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Trans Day of Visibility 2024 banner
International Transgender Day of Visibility takes place on March 31. It may seem like just another “day” among so many others that come and go with perfunctory, if any, recognition. However, it is much more important for the greater LGBTQ+ community than we may think.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), there are currently over 400 bills targeting the LGBTQ community in a majority of state legislatures. Many passed in 2023. The most recent is a Georgia bill that ostensibly protects women’s rights but specifically and deliberately excludes transgender women. Introduced by members of the Republican majority, 14 bills are currently pending or have been introduced in Wisconsin’s State Assembly. They address issues largely aimed at the transgender student community including school sports bans, healthcare age restrictions and barriers, school curriculum censorship and other school restrictions. In 2023, Governor Tony Evers vetoed a bill that would have denied gender affirming care for trans youth.
Otherwise, throughout Wisconsin right wing-controlled school boards are implementing policies to deny LGBTQ existence in general and transgender identity in particular. At the university level, GOP State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos successfully blackmailed the University of Wisconsin board of regents by holding back funding unless the UW system’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs were dismantled.
Denounced and Demonized
Just a year ago, at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) meeting held outside Washington, D.C., a parade of the worst of their white nationalist extremists focused their attacks on the trans community. One speaker after another rabidly denounced and demonized trans people. One, in chilling Nazi-speak, even called for the “eradication of transgenderism.”
Then there was a Bud Light advertising campaign featuring a trans woman. In the ensuing backlash and boycott, brewer Anheuser-Busch/Bud Light suffered the wrath of the brainwashed, macho light-beer guzzling mob and lost millions of dollars. (Ironically, their dear leader Trump and the brewery have since made a financial deal that now undermines the Republican campaign against transgenderism … but never mind.)
In any case, the full-frontal assault on transgender rights seems like much ado about nothing. According to studies, the percentage of the country’s population that identifies as transgender is miniscule. According to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, 0.5% of adults and 1.4% of youth ages 13-17 identify as transgender. Wisconsin ranks 49th among the 50 states where it is a mere 0.34%. How could such a minority garner such hatred and hysteria? Why do Republicans spend so much time (and taxpayer dollars) attacking the trans community? The answer is quite simple.
Stoking Fear
Similar to political causes past, like the Civil Rights Act, reproductive rights and marriage equality, stoking fear of transgender people incites and engages a reliable and easily manipulated voter block, white Evangelicals. In this case, anti-trans hate indulges Evangelical and other extremist Christian viewpoints that deny science and embrace literal biblical belief (there’s a conservative version of Wikipedia that claims Einstein’s theory of relativity is liberal plot against Christians). Here the argument is made based on the premise that God doesn’t make mistakes; ergo, there can only two genders. This simplistic argument falls neatly into the blind faith category and is followed accordingly, even to the point of violence. Not surprisingly, joining other Roman Catholic dioceses, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee hopped on the transphobic bandwagon in 2022, issuing guidelines for trans exclusion, referring to trans identity as part of the “disharmony caused by origin sin.” The declaration conforms to the Catholic Church’s alignment with conservative ideologues. Even Pope Francis has criticized the U.S. Catholic Church for this abandonment of doctrine for ideology, admonishing it saying “everyone, everyone, everyone is called to live in the church. Never forget that.”
Still, positive messaging from Democratic politicians like our own Gov. Evers, and, President Joe Biden himself, gives hope for the future. Although Jessica Katzenmeyer, a trans candidate for Wisconsin State Senate in 2022, lost her election bid thanks to successful Republican voter suppression and anemic Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts, her campaign raised trans visibility. Evers’ reelection guaranteed future vetoes for the slate of Republican anti-trans legislation. The election of Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz and the likely undoing of the state’s gerrymandered political districting also buttress the cause of trans rights. And, meanwhile, even the Pope has joined the fray.
Of course, the 2024 presidential election is of the utmost significance for not only the vulnerable trans community but for all LGBTQ+ people. We may dutifully but halfheartedly celebrate International Transgender Day of Visibility, but we cannot ignore the wave of anti-trans legislation and the virulent calls for trans “eradication” is a resonating clarion for the erasure of all of us, one letter at a time.
