The Impact of White Evangelical Conservatism and Anti-Trans Legislation on Black Trans Women
Demetrius Freeman/Reuters
The introduction of anti-trans bills are on the rise in state legislatures across America right now. This year alone, there have been 528 anti-trans bills proposed in nearly all 50 states, which is a devastating record for the United States that is only increasing as the year goes on. This extreme increase in anti-trans legislation at the state level is a result of the damage the Trump administration was able to cause in its four years of holding power.
After former President Trump’s inauguration in 2017, transgender people experienced violence and hate crimes committed against them due to the administration’s crystal clear stance on its beliefs about trans people. The Trump administration was able to take away many of the rights trans people had prior to the administration holding power — rights such as protection from discrimination by homeless shelters or the ability to openly serve in the military — which is one of the reasons why anti-trans bills are so vigorously encouraged to be proposed across the country today. These bills do undeniably affect all trans people, as shown by the survey results released by The Trevor Project which states that approximately half of the respondents have considered suicide within the past year of their lives. However, Black trans women are affected at disproportionate rates due to the deep-rooted misogynoir and transphobia learned from the beliefs perpetuated by Evangelical Christianity. Anti-trans bills, whether made into law or not, do more than create fear for trans people. These discriminatory laws put all trans people at risk in their everyday lives in experiencing harassment, hate crimes, violence, poverty, and lack of access to healthcare. Black trans women experience the brunt of this violence and hatred, as seen with the extreme numbers of Black trans women fatally shot compared to all trans people.
State lawmakers across the nation are introducing bills that essentially deny trans people the right to live comfortably and safely within their own bodies in their everyday lives. One of the more serious impacts that the increase in anti-trans legislation will have on trans people is access to safe and reliable healthcare. Many bills currently undergoing voting in state legislatures have the goal to deny any funding from medical centers that provide gender-affirming healthcare to trans people. The majority of the bills proposed focus on making it illegal for minors to receive hormonal therapy treatments that delay the onset of puberty, or encourage certain other characteristics to develop instead, like facial hair. Most trans youth, however, do not even proceed with these gender-affirming surgeries until after they have turned 18. Thus, laws that limit the availability of minors to receive gender-affirming treatments will not have a great effect on trans youth. Many other lawmakers in states such as Iowa and Missouri have pushed for legislation that makes it legal for healthcare providers to deny providing care to anyone if they feel it conflicts with their religious beliefs. Discriminating against trans or gender-nonconforming people based on one’s religious beliefs will empower healthcare workers to deny care and assistance when it is critical to one’s livelihood. What many fail to realize, however, is that when cisgender people receive similar procedures to make themselves appear more “feminine” or “masculine”, they do not get denied assistance. In fact, cisgender people take part in and benefit from gender-affirming healthcare with little to no social stigmatization.
When we typically think of what consists of gender-affirming healthcare, we think of hormone replacement therapy, top and bottom surgery — top surgery consists of procedures that reshape one’s chest and bottom surgery is a procedure undergone to reshape one’s genitalia, or plastic surgery that changes one's facial structure to present as more masculine or feminine. Gender-affirming healthcare can be defined as any medical procedure that affirms one’s gender identity. While all of these constitute gender-affirming procedures, cisgender people take part in gender-affirming healthcare every day and the majority of American society does not bat an eye. When a cisgender woman receives breast enlargement to appear more feminine? That is gender-affirming healthcare. When a cisgender man receives a hair transplant because he is insecure about balding? That is gender-affirming healthcare. When a cisgender woman experiences menopause and undergoes hormone replacement therapy to relieve her symptoms? That is gender-affirming healthcare. What do all of these procedures have in common? They all support and affirm the gender identity of oneself. Cisgender men and women get the luxury of partaking in gender-affirming healthcare whenever they please without the threat of losing their livelihoods at any given moment. Meanwhile transgender or gender-nonconforming people are ridiculed and denied these same procedures simply because they are not cisgender. These surgeries and procedures are necessary, essential, and potentially life-saving for everyone, no matter their gender identity. So, taking away the autonomy for trans people to receive gender-affirming healthcare through introducing bills that deny it is detrimental to their well-being.
Another massive effect of the revocation of trans rights that will take place is the ability for trans or nonbinary people to put their gender identities on government-issued documents. Lawmakers want to make it so anyone who does not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth cannot update their gender status and preferences on legal documents. This puts trans people at major risk of failing to secure jobs due to employment discrimination since their government-issued documents are not accurate, which could lead to being forcibly “outed” and thus, facing more harassment in the workplace because they are unable to fully represent who they are and what identity they align with the most when it comes to their gender — a socially constructed concept. This also potentially creates a culture more accepting for trans people to be harassed and assaulted due to their government-issued documents not matching how they present themselves. The complications that would occur if these bills pass would be extremely harmful to all trans and nonbinary people and allow for them to experience greater harassment as a result of their information not being accurate to how they identify currently.
The drastic uptick in the number of harmful, anti-trans bills began with the Trump administration. Former President Trump was, and still is, anything but shy when it comes to publicly speaking about how he feels toward trans and queer-identifying individuals. One thing President Trump was able to achieve throughout his presidency was capturing the minds of conservatives who felt like they finally had a voice — a voice that spewed nothing but hate for the establishment and blatantly harmed anyone who was not a white, straight, and cisgender male. The group of individuals he cultivated throughout his presidency is not only a majorly homogeneous group in their physical appearance, but also in their beliefs, specifically in their religious beliefs.
Evangelical Christianity experienced an increase in the number of people who identified with the label while the Trump administration was in office. The Trump administration allowed a safe space for more Evangelical Christians to outright declare, and act upon, their hatred for anyone who is in any way different from them. Close to 90 percent of white Evangelical Christians believe that a person’s gender is determined by whatever sex they are assigned at birth. This explains why there has been an undeniable increase in the amount of anti-trans bills introduced at the state level this year alone. With the brigade of Evangelical conservatives President Trump was able to create through his presidency, we have seen more Evangelical Christian-identifying politicians be elected into office within the past few years. This increase in elected officials who believe that being trans is a sin has resulted in the surge of anti-trans laws brought forth to be voted on in state legislatures across the country.
The damage that these anti-trans bills are causing does not just affect queer communities. The more power and support Evangelical Christian groups are able to garner, the closer other marginalized groups in the United States are to losing any rights they previously had, as seen with the case of Roe v. Wade, which was overturned last year. Evangelical Christian conservative groups were able to accumulate millions of dollars in funding to spread their message that abortion is murder, and we can observe how these groups are currently applying the same strategies to the anti-trans laws being brought forth today. These groups are advocating for “parent’s rights” bills — legislation in which the parents of children fully dictate how their children choose to present themselves and how they identify. The more money these groups are able to raise, the more power they will have in electing government officials who have the same beliefs they do, and thus the more likely they will gain an upper hand over liberals in passing the extremely harmful anti-trans bills. These groups are, then, extremely harmful to the current and future generations of not only transgender individuals but also all other marginalized individuals.
Unsurprisingly, these white Evangelical Christian-identifying conservatives are also outspokenly racist. Former President Trump paved the way for his supporters to harass and cause violence to anyone who was not white, especially to physically act on their hatred toward Black people who have been systematically oppressed for centuries by multitudes of institutions created by the white man. Although white Evangelicals and Black Protestants share a lot of the same beliefs and behaviors when it comes to religion, both groups differ greatly in their politics. A majority of Black Protestants identify as Democrats, with 24.5 percent identifying as strong Democrats, whereas 53.5 percent of white evangelicals align with the Republican party. The divide deepens when discussing their attitudes about social issues and civil rights movements, like Black Lives Matter. The vast majority, 83 percent, of Black evangelicals support BLM. Black evangelicals are more likely than white evangelicals to support and advocate for social movements that prioritize Black empowerment. If only considering that both of these groups share the same religious beliefs, it would be difficult to understand why they diverge when it comes to their attitudes on social issues. Since Black individuals, regardless of religion, experience high rates of poverty and racial discrimination, it would make sense that Black Protestants are the most likely religious group to engage in community needs assessments. Black Protestants shape their political beliefs around justice and equity for minority groups, unlike white evangelicals who mold their religious beliefs to fit their particular political ideologies. Thus, white Evangelical Christian conservatives are more likely than Black Protestants to support the Trump administration and its efforts to further introduce anti-trans legislation into state legislatures.
Black women experience a more deeply-rooted kind of racism and misogyny that no other group deals with: misogynoir. In simple terms, misogynoir is the combination of misogyny, prejudice against women, and the word noir, meaning black in French. Black women, then, experience multilayered prejudice due to the intersection of race and gender. This kind of prejudice only gets more sinister when discussing Black trans women. Black trans women are indisputably the most targeted, discriminated against group of individuals. They have been harassed, assaulted, and murdered at disproportionate rates. And although Black trans people have been the leading cause of rallying support for LGBTQ+ activism and the Black Lives Matter movement, the violence they experience has only increased within recent years due to the deeply ingrained resentment for Black women and transgender people in America. Black trans women deserve more protection and empathy, and with Evangelical Christian conservatives gaining more power in government institutions, we are going to see more violence directed toward an already overlooked group of individuals.
The #SayHerName movement was created in addition to the Black Lives Matter movement to represent Black women who are constantly forgotten by main media headlines. The lives of Black transgender women cannot be considered valuable to the masses of America until Black women’s lives matter first. Black women face obvious misogyny and racism in every facet of their lives, whether it be through not receiving roles in Hollywood due to their melanin or their constant masculinization. Black trans women face all of these heinous acts, plus more. Therefore, Black women must matter and be regarded as human beings first, before we can begin to fight for Black trans women.
Black queer individuals have been at the forefront of battling to create a more inclusive and accepting culture for decades, which ultimately benefits all marginalized groups in some way. Black queer individuals, in particular Black trans women, however, have not been able to reap their own benefits in gaining more support and rights for other marginalized groups. Black trans women have been fatally shot at disproportionate rates as compared to all trans people in the United States, with 91 percent of the trans people killed in 2019 being Black women. Some argue that the rate at which Black trans women are being murdered constitutes an epidemic in this country. Black trans women who have been unrightfully murdered are not given the privilege of being discussed in main media outlets, such as Dominique "Rem'mie" Fells, Riah Milton, and Jasmine “Star” Mack, to name a few of the lives that have been lost to the deeply-ingrained transphobia and anti-Black racism of this country. Mack, murdered earlier this year, experienced violence, assault, and harassment multiple times in her life simply because she was queer. These are statistics that should be extremely alarming and should evoke a visceral reaction in anyone. Black trans women put their livelihoods on the line for many, as seen in the Stonewall riots and the many Black Lives Matter protests organized over the past several years. Yet, not many are willing to sacrifice themselves for Black trans women who fight every day to protect the civil rights of others. With the intersection of transphobia and misogynoir becoming a widely accepted belief in this country’s politics, Black trans women are the group that is single-handedly harmed the most from the creation of the hundreds of anti-trans bills introduced in state legislatures today.
The passage of anti-trans bills will inevitably affect all trans people, and more generally all people who identify as LGBTQ+. However, as these bills continue to be brought into legislation, the most blatantly forgotten group of individuals in America, Black trans women, will experience harassment, assault, violence, poverty, lack of access to basic healthcare, and ultimately be shut out from society at terrifyingly high rates as compared to all other queer individuals. Just because some of these anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ bills are not passing at the state level, does not mean there has been no harm that has occurred to trans people. In fact, the ability of so many anti-trans laws to make it into bills this year alone causes a great deal of harm to transgender people since they allow for more conversations to be had about the “righteousness” of identifying as transgender and the rights trans people should be allotted. As discussed earlier, a sizable chunk of the anti-trans bills currently awaiting voting are attempts to take away access to safe gender-affirming healthcare for trans people.
The lack of access to gender-affirming healthcare is not the only thing threatened by these same bills. These bills also threaten to take away the right to any necessary medical healthcare, like Medicaid, from trans or gender-nonconforming people. Black trans women face this threat of lacking basic necessities, then, not only for being transgender but also for being Black, as seen with the disparities of insured white people versus Black people. Black trans people are offered virtually no coverage even though many believe healthcare should be a universal basic right, demonstrating how Black trans women are often left out of this consideration. Without the coverage of having safe healthcare, Black trans women will be forced to put themselves in danger of receiving unsafe gender-affirming healthcare, or any healthcare for that matter. And thus, will be put in situations where their health is jeopardized.
These anti-trans laws that are being introduced by white Evangelical right-wing policymakers are detrimental to the mental and physical health of Black trans women. We must start to consider this group of individuals when creating policy in the future, especially since everybody else profits off of the culture and civil rights movements that are created by Black queer individuals. With the increase of people who identify as Evangelical Christians put into positions of power anti-trans bills are being proposed and brought into legislation today, which is dangerous to all queer people, but especially Black trans women who are not receiving as much of attention in major media outlets due to blatant misogyny, racism, and transphobia. Without the organization and leadership of queer Black individuals who contribute greatly to the politics and civil rights gains of this country, America will continue to experience the mass scaling back of freedoms for marginalized groups and continue to give the utmost political power to individuals who embrace the Evangelical Christian beliefs that are detrimental to the prevention of passing anti-trans bills across the country. Although most bills discussing trans rights across the country today are threatening to take these rights away, anti-trans laws are only passing in places that have high populations of white Evangelical Christians. Some states are working on bills that will allow trans people to petition for a name change in confidentiality. For example, California and Washington are pursuing the passage of these bills that will limit the amount of harassment and violence trans people experience because of their previous names that they no longer identify with. There is, then, still hope that anti-trans laws will not pass unanimously across the country, since the majority of white Evangelical Christians populate the South.