67
But if the small number of trans
athletes makes statewide bans seem ir-
rational, it also may be what makes them
possible. The lack of visibility trans
people still have in the U.S. is part of why
these laws are getting passed, says Dela-
ware’s Sarah McBride, the fi rst openly
trans state senator in the country. “Peo-
ple perceive the harm that they’re com-
mitting against trans kids to be narrow,”
she says.
In reality, the eff ect of these laws
on trans youth could be devastating.
A Jan. 10 poll by the LGBTQ suicide-
prevention nonprofi t the Trevor Project
found that 85% of trans and nonbinary
youth said recent debates about anti-
trans bills had negatively aff ected their
mental health.
THE RISE of anti trans legislation can
be traced back to June 2015, when the
Supreme Court ruled that the Consti-
tution protects the right of same-sex
couples to marry. With the marriage
question seemingly settled, gender
identity became the next theater in the
battle over LGBTQ rights.
The following year, the fi rst wave
of anti trans legislation crashed across
the country in the form of bathroom
bans. Most famously, North Carolina’s
HB2 in 2016 banned trans people from
using public restrooms aligned with
their gender identity. The backlash
was fi erce and immediate. Companies
boycotted the state en masse , raising
the specter of $3.76 billion in lost rev-
enue, according to an AP analysis. (The
law was partially repealed and has since
expired.) The state’s Governor Pat Mc-
Crory, a Republican, lost his re-election
bid that November. “It was viewed as a
losing issue... And so no one wanted to
touch it,” says Terry Schilling, the presi-
dent of the conservative advocacy group
American Principles Project (APP),
which has promoted anti trans rhetoric.
That same year, Trump won the pres-
idency promising to be a friend to the
“LGBT community.” But once he took
offi ce, his Administration began to roll
back protections for trans people, in-
cluding the Obama Administration’s
policy that Title IX protected trans stu-
dents’ access to a restroom, locker room,
or sports team aligned with their gen-
der identity.
THEN, IN 2018, two trans girls won
Connecticut state high school cham-
pionship track titles. News outlets
throughout the U.S. ran stories scruti-
nizing the bodies of the two Black trans
athletes, pointing to them as the exem-
plars of the threat to women’s sports.
Both Connecticut runners were later
named in a lawsuit fi led by the conser-
vative legal group Alliance Defending
Freedom, on behalf of four cis female
runners, alleging Connecticut’s trans-
inclusive school sports policy was un-
fair. (The case is pending before the
U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals.)
By 2019, the issue had become a po-
litical tinderbox. Schilling had seen con-
servative s, including Donald Trump Jr.,
tweeting about trans athletes, and he
began urging Republicans to run on the
issue. APP says its affi liated super PAC
spent about $600,000 that year on ads
in the Kentucky governor’s race, arguing
that Democratic candidate Andy Bes-
hear was a threat to women’s sports. APP
contracted with the data-science fi rm
Evolving Strategies to track the impact
of its messaging and estimates 25,000
voters were moved to the GOP by the ad-
vertising. (Beshear won the race.)
The following summer, Politico re-
ported that those in the Trump orbit
was split over the issue. Some in the
then President’s camp reportedly felt
campaigning against LGBTQ rights
would hurt Republicans, while others
shared Schilling’s perspective: the issue
had the power to rally the base. “It was a
hunch,” Schilling says. “We knew it was
popular with the people, and we thought
this could be something that politicians
actually talked about.” APP says it began
spending bigger on the topic, cashing
out more than $5 million combined with
its super-PAC affi liate on ads in Pennsyl-
vania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Geor-
gia that argued that Democrats threat-
ened women’s sports, among other
talking points.
By the end of 2020, 20 anti trans
sports bans had been fi led in legisla-
tive sessions. And compared with North
Carolina’s bathroom bill from four years
earlier, these laws were met with a much
more muted response from the left and
the corporate world—not a single major
company has boycotted a state over such
a law—emboldening Republican legis-
latures to go further.
Trans-athlete bans have since ex-
ploded in state legislatures and begun
to dominate national political dis-
course. By May 2021, Fox News had
aired more segments on trans ath-
letes that year than it had in the pre-
vious two years combined, accord-
ing to the nonprofi t Media Matters.
Schilling’s APP says it has already
raised more than $6 million for an
upcoming midterm campaign that
will focus on the athlete question.
But McBride, the Delaware state sen-
ator, thinks the GOP will ultimately lose
on the issue, as it has in debates over
LGBTQ rights of the past. “The more
the country understands how the pol-
icy impacts trans people, the more they
begin to understand and learn about
who trans people are,” McBride says,
“the clock will begin ticking on the po-
litical eff ectiveness and possibility for
this type of legislation.” —With report-
ing bySIMMONE SHAH
WIS.
VA.
V T.
R.I.
PA.
OHIO
N.C.
N.Y.
N.H.
MASS.
K Y.
FLA.
MICH.
MAINE
ILL. IND.
CONN.
N.J.
DEL.
D.C. MD.
HAWAII
W.VA.
TENN.
S.C.
MISS. ALA.
LA.
GA.
ARK.
MEDICAL BANS
Arkansas was the fi rst state
to ban gender-affi rming care
for trans youth; Alabama and
Arizona have since followed
“DON’T SAY”
LAWS
Teachers in
Florida and fi ve
other states
are not allowed
to teach about
LGBTQ issues
in some grades
TARGETED FAMILIES
Texas began
investigating gender-
affi rming care as child
abuse in February
