The parallels between legislative attacks on reproductive justice and legislative attacks on transgender rights abound. In both cases, Republican-controlled states have decided to interpose themselves between patients and doctors in personal matters, violating patient privacy and disregarding well established medical best practices in favour of their authoritarian Christian ideology. And just as the well-funded, coercive, and deceptive so-called crisis pregnancy centres use disinformation to scare vulnerable women away from choosing abortion, the state of Florida now requires the very small percentage of transgender adults who are still able to get gender-affirming care in the state to sign disinformation-riddled consent forms.
The adoption of the same tactics states used under Roe v Wade to restrict abortion access as a means of restricting gender-affirming care for trans Americans today is not a coincidence, and the ties between anti-trans and anti-abortion initiatives run deeper than parallels. The fact is that they are pursued, lobbied for, and funded largely by the same people – not least the notorious ADF, a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group that lobbies and litigates against gay, trans, and abortion rights.
It seems unlikely that those who need to hear this message will deign to listen, but any gay male, lesbian, or cis female American who engages in anti-trans rhetoric and supports anti-trans laws is also aiding and abetting the right in assaulting their own rights and effectively placing targets on their own backs. I can’t think of a more apt illustration of the old saying about cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.
Transgender rights do not harm cisgender women and girls. But the moral panic that’s currently raging on the rabid right in both the US and UK harms all of us. Authoritarian movements don’t stop on their own: they must be stopped. If we can’t find the solidarity to work together to that end, we will all perish eventually.
