Mississippi Bill Uses Abortion Ban Tactic To Target Trans Care
It is often said how gender affirming care for trans people and the fight for abortion rights are inextricably linked. Mississippi's new anti-trans bill is a great example of that.
Transgender rights and abortion rights are inextricably linked. The same people who are responsible for anti-trans legislation, organizations like the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Family Policy Alliance, are also leading the charge against gender affirming care around the United States. Sometimes, the way in which abortion and gender affirming care intersects becomes exceptionally clear. This is the case with a new Mississippi bill, HB576, that piggybacks off of a recent law that banned abortion after the detection of a fetal heartbeat. Now more than ever, it is important to recognize that anti-trans laws and anti-abortion laws come from the same philosophy of using biological reproduction as leverage in enforcing patriarchal power structures and control over our bodies.
The new bill in question is a total ban on gender affirming care for transgender youth. It says that puberty blockers, estrogen, and testosterone cannot be prescribed to trans youth - a violation of international standards of care as detailed by the World Professional Association of Transgender Health. This also is in violation of the standards of care explicitly endorsed by virtually every major medical organization in the United States such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association. The gender affirming care ban in this bill is placed in a list of things that can cause doctors to lose their license to practice medicine. The items just before this addition are bans on abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected. These bans were put in place by SB2116, a Mississippi anti-abortion law that was signed in 2019 and was the subject of intense court fights prior to the fall of Roe v. Wade. See the new addition:
Mississippi’s anti-abortion law was enormously controversial at the time. Though it was temporarily blocked, the fall of Roe v. Wade allowed it and other laws to take into effect in the state. Laws like the fetal heartbeat ban used a delicensing mechanism targeted at healthcare providers to prevent them from giving care to those who need it. Anti-trans care bans use similar mechanisms to target providers and make it increasingly difficult to obtain care until it becomes impossible for anyone who can’t travel out of state.
Alarmingly, though, out of state bans are somewhere where the fight for gender affirming care and the fight for abortion rights intersect as well. In early 2022, a bill was introduced in Missouri that would stop people from leaving the state to get an abortion. Representative Mary Coleman out of Missouri filed a bill that would target those who, for instance, drove abortion patients out of state. That same week, an Idaho representative proposed a bill that would make transporting a trans youth out of state to obtain gender affirming care a felony. The bill passed the Idaho House of Representatives and would have made transporting a trans youth out of state to get gender affirming care a felony with life in prison sentences.
Representative Julianne Young drew the comparison between this bill and anti-abortion measures being proposed elsewhere (like the Missouri out of state ban):
“I see this conversation as an extension of the pro-life argument. ... We are not talking about the life of the child, but we are talking about the potential to give life to another generation. So in that sense, there is a nexus on this issue. I don’t see it as a contradiction.”
Anti-trans legislators and activists continue to draw off of the same tactics to fight gender affirming care. The Alliance Defending Freedom, the author of many of the anti-trans laws proliferating around the United States right now, also fought for gestational age bans. These bans are being used in a similar way this year with bills targeting trans adults and raising the age in which it is legal to obtain gender affirming care. Legislators drawing off of organizations like the Alliance Defending Freedom will even often propose bills that target the trans community and reproductive healthcare back to back. Just look at Montana Representative Sheldon-Galloway’s bill list submitted this legislative cycle:
The connection between anti-trans laws and anti-abortion laws make for interesting bedfellows. In the United Kingdom, TERF organizations are the primary drivers of anti-trans action. TERF stands for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism - a philosophy that excludes trans people from feminism and allies itself with the right wing in targeting transgender populations. Though TERFism has not been as prevalent in the United States, there are some organizations that have attempted to set roots. One such organization is WOLF - the Women’s Liberation Front.
WOLF is an American-owned organization that lists its mission statement as “we work to restore, protect, and advance the rights of women and girls.” Interestingly, WOLF lists reproductive autonomy as one of its primary issue areas. Yet, the organization has spent most of its time and effort in recent years on opposing transgender rights. In fact, the organization has been so focused on opposing transgender rights that it has appeared in panels with groups such as the Heritage Foundation which has explicitly worked to ban abortion. When you see the Women’s Liberation Front consistently appearing alongside anti-abortion groups on numerous occasions, it raises the question as to whether or not they truly embrace feminism or just use it as a front to target transgender people:
Some states have seen the linkage between anti-trans organizations, bills, and legislators and anti-abortion ones and have taken action to protect both. Just this week, Illinois passed the Patient and Provider Health Act which protects abortion providers as well as gender affirming care providers from out of state subpoenas that would occur should bills like the Idaho and Missouri bills ever pass. One of the sponsors, Rep. Kelly Cassidy, said of the bill, “There’s an intrinsic and inseverable link between reproductive freedom and LBGTQ+ rights, Neither can be adequately defended or progressed without the other.” Washington, D.C., California, and other states have likewise passed similar legislation.
Ultimately, it is no surprise that abortion rights have unfurled in the same time period that the most anti-trans laws in history have been proposed and passed. These are two sides of the same coin in the same fight and the same people are fighting with the same justifications. Everything is connected to this: trans sports policing what a female body is, healthcare for youth and the right for them to obtain it - these fights are all connected. Groups opposed to anti-abortion laws must ally with groups opposed to anti-trans laws to successfully beat both and force back an attempt to end bodily autonomy for all.
The amount of hate and completely unjustified policy creation is hard to wrap the mind around 😞