We are still in February of 2023 and already republicans have introduced more than 370 anti-trans bills in State Legislatures. There is a lot of discussion about the groups behind this of which the Southern Poverty Law Center recognizes many as Hate groups, but that is for another article. (I highly recommend Imara Jones’ podcast “The Anti-Trans Hate Machine” If you are interested in that rabbit hole.)
The current bills range from bathroom access, redefining gender, gender-affirming healthcare bans, and poorly defined “drag performance” bans which could make being transgender in public a felony. These bills are being pushed to protect children while calling transgender people “groomers” and “Pedophiles”. If the actual intent was to protect children from groomers and pedophiles then let's look where they really are. In 2018 Christian Today published Sex Offenders Groom Churches Too. “In it, they stated ‘In a study of sexual abuse originating in Protestant churches, out of 328 male offenders, 34.9 percent had the title of pastor, 31.4 percent were youth ministers”. The Guardian Reported 700 cases in the Southern Baptist Church. When you search for the terms sexual assault and transgender from 2000 to 2022 the articles state how Transgender people are more likely to be the victims of sexual assault with up to 66% of transgender people experiencing sexual assault at some point in their lives.
The current anti-transgender push by the GOP is a systematic genocide of transgender people. I admit this is a strong accusation but nothing about the claim is baseless. The crime of genocide is defined by the U.S. and the UN as:
“Any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
As of this date, there have been at least 10 Transgender or Gender Diverse persons killed this year alone in the U.S. Every organization that tracks this information will indicate this is an under-representation as many transgender persons are misgendered by police or the press either intentionally or the individual by not be “out” yet
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Every restriction to Gender Affirming Care is causing mental harm to transgender persons. WPATH, the leading medical association on transgender research and care, along with nearly every major medical association in the US recommends Gender Affirming Care for the treatment of Gender Dysphoria.
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Bathroom bills forcing transgender people out of bathrooms that align with their gender can cause undo harm and violence against transgender individuals.
Intentionally vague bans on drag performances can easily and intentionally be used to criminalize the existence of transgender people in public. Combine this with the exceptionally high rates of violence against incarcerated transgender people.
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Texas is the first state to criminalize parents for affirming their transgender children including the threat to remove their children over their “claimed” child abuse.
How is this genocide happening? If we look at the Ten Stages of Genocide it further describes the hateful agenda of these bills. These stages are:
Classification – The differences between people are not respected. There’s a division of ‘us’ and ‘them’ which can be carried out using stereotypes, or excluding people who are perceived to be different.
Transgender and Gender Diverse (TGD) people are “othered” by terms like “biological men”, “real women”, and “fake men”, or even more dehumanizing terms such as “groomer” and “pedophile”.
This othering is even evident within the LGBTQ+ community by groups like the LGB alliance and Gays Against Groomers
Symbolisation – This is a visual manifestation of hatred. Jews in Nazi Europe were forced to wear yellow stars to show that they were ‘different’.
Currently, this happens when people claim, “You can always spot a transgender woman because of their hips, or shoulders, or whatever myth they believe”
Discrimination – The dominant group denies civil rights or even citizenship to identified groups. The 1935 Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their German citizenship, made it illegal for them to do many jobs or to marry German non-Jews.
Bathroom bills are the first thing that fit in this category. It forces transgender people to search further for and restricts their ability to use a restroom or risk the potential of physical harm by using any bathroom.
Other bills across the country allow healthcare providers to deny treating transgender persons if they claim a religious objection.
Dehumanization – Those perceived as ‘different’ are treated with no form of human rights or personal dignity. During the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, Tutsis were referred to as ‘cockroaches’; the Nazis referred to Jews as ‘vermin’.
Terms like “groomer” and “pedophile” paint transgender people as predators and insinuate that they are trying to force youth to be transgender. Similar terms were axtuall used in Nazi Germany to justify their humanitarian crimes and genocide of homosexuals. Most Transgender people have Gender Dysphoria where their physical body traits do not align with their gender. In many cases, this can be the source of depression and other distress. I have never met a transgender person that wishes this condition on any child. We just happen to recognize and remember the difficulty we had in our youth and will stand as advocates for those that cannot.
In November of 2022, Matt Walsh actually used the term ‘cockroaches’
Organization – Genocides are always planned. Regimes of hatred often train those who go on to carry out the destruction of a people.
The Heritage Foundation, Alliance Defending Freedom, and Focus on the Family have been pushing this narrative for years. This hate began a surge under the Trump Administration with the rhetoric and pandering to White Nationalist Groups. Some of the early bills like North Carolina’s bathroom ban gained national attention and condemnation. More recently the GOP has increased its efforts to push this anti-trans agenda. Now there are 370 anti-trans bills in states across the country. It is easily overwhelming and as the bills get harsher and harsher it will be easy for cisgender people to excuse some of the bills they deem as lesser impositions.
Polarisation – Propaganda begins to be spread by hate groups. The Nazis used the newspaper Der Stürmer to spread and incite messages of hate about Jewish people.
Today one only has to turn on Fox News to see the likes of Tucker Carlson inciting the trans hate. This propaganda has been replicated across media outlets including those deemed more “liberal” like the New York Times when they put the existence and need for appropriate medical care up for “debate”
Preparation – Perpetrators plan the genocide. They often use euphemisms such as the Nazis’ phrase ‘The Final Solution’ to cloak their intentions. They create fear of the victim group, building up armies and weapons.
Most of these bills are painted as “Protecting Children” or “Protecting Women”. False claims that major genital surgeries are performed on little children or that puberty blockers cause major developmental problems can make it easy for people to believe. Who wouldn’t want to protect children from harm? The reality of gender-affirming care is that puberty blockers have been used since the 1980s to safely delay the onset of puberty. This is actually done to protect transgender children allowing more time for therapy and social transition before beginning hormone therapy. In reality, this can actually reduce the need for future surgical procedures.
The false ‘predator’ narrative that transgender women are just predatory men attempting to invade women’s spaces or to usurp their athletic opportunities stems from the misogynistic belief that women are lesser than men and, as such, need to be protected from transgender women. This also falls back to dehumanization by denying the gender identity of transgender women.
Persecution – Victims are identified because of their ethnicity or religion and death lists are drawn up. People are sometimes segregated into ghettos, deported or starved and property is often expropriated. Genocidal massacres begin.
Many of the gender-affirming healthcare bans would actually criminalize transgender youth by charging parents, providers, or both with felony child abuse for following the recommendations of nearly every major medical association in the U.S.
Most of the Drag Performance bans will criminalize just being transgender in public by their intentionally vague descriptions of being in public dressed in a manner commonly associated with a different gender than that assigned at birth.
States are redefining gender to only allow for the gender assigned at birth which will intentionally exacerbate the criminalization of being transgender in public and dehumanize transgender people.
In December the Attorney General of Texas sought data from the Texas Department of Transportation about people changing their gender marker in their identification. No reason was disclosed by the AG’s office as to the need for such information, but lists like these could be used to target and track transgender individuals.
The Governor of Florida just requested the same information from state educational institutions on transgender individuals and gender-affirming care. His office will not disclose what reason this information is required.
Extermination – The hate group murders their identified victims in a deliberate and systematic campaign of violence. Millions of lives have been destroyed or changed beyond recognition through genocide.
Physical violence and murder of transgender persons have been on the increase since that data has been tracked and this data falls short of providing the full picture of this violence as crimes against transgender people are more likely to go unreported. As of the date of this publication, there have already been 10 transgender persons killed in just 2023
By criminalizing the existence of transgender people and incarcerating them they will be more likely to be victims of sexual violence and even murder
The constant relentless attacks on the transgender community are having major consequences on the mental health of transgender youth, adults, and their families. This increases the likelihood of self-harm and suicide in a group that is already nearly 8 times as likely to think about or attempt suicide
Denial – The perpetrators or later generations deny the existence of any crime.
Similar rhetoric has been repeated by personalities like Matt Walsh and by the Republicans introducing their discriminatory leglislation.
The denial of any wrongdoing is commonplace for those suggesting these discriminations.
One member of the Florida Medical Board claimed that it wasn’t “homophobia or transphobia” in their disregarding every major medical association’s recommendations to fulfill the governor's agenda to ban life-saving medical care to transgender youth.
On Februry 27, 2023 a pundant at the Daily Wire described a bill moving through Kansas as the “perfect bill because it will ban transgenderism.”
The Republican party has no good plan to talk about. Their current direction is taking them to a fascist authoritarian hold on the country. It is bad publicity to talk about cutting earned entitlements for one of your biggest supporter bases like Social Security and Medicaid. Most people don’t know anyone who is transgender and probably do not even think they have met a transgender person. It is easy to disassociate from something you do not see or understand. Transgender people do not fit in the hetero-normality of the “nuclear family” that the conservative right and organizations like Focus on the Family and Alliance Defending Freedom wish to see in their vision of White Christian Nationalism. This makes transgender people an easy first target to normalize their fascist agenda. They will not be the last.
How do we stop this? First, speak out and stand up against this. Write to your representatives and then back it up by voting supporters of this bigotry out.
To those allies outside the U.S. Speak and write to your representatives. Have then petition your governments to Call out the crimes against humanity and genocide taking place in the United States. Have them open avenues for the asylum seekers that will be coming. Many transgender people and families are already leaving or planning to leave red or Republican-controlled states for other states or even leaving the United States with the fear that a change in the federal government will escalate these hateful state bills to a national level.