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A growing number of Americans are spending a lot of time worrying about and working to diminish the rights of a tiny group of Americans. The number of bills to limit transgender rights has grown more than 30-fold in the past decade. In numerous states, legislation has been introduced to limit access to such basic things as health care, housing, education, sports, bathrooms and other facets of American life. A growing number of these bills have been successful. Maine, thankfully, has moved in the opposite direction to protect LGBTQ+ rights.
On the federal level, President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to undo policies that support transgender Americans and to restrict their rights. He has also mocked and dehumanized people who are transgender.
These efforts, at their core, seek to erase people who are transgender from public life in America.
We understand that some people may feel uncomfortable around and may not fully understand people who are transgender, but those feelings cannot be allowed to result in laws that bar transgender individuals from public spaces or that make people who are transgender into second-class citizens with diminished rights.
Sadly, that is what is happening with efforts, which are becoming more frequent, to push people who are transgender to the margins of our society.
Sarah McBride’s election to the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this month marked a historic milestone. McBride, a Democrat from Delaware, is the first openly transgender person elected to Congress.
Already, there are efforts to restrict McBride’s rights. Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina introduced a resolution to bar McBride from women’s restrooms and changing rooms in the U.S. Capitol. Mace would like to go even further to bar women who are transgender from women’s bathrooms on all federal property.
On Wednesday, which is Transgender Day of Remembrance, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson announced a new policy on single-sex spaces in the House, effectively barring transgender women from women’s bathrooms there.
Such efforts are often based on false claims that people who are transgender are forcing themselves into women’s spaces to commit sexual crimes. In fact, people who are transgender are more than four times more likely to be the victims of sexual assault than their cisgender peers.
Rather than being threats, they, especially transgender youth, are at higher risk for self harm and suicide. In fact, the number of trangender youth who attempted suicide increased after state laws to restrict transgender rights were enacted, a recent study found.
Instead of this continued harassment — that has proven dangerous consequences — we can all learn more tolerance, acceptance, and, as McBride says, kindness.
“Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully. I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness,” McBride said in a recent post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
McBride, who served as a state senator for four years, was chosen by voters in Delaware to represent them in Congress. Like Mace, she will be sworn in in January to represent her constituents who, like others in America, are more concerned about the high cost of living than about marginalizing people who are transgender.
“We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars,” McBride said later in the post on X.
Instead of demonizing and marginalizing the small number of people who are transgender, we should understand that they, like other Americans, are simply trying to live their lives, which they should be able to do with dignity and respect and without harassment.