Quantitative Reasoning for Social Justice: An Active Learning Workbook

We begin by investigating key definitions necessary to understand transgender and nonbinary identities and how they are targeted by recent bills.

In order to better understand the impact of such legislation, we wish to gather data from various sources to analyze the growth, types, progress, and impacts of various anti-trans and nonbinary bills from 2018 to 2023. We emphasize the years since 2018 in this analysis because, in 2019, the conservative Heritage Foundation and conservative Christian Family Policy Alliance distributed a model strategy for banning gender-affirming care to state legislators at a conference (Harvard Law Review 2021⁹⁷). In 2020, a conference attendee and South Dakota legislator published a version of the bill seeking to criminalize doctors’ provision of puberty blockers and hormones to transgender patients under the age of 16. Similar bills followed the same year: in Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Carolina (Bauer 2020)⁹⁸. Though the 2020 bills failed, the language in bills in South Carolina, South Dakota, and Arkansas in 2021 attempting to allow physicians to refuse to treat transgender children shared similar language, which originated in a “Model Conscience Protection Act” published by Kevin Theriot and Ken Connelly of the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom (Theriot and Connelly, n.d.)⁹⁹. As we will see below, more and more bills are being proposed, and more are passing, every year since.

These bills go against studies showing that transgender children between the age of 5 and 12 are able to confidently identify their own gender identity (Olson, Key, and Eaton 2015)¹⁰⁰, among other academic studies. The leading association of pediatricians in the United States recommends “that youth who identify as [transgender] have access to comprehensive, gender-affirming, and developmentally appropriate health care that is provided in a safe and inclusive clinical space…[and] that pediatricians have a role in advocating for policies and laws that protect youth who identify as [transgender] from discrimination and violence (Rafferty et al. 2018)¹⁰¹.”

We briefly describe how each aspect of gender-affirming healthcare is targeted by the categories of bills used in the data analysis in the next sections. Social transition is targeted through youth athletics bills preventing young people from competing on sports teams under their identified gender. ID requirements prevent the changing of the “sex” listed on birth certificates, driver’s licenses, and other government IDs.Public facilities laws prevent all trans people from using restrooms and other gendered public facilities that match their gender identity. Schools/education laws vary but include laws banning teachers from using students’ correct pronouns at all or without parental permission, discussing queer and trans/nonbinary identities in the classroom, and displaying items such as pride flags supporting queer and trans identities, among others.

Drag performance laws (perhaps better categorized as “gender expression laws”), a recent development as of 2023, ban drag shows or “male or female impersonators” in certain circumstances, such as “in the presence of minors” (Tennessee’s Senate Bill 3) or on Sundays from 1 a.m. to 12 p.m. (Arizona’s SB 1030). Laws barring municipalities from passing nondiscrimination protections, as well as religious freedom laws, legalize discrimination in certain circumstances against LGBTQ+ people, particularly by those with a “strongly felt religious conviction” that being LGBTQ+ is wrong. Finally, healthcare laws prevent gender-affirming care for various groups in various ways, often including bans on hormone therapy and surgery for those under 18.

In the rest of this chapter, you will gain the skills to identify and analyze recent anti-trans and anti-nonbinary bills over time, focusing on their impacts, whether or not they passed, and other details that impact people’s lives.