Open Democracy by Stroop, Chris
The high stakes of the upcoming US national election in 2024 have been the focus of much of my work this time, I realize as I sit down to write my final paragraph for 2023.
I’ve emphasized that in 2024, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law will be on the vote. And then, Donald Trump’s obvious dictatorial aspirations and totalitarian attitudes are becoming more and more difficult for even the business, authoritarianism-enabling National legacy media to ignore.
While I’m relieved that the gatekeepers of the legacy media have finally made the decision to state these visible facts, I worry about their disregard for the serious consequences of a Republican triumph in 2024 for members of specific marginalized groups, including transgender Americans like myself.
They happily continue to publish the kind of anti-trans language that has been fueling state-level harassment of trans people for years, escalating with terrifying rapidity, even as the main mainstream newspapers and magazines then worry about democracy in the philosophical and, to be honest, occasionally also about immigrants and abortion access.
Republicans want to make that persecution widespread, but even in the best-case situation, where Democrats win the House and the Senate, political persecution of transgender Americans will still worsen in red states. We are aware of this because 2023 set a new record for anti-trans state policy by submitting more than 500 charges, 75 of which were passed, and 2024 looks to see more of the same.
Undoubtedly, there are some positive reports stories right now for trans people. Transmasculine patients in the care group, who began receiving estrogen therapy at the beginning of the three-month research, experienced a 55 % decrease in depression compared to their past foundation in September, which was one of its startling findings from the first-ever randomised controlled trial of hormonal therapy. Because the handle group’s participants were only required to wait three months before receiving treatment, the study may be conducted morally.
It’s crucial to have this information because it disproves the false belief, generally advanced by transphobes, that the majority of the research demonstrating that gender-affirming care is beneficial and healthy for trans people is not “high quality research.” Because the circumstances necessary for a randomised controlled trial may be irresponsible, many clinical study is not “high quality” according to this definition.
But far be it from anti-trans haters to let such facts get in the way of their chosen story. Unfortunately, in the months since it was published, the national discourse on trans rights has n’t really changed as a result of the publication of this study.
The other encouraging development for transgender American that comes to mind for me is the ongoing decline of right-wing, anti-LGBTIQ organization Moms for Liberty, a Florida-based federal activist group whose pages are largely to blame for many of the transgender policies and book bans implemented in school districts across the nation.
Parents for Liberty-backed school board prospects lost handily in local elections last month. And since then, it has come to light that Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler has been involved in a threesome involving her father and another person, exposing her as an extreme hypocrite. Even worse, after their first sexual face, the other woman claimed that Christian Ziegler had raped her once more. Christian Ziegler, who denies any wrongdoing, has refused to step down as the leader of the Florida Republican Party. As a result, the party has been forced to take extraordinary measures to punish him, stripping him of his office’s authority and lowering his$ 120,000 annual salary to just one dollar in an effort to contain the damage.
One might expect that the consequences was, to some extent, spill over into state legislative fights and state and national elections as a result of the losses and scandals Moms for Liberty faced in 2023, which may lead to better conditions for gay students in some college districts. However, for the near future, there will still be a gap between United states that accept our existence and those that are, to varying degrees, openly hostile to trans people.
In other words, even if marginalized Americans have the best season in 2024, transgender Americans will almost certainly still have another bad year nevertheless.
I wish our punditocracy members would directly bring up this issue when they inform the public that democracy will be up for election in November. Yet if “democracy” prevails, the battle for human rights and the fair and equal treatment of trans people in sizable portions of America will still need to be waged. That war, in turn, is based on the conflict between hearts and minds. Although I do n’t hold my breath that it will happen any time soon, better mainstream media representation for trans Americans could go a long way toward helping on that front.
Stroop, Chris
An ex-evangelical writer, speaker and advocate, Stroop, Chris is (with Lauren O’Neal) co-editor of the essay anthology ‘Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church’. A senior correspondent for Religion Dispatches, her work has also appeared in Dame Magazine, Foreign Policy, The Boston Globe, Playboy, Political Research Associates and other outlets, including peer-reviewed academic journals. Stroop has a PhD in modern Russian history from Stanford University, and is a senior research associate with the University of Innsbruck’s Postsecular Conflicts project. In 2019, she came out as a transgender woman and began her journey of medical transition. She lives in Portland, Oregon, US.
