Unfortunately, transphobia is becoming incredibly popular, as far-right politicians push to violate the rights of transgender people by trying to prevent them from getting gender affirming surgery, disallowing transgenderism to be taught in school, and not allowing transgender people to participate in sports. The first time transgenderism was recorded in a court was in 1966, when a transgender person from New York City had undergone sex reassignment surgery and wanted to legally change their name and sex on their birth certificate.

The NYC Health Department refused the request, and the court affirmed the NYC Health Department’s decision. 

In 1971, Paula Grossman was fired from her job as a junior high music teacher after openly transitioning and announcing that she identified as a woman. She appealed to the supreme court, who refused to even hear the case. 

Since these cases, we have slowly been making progress towards including transgender people as citizens and giving them the rights that they deserve. However, the amount of bills being passed in an attempt to eradicate transgender people from everyday life has been increasing greatly since 2021. Why are (mostly) Christian, conservative political groups (the ones that are fueling most of the effort to target LGBTQ rights) so upset about the existence of transgender people?

A very common argument that people pushing for anti-trans laws will make is that they are in support of “parents’ rights.” What they mean by this is that they believe that parents are having their rights violated when the state allows minors to have their sex legally changed on documents, school staff to use a childs’ preferred pronouns, or even teaching about gender identity. Republicans who express concern about children being introduced to transgenderism often argue that their discrimination against transgender people is not them imposing their belief (oftentimes Christianity) upon others but rather that they are fighting against beliefs that are being forced upon them. 

Another point that people fighting for the eradication of transgenderism in society make is that it is unfair for transgender people to participate in sports, especially if they’ve transitioned from female to male. The main argument is that males have a biological advantage over females as they have 12% more muscle mass on average. 

This argument may have gravity against transgender individuals who have not been able to take the hormones that anti-trans laws prevent from being provided to transgender people in order to aid their transition, but anybody who was genuinely gone through with transitioning will have reduced muscle mass, leveling them out with competitors of their preferred gender. If the hormones necessary for reducing muscle mass and becoming more feminine (estrogen) were more easily prescribable to transgender people, then transgender female athletes would be on par with their peers.

In conclusion, the anti-trans push is unconstitutional and unjust, proving the lack of moral empathy that anti-trans law pushers have. It’s embarrassing to be born in the same country as these types of people, who want to eradicate an entire group of humans simply because they don’t understand their cause.