Transgender Genocide

The Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on LGBTQ+ youth suicide prevention, conducted a national mental health survey on nearly 34,000 LGBTQ+ youth between the ages of 13-24.

2023 has seen an unprecedented wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and sentiment, with a focus on transgender individuals. Prominent far-right media figures have called for the  eradication of "transgenderism"  and politicians have levied attacks framing trans individuals and their allies  to be pedophiles  who want to sexualize children.

Many states have passed anti-scientific laws criminalizing trans health care and public life. These laws are often framed through the lens of women's rights and stopping child mutilation and sterilization.

This trend did not happen overnight, but was a  coordinated effort  by right-wing activists attempting to highlight a wedge issue that could drum up support for their  unpopular policy positions .

There are currently families fleeing their states due to the criminalization of transgender health care, in addition to a slew of other state laws, indicating an increasing far-right shift in legislative trends. The crisis is notable to the extent that several states have passed refugee laws protecting transgender health care and promising to protect trans individuals from prosecution for receiving gender-affirming care.

This analysis looks at state legislative trends since 2015 to determine what methods legislators used to achieve this slew of anti-trans laws as well as to determine what the safest and most dangerous states are for transgender people.

Using data from Trans Legislation Tracker, American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Campaign, Movement Advancement Project, and manual searches I created a database of nearly all pieces of anti-LGBTQ state legislation that have been proposed since 2015.

Many of these bills target transgender people directly, while some allow for much broader discrimination. I excluded bills that were more targeted at LGB people, such as bills that advocate against the "homosexual lifestyle" or mention sexual orientation but not gender identity in nondiscrimination carve outs. I also included bills related to same-sex marriage due to their importance in this years-long trend.

The two leading Republican presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, have a history of anti-LGBTQ+ positions and have both made banning gender-affirming care part of their campaign promises.

While the legality of bans currently in place is set to be challenged in some states, the track record shows that anti-trans legislation is increasing yearly and nothing seems to be stopping it.

Numerous transgender activists and their allies are claiming that the struggles faced by transgender people in the United States are tantamount to genocide. The genocidal rhetoric from political figures and pundits already has parallels to the words of Nazi Party officials in the 1930s.

While the claim may sound outlandish at a glance, the history and the words of the written law cannot be described in any other way. People are already fleeing states for life-saving gender-affirming care and not everyone can afford to do so.

The fact of the matter is that these laws will kill people as long as they are enforced and for the time being there is nothing in the way to stop this.

Far-right groups have launched more attacks against LGBTQ+ people throughout May. False propaganda around pride merchandise at Target has lead to bomb threats and accusations of the "trans agenda" grooming children. Many are worried about what events may occur during Pride Month in June.

The most powerful thing any LGBTQ+ person can do is live despite the way the world treats us, while allies should focus on supporting their LGBTQ+ friends and advocating on their behalf.

1. The terms "anti-trans legislation" and "anti-LGBTQ+ legislation" are often used interchangeably since the line between what effect trans people and what effects LGB people is often nonexistent.
2. For the purposes of this project the term "transgender" includes anyone who would fall outside of societally expected or imposed gender norms in regards to self-expression and identity, including  nonbinary ,  agender ,  gender-queer ,  autigender , etc.
3. The term "gender-affirming care" is used to refer specifically to transgender gender-affirming care. Cisgendered people use a variety of gender-affirming care processes including hairplugs, viagra, makeup, cosmetic procedures,  surgeries , and hormones.