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Abstract
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... Violence is concentrated in the intersections of oppressed identities.3 The year 2021 was the deadliest year on record for transgender people in America.4 Black transgender women accounted for two thirds of known victims of fatal violence against transgender people since 2013.4 In 2019, the American Medical Association declared an epidemic of antitransgender violence, especially against Black transgender women.5 Increasing threats of physical violence are paralleled by the record-setting introduction of 155 state-level antitrans bills by October 2022.6 This legislation seeks to codify trans people out of existence by criminalizing access to gender-affirming care, restricting participation in organized sports, implementing "bathroom bills," and prohibiting the correction of identification documents.6 Only 16 states have banned "gay/trans panic" legal defense strategies that allow perpetrators of violence to blame their actions on their victim's gender or sexuality.7
A healthy democracy demands equal access and full participation. Antitrans structural and sectarian violence restricts the ability of transgender people, especially Black trans women, to fully participate in society. The othering implicit in antitrans legislation kindles violence out of entitlement to civic participation and state protection for some, but not for all. Self-determination and bodily autonomy are rights, not privileges. Laws and policies that suggest otherwise create distinctions between groups that are antithetical to the social cohesion instrumental to peaceful democracy.
An increasingly bold and extreme sect of the far right seeks to further restrict the rights of systematically minoritized groups while simultaneously challenging the legitimacy of our democracy. The belief that the rules do not apply evenly, and to everyone, was echoed in the January 6th rallying cry to "take back our country." It is evident in the violent protests against the perceived violation of bodily autonomy via mask mandates while the American Medical Association and pediatric care organizations are imploring the Justice Department to investigate threats of violence against providers and families of children seeking gender-affirming care.8 Fear of dispossession radicalizes rhetoric into violence. Ijeoma Oluo describes the "desperation, disappointment, despair, and rage"9 that accompanies fear of perceived irrelevance. An increase in interpersonal violence against trans people is augmented by organized extremist violence at Pride parades and drag queen story hours. A sense of entitlement to the benefits of society, while simultaneously denying them to others, is consistent with the realities of the history of our nation but not the spirit of the democratic experiment...
Language: en |