Not Here in River City, Part V: State’s Wrongs

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part VI

The Federal government is in chaos—what’s left, that is, after the DOGE treatment and Executive Orders and bizarro heads of organizations have had a go at it. Thanks to Donald Trump’s inability to understand how tariffs work and him being all wishy-washy about it, levying and then retracting and then re-levying the damned things, prices are rising and will rise more dramatically in the future as domestic companies exhaust their stocks of foreign-made or foreign-touched goods and must replenish their stores. The stock market is bouncing up and down like a dribbled basketball. Since January, millions of Americans have taken big hits on their retirement savings. Hundreds of thousands of government employees have been fired, and every part of the U.S. government is understaffed and at least partially dysfunctional. Our national parks are not able to maintain normal access to visitors. Canada, under threat of invasion by the U.S., is no longer our closest ally and by all that is right and holy should not be our ally at all. The same is true for the European Union, which, in response to current U.S. madness is increasing its solidarity and no longer supplying intelligence to us. The U.S. Department of Education is toast. So too are U.S. AID, NOOA, FEMA and any research program looking at disease, medication, climate mitigation, or public safety. National Public Broadcasting, Voice of America, the U.S. Postal Service, and the U.S. Consumer Protection Bureau are on the chopping block. Medicaid has been gutted and Social Security payments, which were, without the consent of hundreds of millions of Americans, funded by money withheld from their salaries with the promise it would be repaid in installments when they reached retirement age and so fully funded and paid for by all of us, will be reduced and perhaps eliminated. Our public lands are under threat. Universities are under threat. Journalists are under threat. Legal firms are under threat. Federal judges are under threat. Everyone with brown skin is under threat. The planet itself is under threat as Trump puts policies in effect to destroy ongoing projects to delay global warming and looks for any and every way to hasten it. Our Democracy has been disemboweled and Donald Trump and his cronies are hacking at the throats of the Congressional and Judicial branches of the U.S. government with lies, threats, court actions and “Big, beautiful bills.” Americans citizens and legal residents are being kidnapped on the streets by masked ICE thugs and spirited away, sometimes to parts unknown. Greenland, Canada, and Panama are under threat of invasion. The president of Ukraine was betrayed by Donald Trump and J.D. Vance in a contrived ambush on national TV; the President of South Africa was similarly ambushed. The streets of our nation’s capital are about to be reduced to rubble by tanks when Trump has his every-dictator-gets-a-parade-like-this birthday bash. Armed white nationalists have been advised to stand by. Bad actors around the globe are empowered as Trump gleefully accepts their bribes and gives them every sort of consideration. Vladmir Putin is rubbing his hands with glee.

Trans people are especially at risk as Trump’s actions and those of the U.S. Congress prohibit gender-affirming treatment for adolescents (adults are next!), revert gender markers, and keep us out of team sports, public facilities, and especially bathrooms. There is a wholesale purge on every U.S. government publication, website, or public sign that mentions trans people—and it’s not only us. It’s a wholesale deletion of anything that affirms or even mentions women, racial and ethnic minorities, gay men and lesbians, immigrants, noted individuals who are not white, and transgender people. Our very language is under attack as mentions of anything that could remotely be considered “woke” or progressive or is removed from the pages that stay up. Roe vs. Wade has been reversed in the name of protection of women. Those who are pregnant live in fear of having a miscarriage, as they might wind up in jail. It’s a clusterfuck of the highest order, and we are in the midst of it.

As if all this were not bleak enough, governments in red states have been up to the same sort of hijinks for years and are now feeling ridiculously empowered to do more of the same. And so now I turn to what this essay promised to be about—mayhem in the legislatures and courts in the various U.S. states.

By 2020, bathroom bills, which raised their ugly head in North Carolina in 2017, seemed to have become a thing of the past (NC Equality, 2020). Well, they’re ba-ack. In nineteen states, it is now illegal for Americans in at least some circumstances to enter a public bathroom that does not conform, now get this, not to the gender marker on their birth certificates, but the gender marker that was on their FIRST birth certificate. Americans have been jailed for this and cisgender woman with masculine appearance or demeanor are now at risk of being detained, accused of being the sex that they aren’t, and, forced to prove otherwise (Truitt, 2025).

Immediately after Donald Trump’s second term began, considerable numbers of transgender people in transit in and out of the country had their passports seized, and many who were applying for applications were rejected and original copies of birth certificates and other documents they had used in support of their applications were not returned. When, in early May, I attended the Moving Trans History Forward Conference in Victoria, British Columbia, the town’s newspaper featured an article with the headline “Organizers of UVic Trans History Conference Blame Trump, with Attendance Set to Slump” (Shen, 2025). Indeed, attendance was down, and many Americans in attendance (myself included) were concerned about what might happen when we crossed the border on our return to the United States. Thankfully, I think we all made it, but more than a dozen Facebook and real life friends checked in to make sure I made it home safely. Happily, I did.

So, what have those pesky states been up to?

First, understand how rapidly anti-trans legislation is increasing. Here are some frightening statistics from the website translegislation.com. In 2021, 143 bills were proposed, with 18 passing. In 2022, the count was 174 and 26. In 2023, 616 bills were proposed, with 28 passing. In 2024, the numbers were 701 and 51. So far this year—SO FAR—910 bills have been proposed, with 103 passing. The most active states were Texas, with 130 proposals and Missouri, with a mere 67.

These bills and regulations imposed by the various states attack every aspect of life for transgender people: where and if we can pee; where we can and cannot have gender-affirming treatment as adolescents and as adults; where certain classes of people (like teachers) are prohibited from using our chosen names and passwords; where teaching or talking about gender identity is prohibited; where trans athletes can and cannot compete in team and individual sports, and in what categories;  whether transgender people can marry, and whom; in which populations transgender prisoners must be housed; what gender markers can be on our passports, drivers’ licenses, and other identity documents; which organizations can legally discriminate against us; where licensed health care practitioners can and cannot provide gender-affirming care without being incarcerated for the rest of their lives; and even forbidding parents of transgender children to acknowledge the chosen gender of their progeny or allow them to manifest it in any way.

Forty percent of transgender youth live in the 26 states that have banned their gender-affirming care (HRC, Map), but bans are not limited to minors; some extend into early adulthood. Some states are considering setting a limit of 27 years of age (HRC, Map), and some are proposing laws to ban gender-affirming care for all transgender people (Goldman, 2024). As mentioned above, in some localities physicians face imprisonment for providing transgender care, and some have been criminally charged (Runnels, 2025), threatened with loss of their medical licenses, or sued for doing so (Ken Paxton Website, 2024).

The United States government is on a mission to eradicate X markers on federal documents; as I mentioned above, immediately after Donald Trump’s January inauguration, transgender citizens of this country found themselves detained and their identity documents seized when re-entering the U.S. I think this was primarily due to confusion about policy and overenthusiasm by TSA staff about Trump’s January 20, 2025 Executive Orders de-legitimizing transgender people; the official policy seems to be to honor the X market until the passport expires and revert it to the birth gender upon renewal (Gedeon, 2025). Documents were either not returned or returned with the gender markers altered to reflect birth gender. Passport renewals are now fraught, not only because DOGE has gutted the Department of State and installed a sycophant as Secretary of State and things are falling the hell apart, but because passports applications are being denied or returned with altered gender markers. Many states, and yes, primarily red ones, are playing along by prohibiting name changes on state identity documents. Four—Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and Kansas, absolutely do not update gender markers on birth certificates or driver’s licenses. Two, Tennessee and Ohio, have been prohibiting changes on birth certificates for decades. Ten states and two territories require an amended birth certificate, a court order, or proof of surgery to update gender markers on driver’s licenses (MAP, Identity Document Laws and Policies).

Some states, following the lead of Texas State Attorney Ken Paxton, are abusing their power by creating lists not only of women who have miscarriages or who seek abortion or purchase abortifacients medications in places where they are still legal, but also lists of transgender people—and especially those who have sought or have received gender-affirming care (Yurcaba, 2024). To its everlasting shame, Vanderbilt University caved early on and turned their records over to Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti (Yurcaba, 2024).

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is one of the worst offenders. He has repeatedly abused his power, lied under oath, and engaged in financial hanky-panky, including misappropriation and misuse of state funds. He’s a peach, ain’t he? His 2023 Texas House impeachment named his misdeeds in twenty articles and led to a three-month suspension (My thanks to Wikipedia for that tidbit!)

A list of Paxton’s outrageous behavior would be longer than this already lengthy article, so here, in brief, are some of his anti-trans actions, and my thanks again to Wikipedia. The bulleted list is comprised of direct quotes:

• 2016: Led a coalition of thirteen states that sought an injunction to block a guidance letter issued by the Department of Education and Department of Justice that interpreted Title IX to require public schools to allow transgender students to use restrooms that accorded with their gender identity.
• 2022: Issued a new interpretation of Texas law in a written opinion that characterized gender-affirming health care (such as hormone treatments and puberty blockers) for transgender youths as child abuse.
• 2022: Made a post on Twitter in which he referred to U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine—a trans woman—as a man. Twitter flagged the tweet for violating its conduct rules, but did not remove the post. The following day, Paxton tweeted a statement in which he again referred to Levine as a man, and stated that he was exploring legal options against Twitter.
• 2023: Subpoenaed private medical information about any minors in Texas who might have received gender-affirming medical care.
• 2024: Sued the NCAA, arguing that allowing trans women to compete in women’s sporting events was “false, deceptive, and misleading” to attendees.

And here’s a doozy of a headline from May 21st: “Ken Paxton and Other Republican Officials Can Access Your Prescription Records Without a Warrant and Use it to Target You and Your Healthcare as he’s done with gender-affirming care” (Caraballo, 2025).

As I said, he’s a peach.

Let’s face it, folks. We’re in the soup.

In the next and final installment of this series I’ll talk about how this is impacting transgender people I know and, most importantly, what you and I can do to protect ourselves. Hang in there—the best part is coming. Stay safe until then.

Works Cited

Caraballo, Alejandra. (2025, 21 May). Paxton and other Republican officials can access your prescription records without a warrant and use it to target you and your healthcare as he’s done with gender affirming care. Erin in the Morning. https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/ken-paxton-can-access-your-prescription?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=994764&post_id=164094743&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=r43nq&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email. (Accessed 27 May, 2025).

Gedeon, Joseph. (2025, 23 January). Rubio instructs staff to freeze passport applications with “X” sex markers. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/23/trump-rubio-x-gender-passport. (Accessed 26 May, 2025).

Goldman, Maya. (2024, 10 January). Stare are limiting gender-affirming care for adults, too. Axios. https://www.axios.com/2024/01/10/trans-care-adults-red-states. (Accessed 25 May, 2025).

Human Rights Campaign. Map: Attacks on gender affirming care by state. https://www.hrc.org/resources/attacks-on-gender-affirming-care-by-state-map. (Accessed 25 May, 2025).

Ken Paxton Website. (17 October, 2024). Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ken Pax­ton sues doc­tor for ille­gal­ly pro­vid­ing harm­ful ?“gen­der tran­si­tion” treat­ments to near­ly two dozen Texas children. https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-sues-doctor-illegally-providing-harmful-gender-transition-treatments. (Accessed 25 May, 2025).

Movement Advancement project. Identity document laws and policies. https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/identity_document_laws. (Accessed 26 May, 2025).

NC Equality. (2020, 3 December). HB2 is officially dead and Gone in NC. Here’s why that matters. https://equalitync.org/2020/12/03/hb2_is_officially_dead_and_gone_in_nc_heres_why_that_matters/#:~:text=HB2%20was%20ostensibly%20written%20to,of%20criticism%20for%20state%20lawmakers. (Accessed 26 May, 2025).

Otten, Tori. (2023, 10 August. Christianity Today Editor: Evangelicals call Jesus “Liberal” and “Weak.” The New Republic. https://newrepublic.com/post/174950/christianity-today-editor-evangelicals-call-jesus-liberal-weak. (Accessed 26 May, 2025).

Runnels, Ayden. (2025, 24 January). Feds drop charges against Texas doctor accused of leaking transgnender care data. The Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/24/transgender-care-data-leak-texas-childrens-hospital. (Accessed 25 May, 2025).

Shen, Nono. (2025, 27 March). Organizers of UVic trans history conference blame Trump, with attendance set to slump. Victoria Times-Colonist. https://www.timescolonist.com/life/organizers-of-bc-trans-history-conference-blame-trump-with-attendance-set-to-slump-10434459. (Accessed 25 May, 2025).

Truitt, Brandon. (2025, 7 May). Woman says security guard at Liberty Hotel in Boston confronted her in bathroom, asked to prove gender. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/women-boston-liberty-hotel-bathroom-gender/. (Accessed 26 May, 2025).

What is happening with anti-trans bills in 2025? https://translegislation.com/. (Accessed 25 May, 2025).

Wikipedia: Ken Paxton. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Paxton#:~:text=Paxton%20made%20false%20statements%20to,in%20the%20articles%20of%20impeachment. (Accessed 26 May, 2025).

Yurcaba, Jo. 2024, 16 April. Several attorneys general made ‘abusive legal demands’ to get trans patients’ medical records, senators allege. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/several-attorneys-general-made-abusive-legal-demands-get-trans-patient-rcna147910. (Accessed 26 May, 2025).

Category: Transgender Opinion, Transgender Politics