A quick poll and updates on laws in Kansas, Nebraska, and North Carolina
Hello everyone. I had a great time watching the Bad Bunny concert this past weekend. We had a superbowl-themed party where we had the superbowl on the background and had LGBTQIA+ couples with kids over. Everyone had fun, few of us actually cared about the game but Bad Bunny was fantastic.
Before I begin, I wanted to do a survey on what people want. My readership has been growing over the past couple of years and I was hoping to hear from you about what you would like to see more of. And please feel free to reach out to me or leave comments to let me know how this newsletter could be of use for you.
Today I want to talk a little about bills being proposed in Kansas and Nebraska and talk about how you can keep up to date on what is happening in your state. All of these are bills that can cause serious damage to the transgender community and, if passed, can be copied and pasted to other states in the attack on transgender rights and some people’s attempts to bully transgender people.
Kansas:
In late January, the house and senate quickly passed a bill to require people to use the bathroom based on the gender assigned at birth. Importantly, it also reverts all birth certificates and drivers licenses to to match a person’s sex assigned at birth. This means, for transgender people, they may be masc or femme presenting while having a drivers license that does not match this presentation and identity. There are so many instances where identifying and presenting as a male but having a license that says female can create problems. This is the type of bill we will see popping up a lot over the next couple of years.
Nebraska:
Nebraska is considering three bills which will impact transgender individuals:
North Carolina:
While this is more of a news item, an employee from North Carolina State University was fired for being secretly recorded supporting LGBTQ+ students. This was the fourth person fired for supporting DEI, where the UNC system is focusing on “institutional neutrality and nondiscrimination". This is concerning for two main reasons:
Those who are doing DEI are being secretly recorded and being targeted by right-wing organizations for supporting minoritized communities… and those right-wing organizations are being rewarded with minority staff being fired. This means they will try to do this more and puts more minority students at risk. This is becoming more of an issue now that University of North Carolina administrators can now record faculty ‘for lawful purposes’.
It is becoming more dangerous in some states for LGBTQIA+ staff and faculty (and other minoritized faculty and staff) to support LGBTQIA+ students and people. It is hard to see this as anything other than trying to get LGBTQIA+ people back into the closet and/or to make us feel unsafe. It is becoming more and more important for LGBTQIA+ representation.
I recommend being aware of what is happening on college campuses because there is a spillover to your LGBTQIA+ clients, whether or not they are connected to universities.
How to keep on top of bills in your state
The ACLU legislative tracker does a great job in following all of the anti-transgender legislation (and anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation in general). It is important to remember that just because something is introduced does not mean it is going anywhere. I would recommend subscribing to your local ACLU chapters newsletter to be informed of what is happening. Also, get onto the list for your local LGBTQIA+ organizations as they do a good job in keeping people informed of how local policies and procedures will impact the LGBTQIA+ community.