down this
1:17:49
opportunity that our opposition has created for themselves where they lie and they get to tell the story about
1:17:55
what it means to be a trans kid yeah thank you so much for that kate and
1:18:00
i just put in the chat a link to a backgrounder on the facts of what gender affirming care
1:18:06
actually is so folks can take a look at that um i believe that’s the end of the
1:18:12
questions unless there’s any additional questions media has uh just quickly put
1:18:17
it in the chat otherwise i think i think we’re a bit over time here um which has been
1:18:22
a really great conversation any other last questions before we wrap up
1:18:29
okay well thank you everyone for joining and i just want to say a huge thanks to our legislative leaders for not only the
1:18:36
work that they’re doing on the ground in the states um you know on the front lines finding these bills but for
1:18:42
joining us today and sharing thoughts and huge thanks to kate as well for um all of your insights here and if anyone
1:18:48
has any questions please feel free to follow up with myself or henry um and thank you again have a good day

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