Consider This from NPR - Can Newly Elected LGBTQ Lawmakers Shift The Landscape For LGBTQ Rights?

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

The advocacy group Human Rights Campaign reports that in the past year, more than 300 bills targeting LGBTQ rights have been introduced by state legislatures around the U.S.A recent NPR analysis shows that about 15% of those bills were signed into a law.NPR's Melissa Block breaks down the current landscape of anti-LGBTQ legislation.At the same time, a record number of openly LGBTQ candidates were elected to public office across the nation this year. We hear from two just-elected state representatives: Zooey Zephyr, the first out trans lawmaker elected to office in Montana, and New Hampshire's James Roesener, the first out trans man ever elected to a state legislature. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University performs breakthrough research every year, making discoveries that improve human health, combat climate change, and move society forward. More at iu.edu forward. In the past year, more than 300 bills targeting LGBTQ rights have been introduced by state legislators around the U.S. That's according to the advocacy group Human Rights Campaign. Florida lawmakers introduced a controversial bill that would restrict the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms.

Tennessee Republican leadership filed legislation today to potentially limit children's transgender therapy in our state. And new this morning, Ohio lawmakers are pushing forward a bill that would ban transgender athletes from playing women's and girls sports. Some of those bills got signed into law, like Florida's parental rights and education bill. It restricts classroom instruction in public school about sexual orientation and gender identity. Here is Republican Governor Ron DeSantis when he signed that bill into law in March. We will make sure that parents can send their kids to school to get an education, not an indoctrination.

And across the nation, there was a lot of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric heard in political ads in the lead-up to this year's midterm elections. The Human Rights Campaign reported that at least $50 million were spent on airing anti-trans radio ads in at least 25 states. One ad from Georgia Senate Republican nominee Herschel Walker targeted transgender athletes competing in women's sports. Why not so afraid to stand up for female athletes? Herschel Walker stands up for what's right. But 2022 was also a record year in terms of the number of LGBTQ candidates running for office nationwide. The LGBTQ Victory Fund says this was the first year that openly LGBTQ candidates were on the ballot in every single state. And the group says that a record 436 of those candidates were elected. Two states,

Oregon and Massachusetts, elected their first openly lesbian governors. Here's the Massachusetts governor-elect Maura Healey speaking to supporters on election night. Tonight, I want to say something to every little girl and every young LGBTQ person out there. I hope, I hope tonight shows you that you can be whatever, whoever you want to be. We saw a ton of anti-LGBTQ attacks trying to be used as a wedge issue in so many races across the country. Sean Malloy is vice president of political programs with LGBTQ Victory Fund. I think that voters largely saw that that rhetoric was being used to demonize our community for votes and largely ignored it. Consider this. A record number of newly elected LGBTQ lawmakers are taking office at a time when anti-LGBTQ rights bills are also on the rise. Could these newly elected

leaders shift the landscape of legislation moving forward? From NPR, I'm Juana Summers. It's Wednesday, November 30th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time, mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today, or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. Support for NPR and the following message come from Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. More information at carnegie.org. It's Consider This from NPR. A number of state legislatures are scheduled to take up new anti-LGBTQ rights bills in 2023. The day after the midterms, lawmakers in Tennessee filed bills to ban gender-affirming health care for youth in next year's state legislative session.

Texas legislators have also put forward several bills, including one that would restrict what changes can be made to the gender marker of a minor's birth certificate. NPR's Melissa Block covers gender issues and has been tracking the legislative landscape, and she joins us now. Hey there. Hey, Wanda. So tell us, Melissa, what are some of the main categories of bills you've been following this year? I would say that these fall into several buckets, and many of the laws and bills target transgender youth in particular. Let's start with bans on gender affirming medical care, such as puberty blockers or hormone treatments for trans youth. We've seen Alabama and Arkansas both pass laws that prohibit such care. In Alabama, it would actually be a felony to provide it. But we've also seen federal courts block those laws from going into effect, at least temporarily, and those challenges are ongoing. In Florida, let's talk about Florida. Florida became the first state to have its Board of Medicine

move toward banning gender-affirming care for new patients under age 18. That rule is not final yet. But already, even though the rule has not gone into effect, sources are telling me that major medical institutions in Florida have preemptively closed their gender programs or have stopped providing gender-affirming care to new patients who are minors out of fear of the new rules that are still to come. I just want to mention one more state, and that is Texas. They went a different route. They have a directive from the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, that orders parents and providers of gender-affirming care to be investigated for child abuse. Again, courts have also intervened in those cases. And Melissa, so far, all of the laws and policies that we've been talking about,

they're targeting medical care for trans youth. But I understand there's another issue, trans youth's participation in sports. Yeah, there's been a proliferation of laws on that question. Idaho was the first state in the country to ban trans women and girls from competing on teams that align with their gender identity. That was in 2020. And then we saw similar laws spread to about 17 other states. Now that Idaho law has been blocked in court, courts have also blocked laws in states including West Virginia, Indiana, Utah. And it's worth noting here, Juana, I think that while there are hundreds of anti-LGBTQ rights bills that have been proposed, it's a small fraction that actually are signed into law. And according to an analysis by NPR, just 15% have become law. Also, federal courts have so far been skeptical

of some of these groundbreaking laws, which is why we've seen that a number of them, like the medical care bans in Alabama and Arkansas, the sports bans, they've been blocked. But looking ahead to 2023, LGBTQ rights groups do fear that there are many more such bills to come or administrative actions that basically do an end run around state legislatures. Can LGBTQ rights groups point to any legislative victories? Well, they can in blue states. For example, California and Connecticut have both passed laws that make those states safe harbors if children were to come there for gender affirming care. Those laws are designed to shield providers and families from out-of-state legal action. And let's talk about the federal level. Just yesterday,

we saw the Senate pass the Respect for Marriage Act. That was a strong bipartisan vote. The House already passed its version. President Biden has promised to sign it. And that law will guarantee rights for same-sex and interracial married couples under federal law. It is a direct response by Congress to the Supreme Court's decision this year that overturned Roe v. Wade. And here's why. In a concurring opinion in that decision, Justice Clarence Thomas said that he would actually go even further. He thinks the court should re-examine other rulings, and in particular, relevant to what we're talking about, he mentioned the 2015 Obergefell decision that legalized same-sex marriage. After the Senate passed the Respect for Marriage Act, Juana, the president of the LGBTQ Advocacy Group Human Rights Campaign, Kelly Robinson, called it a much-needed victory, the first federal legislative win in over a decade.

And she said this, we are closing this discriminatory chapter of our history. Marriage equality is here to stay. That was NPR's Melissa Block. We mentioned that the midterm election saw a record number of LGBTQ candidates elected to office. Two of them are James Rosiner of New Hampshire and Zoe Zephyr of Montana. They spoke recently with my colleague Elsa Chang. So I want to first just start by asking you, what inspired both of you to run for office this election cycle? Like, why now in particular? This is Zoe Zephyr. In 2021 in Montana, there were several anti-LGBTQ bills brought forward. And I had been working on policy at the city level and went to testify

at the legislature specifically on a bill banning trans women and trans kids from playing sports. I then went and testified to the governor's office alongside two trans kids who were begging to just be allowed to play sports with their friends. And then I watched several bills pass through the Montana legislature by one vote. And I thought to myself, I could change that heart. I know representation can make that difference. And so I met with my legislator at the time and asked him, what do I need to do? And he gave me a list and off I went. So Zoe, your path into politics, it started

in activism. What about you, James? Very much same here. I have been part of the LGBT community in advocacy for a while. I have volunteered for going on eight years now at the local clinic that not only provides like gender affirming services and LGBT health care, but also is an abortion clinic as well. And they're kind of a second family to me at this point. I've been seeing them for so long. Not just do I care about these issues, but then it becomes personal a little bit when, you know, laws are threatening to lock up my friends for providing very necessary health care and health services to my community. It just feels a little absurd and surreal.

Understanding the weight that local politics has, especially for communities like mine, I really felt it was important to have some visibility of our own, let alone having somebody who's willing to fight the good fight regardless of identity. Well, let me ask you, because, you know, right-wing politicians and even some in the mainstream GOP have been targeting trans people, like the newly re-elected governor in Iowa, Kim Reynolds. She ran a campaign ad this cycle saying that Iowans know the difference between boys from girls. What do you make of the fact that this kind of rhetoric has been so prevalent from Republican politicians, people who will very likely become some of your colleagues? The first thing I think of is the direct impact it has on trans people and those who love them. When Montana passed its anti-trans legislation, I had friends leave the state.

I had friends end their lives. And that is the immediate impact of these types of bills. Beyond that, to me, it is a short-term strategy on the right to drum up fear, to find a target that they think is vulnerable, that they can rally their base around. What I think the right will find is that when you take away the R and the D and you bring it down to our local communities, trans people have the support of those around them. And in Montana, when the Department of Public Health and Human Services proposed a new rule about banning updating your

birth certificate if you're trans, they held a public hearing and one person came out to support that anti-trans piece of legislation and 100 came out in opposition to it. And that's across Montana. And if it's true here, I know it's true across the country as well. People are very willing to show up and defend the rights of their neighbors. And that's been a lot of what my experience in this campaign has been, is seeing in real time what I already believed was in people kind of organized for a better world. Well, despite there being a fair amount of legislation out there that you find deeply hurtful, deeply disturbing, there has been a record number of LGBTQ candidates running for office during these midterms.

And I just want to know, what does that signal to both of you? I feel like to see so many LGBT people being inspired to run just proves to me that all of this homophobic and transphobic and bigoted rhetoric that's been flowing in our system for, you know, a little bit now, we are taking our power back in a sense. And I think that we're going to see a really amazing turning point in the near future here. The first thing it signals is that we have people in our community who are willing to stand up and put themselves out there. That would have been hard to imagine decades ago that this many people would stand up and want to be visible and present. And beyond that, with the record number of people winning,

it shows that our communities don't just passively support us. My friends and neighbors in my district looked at me and said, that's the person we want representing us. And I know that that's true for all of the candidates across the country who won their elections. That was State Representative-elect Zoe Zephyr of Montana. We also heard from New Hampshire Representative-elect James Rosner. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers.