What It’s Like to Be a Trans Politician in 2023

This may be the year we fully establish the limits of trans representation. The past few election cycles have seen an unprecedented number of openly trans lawmakers elected to office — Danica Roem; Sarah McBride; etc. — and it has also seen an unprecedented number of bills aimed at rolling back trans rights. State-level trans lawmakers are on the ground, fighting it out bill-by-bill, but they’re doing those jobs while fending off vilification, scapegoating, and harassment that lawmakers from more privileged backgrounds would never have to face. The most famous recent example is Rep. Zooey Zephyr, of Montana, who was banned from speaking on the House floor after she said that supporters of a ban on gender-affirming healthcare had “blood on [their] hands.” This language, despite being <a href="https://apnews.com/article/montana-transgender-lawmaker-zooey-zephyr-e44017dee7bb3a86cc06eb407533cf4f" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">common to the point of banality</a>, was deemed uncivil by Montana’s far-right Freedom Caucus. Zephyr is <a href="https://twitter.com/ZoAndBehold/status/1653051613416919041?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">suing the state of Montana</a> for violating her First Amendment rights, as well she ought. Yet Zephyr is not the only trans legislator facing this problem. Just over a month before Zephyr was silenced, non-binary Oklahoma Rep. Mauree Turner was <a href="https://apnews.com/article/nonbinary-lawmaker-oklahoma-censure-transgender-protest-7b7d035d70d3216ea1a8403ab68d7d59" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">censured, stripped of all committee assignments, and accused of “harboring a fugitive”</a> after they allowed the spouse of an arrested trans rights protester to sit in their office. Turner, who is Black and Muslim as well as non-binary, told 19th News that <a href="https://19thnews.org/2023/03/oklahoma-censures-nonbinary-lawmaker-mauree-turner/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">being an elected official had resulted in “continual death threats”</a> and that they did not feel physically safe in the statehouse. <a href="https://judedoyle.medium.com/what-its-like-to-be-a-trans-politician-in-2023-c8a74870ae3c">Visit Now</a>