House Bill 805, a bill passed in the North Carolina General Assembly and vetoed by Governor Stein this past week, was originally a bill intended to prevent adults and minors from being sexually exploited online. It passed the state House 113-0. Unfortunately, as the bill made its way through the state Senate, it was amended by Republican members to include provisions that target the rights of transgender people and, in effect, seek to deny their existence.
The amended bill is one of scores of similar proposals across the country that have taken flight in recent months. According to the trans legislative tracker that lists data related to anti-trans legislation, there are currently 946 anti-trans bills in 49 states across the country, with 118 having been passed.
As a licensed clinical social worker who has worked in the mental health field for over the last 13 years, with a special focus on treating and uplifting the LGBTQ+ community, I have been following this and other similar bills in recent months. And as grateful as I have been to be able to provide the space my clients need for support and healing, it has been devastating to see the impacts of anti-trans beliefs and anti-trans legislation on those who identify as transgender and gender non-confirming.
My passion for this work began in 2011 during my job as a Therapeutic Mentor, which was my first position in mental health. I provided one-on-one support to youth, helping them develop valuable life skills as a part of an in-home therapy team. My very first client was an adolescent transgender male who was severely depressed and engaging in self-harm.
The goal of in-home therapy is to treat the family dynamic and create a cohesive and supportive environment for the identified client. The reason my client and his parents were receiving our support was due to his parents’ refusal to accept and affirm his gender identity, leading my client to feel that he was unlovable and unworthy as his true, authentic self. My client coped with this by masking his emotional pain with physical pain and contemplating suicide as an option to end that emotional pain.
That case was, unfortunately, one of thousands of similar cases across the country. A survey of LGBTQ+ young people in North Carolina by the Trevor Noah Project, a nonprofit organization focused on suicide prevention and crisis intervention for LGBTQ+ youth country-wide, found that 41% of LGBTQ+ young people seriously considered suicide in the past year, including 47% of transgender and non-binary youth.
Recently, I spoke with Niccolo Roditti, the co-director of the LGBTQ+ Youth Center of Durham, to learn more about what the youth here in North Carolina say and feel about the anti-trans legislation across the country. He stated, “They are aware of the anti-LGBTQ+ bills, and it makes them feel not human. It makes them feel their existence only matters if it is at the forefront of a political debate.”
I do not believe that most lawmakers who support these kinds of bills have the intention of harming trans youth or even of simply not caring about their impact. Unfortunately, however, they have allowed themselves to be drawn into a coordinated and cynical national attack on the trans community led by the Trump administration and its right-wing allies that is, at once, premised on a false and simplistic narrative and extremely successful at eliciting the intense fear and bigotry. And their “success” is ultimately rooted in a widespread lack of education and understanding about what it means to be transgender.
As is the case with so many modern policy debates, defenders of trans people and their rights face an uphill battle in seeking to overcome unreasoning fear with science and facts. Our cause does not lend itself as easily to simple mottos and talking points. And so it is that we must continue to educate all Americans.
People must be made aware that gender identity is entirely separate from biological sex due to its many psychological and sociological factors. And they must be informed of what gender dysphoria is and learn that things like fear of rejection, stigma, and internalized homophobia are among the factors that contribute to the “clinically significant distress” necessary in order to receive such a diagnosis.
And the public must also learn about and come to appreciate the crucial need for access to gender affirming care, since it significantly decreases suicidality amongst transgender youth.
During Wake County Senator Terence Everitt’s passionate plea for the Senate to reject the anti-trans amendments and return HB 805 back to its original version, he came as close as anyone has to succinctly summing up the misguided nature of such legislation. “Trans people just want to be left alone,” he said. “That’s all they want.”
If, however, we are to get to the point at which a majority of North Carolinians and their elected leaders grasp this simple truth and reject the hate and misinformation that currently predominate, it’s essential that caring and thinking people redouble their efforts to educate their friends, families and neighbors about these issues and share their lived experiences. Let’s get to work.
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