Lawmakers in South Carolina, USA, have approved a ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth.
On 18 January, the Republican-dominated House debated and voted “overwhelmingly” in favour of the bill, as per AP News. The bill prevents health professionals from performing gender-affirming surgery, prescribing puberty blockers and overseeing hormone therapy for patients under 18 years old.
The bill also prevents those under the age of 26 – eight years past the age of majority in the Southern US state – from using Medicaid, the nation’s public health insurance program for those from a low-income background, to cover the cost of gender-affirming treatment.
Furthermore, the bill forces teachers and school employees to out transgender and non-binary children to their legal guardians in a potentially unsafe home environment, as it’s illegal for them to withhold such knowledge.
The South Carolina proposal on the ban will soon head to the state Senate, where the chair of the Medical Affairs Committee has said ‘it will have his attention’, according to the outlet.
Last week, lawmakers heard from witnesses and experts on the bill – dubbed House Bill 4624 – including medical experts, who warned that the deeply restrictive legislation could have a detrimental impact on children in the state.
Among those testifying against the bill on medical grounds was paediatrician Dr Deborah Greenhouse, who informed the Medical, Military, Public and Municipal Affairs that, contrary to what they might believe, trans minors in South Carolina do not undergo gender-affirming surgeries. Rather, trans youth who do qualify for gender-affirming care with “fully-involved” parents’ consent, are more likely to have access to hormone replacement therapy and puberty blockers, which can be lifesaving treatments.
In support of this point were parents Dave and Rebecca Bell, who spoke on behalf of their 15-year-old transgender daughter.
The couple revealed that it had taken years for their daughter to be approved for gender-affirming care, with seven visits to an endocrinologist over three years. But, when their child was finally approved for treatment with puberty blockers, they noted a significant difference in her mental health.
Her access to such treatment even meant she was able to stop taking mental health medications. “She did take antidepressants, but in fact, after starting HRT she was able to stop taking them,” they shared.
Elsewhere in the committee hearing, Dr Elizabeth Mack, who is the president of the South Carolina Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, pointed out that gender-affirming care is only provided to trans minors, following meticulous protocols after thorough consultation with doctors and parents.
Dr Mack also pointed out that gender-affirming care for minors is approved and endorsed by every mainstream medical organisation as a safe practice if administered correctly.
Some people shared their testimony anonymously; like one 17-year-old transgender child, who feared what might happen to them if the bill was passed.
“I cannot give you my name because I am one of the kids at risk of physical harm if my family knows I am trans,” their letter read. “South Carolina’s trans kids are all watching you today. We are afraid.”
A federal appeals court has issued an injunction against part of Texas’ book-banning law that requires book vendors to rate books for “sexually explicit” and “sexually relevant” materials. Vendors must submit those ratings every year to the Texas Education Agency (TEA), the agency overseeing public schools. The TEA can then overrule a vendor’s ratings and place vendors on a “noncompliant list,” forbidding schools from buying books from them if the vendors disagree with the TEA’s decisions.
Two Texas bookstores — Austin’s BookPeople and Houston’s Blue Willow Bookshop — filed a lawsuit against the 2023 Restricting Explicit and Adult-Designated Educational Resources (READER) Act, calling the law overbroad and an unconstitutional violation of their free speech rights. The bookstores were joined in their lawsuit by the American Booksellers Association, the Association of American Publishers, the Authors Guild, and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
On Wednesday, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that an injunction against the aforementioned section of the READER Act should remain in place because the booksellers in question are likely to suffer irreparable economic and reputational harm because of the law.
Blue Willow Bookshop said that it had already lost $200,000 in business after the law was passed as the Katy Independent School District had already paused all purchasing from it while awaiting for the business to comply with the new law.
The law requires booksellers to rate all books sold to schools if they’re either “sexually explicit” (“patently offensive” by vague and undefined community standards) or “sexually relevant” (with depictions of any sexual conduct). Blue Willow estimated that rating all of its books will cost between $200 and $1,000 per book and between $4 million and $500 million overall. This would bankrupt the store since it only makes $1 million annually, the bookseller said.
Because the bookseller makes 20% of its annual revenue through school sales, if it fails to comply with the law it would lose a large part of its business.
The Texas government argued that the plaintiffs’ case should be thrown out because vendors aren’t required to participate in the rating system and their economic injuries have not yet occurred. However, in its ruling, the court wrote, “We are not persuaded.”
The state also argued that its law didn’t violate free speech rights because there is an “abundant history” of movie and video game ratings and warning labels on cigarettes. However, the court wrote that movie and video game ratings are entirely voluntary since there are no legal requirements that any entity submit ratings before sale. Also, ratings of sexual content are not “purely factual and uncontroversial,” unlike the health warnings on cigarettes.
“The statute requires vendors to undertake contextual analyses, weighing and balancing many factors to determine a rating for each book,” the court wrote. “Balancing a myriad of factors that depend on community standards is anything but the mere disclosure of factual information. And it has already proven controversial.”
In its lawsuit, the plaintiffs wrote, “The overbroad language of the Book Ban could result in the banning or restricting of access to many classic works of literature, such as Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Of Mice and Men, Ulysses, Jane Eyre, Maus, Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation, The Canterbury Tales, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and even the Bible.”
While Texas schools will still be allowed to remove sexually explicit and relevant materials from libraries and classrooms, book sellers won’t have to comply with the law for now. The full issue will be decided as the lawsuit proceeds through the judicial system.
In a statement issued after the ruling, the plaintiffs said, “We are grateful for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decisive action in striking down this unconstitutional law. With this historic decision the court has moved decisively to ensure the constitutionally protected speech of authors, booksellers, publishers, and readers, and prevent the state government from unlawfully compelling speech on the part of private citizens.”
“The court’s decision also shields Texas businesses from the imposition of impossibly onerous conditions, protects the basic constitutional rights of the plaintiffs, and lets Texas parents make decisions for their own children without government interference or control,” the statement contnued. “This is a good day for bookstores, readers, and free expression.”
Large numbers of queer young people of colour in the US believe they have a low life expectancy compared with their white peers, a new study has found.
The research for LGBTQ+ youth mental-health charity The Trevor Projectshowed that, overall, 58 per cent of young queer people believe there is a high chance they will live to at least the age of 35, while 34 per cent view their chances as low. The remaining respondents were unsure.
The report, which surveyed 28,524 LGBTQ+ people between the ages of 13 and 24, found that 59 per cent of young LGBTQ+ people of colour think they will live to 35 and beyond, while 69 per cent of their white peers think there is a high chance they will live to the same age.
That disparity was even greater for transgender and non-binary people (53 per cent), compared with cisgender people, with 79 per cent of those surveyed believing they would live at least that long.
Steven Hobaica, a research scientist at The Trevor Project, told Advocate that as well as factors such as supportive parents and access to gender-affirming care, people who expressed high levels of “life purpose” were more likely to expect to live longer.
“We found that white LGBTQ+ young people were more likely to endorse a higher chance of living past 35 compared [with] their peers of colour, possibly due to generally having less stressful life experiences,” Hobaica said.
“It is well documented that youth who hold multiple marginalised identities, such as LGBTQ+ youth of colour, report higher rates of both stressful life events and mental health problems than their white LGBTQ+ peers, which may help explain these findings.”
‘Change is needed’
In addition, the research showed that queer people who believed they had a lower life expectancy were also more likely to have had recent bouts of anxiety(82 per cent) and depression (77 per cent).
This group also reported higher rates of self-harm in the past 12 months (77 per cent), suicide consideration (69 per cent), and suicide attempts (28 per cent) compared with respondents who thought they would lie longer (41 per cent, 24 per cent, and six per cent, respectively).
These latest figures in particular led The Trevor Project to highlight the need for investment in LGBTQ+ mental health care.
“Systemic policy change is needed to address the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth,” Hobaica said.
Several factors compounded this, with Black trans and non-binary youth experiencing higher levels of depression, anxiety, homelessness and discrimination.
“Simply put, the mental health of Black transgender and non-binary young people is a public-health crisis,” Dr Myeshia Price, a senior director of research science at The Trevor Project, said at the time.
Suicide is preventable. Readers who are affected by the issues raised in this story are encouraged to contact Samaritans on 116 123 (www.samaritans.org), or Mind on 0300 123 3393 (www.mind.org.uk). Readers in the US are encouraged to contact theNational Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255.
After a record year for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation at the state level, 2024 is shaping up to be just as challenging.
In 2023, more than 550 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced across 43 states, and more than 80 were passed into law. So far in the new year, 285 have been introduced, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
These bills seek to limit LGBTQ+ people’s rights in education, health care, public accommodations, free speech and expression, and much more. A total of 130 would restrict students’ and teachers’ rights through curriculum censorship, forced outing of students, and other regulations. Seventy-one of the bills deal with health care, mostly with age restrictions. There are 21 drag show bans. Other measures would weaken civil rights laws by defining men and women according to reproductive capacity or prevent transgender people from changing their gender marker on official documents.
As in the past few years, many of the bills specifically target trans people. “Transgender people across the country are enduring a historic and dangerous effort to control our bodies and our lives, fueled by extremist politics with the goal of erasing us from public life,” ACLU attorney Harper Seldin told The Hill.
“Taken together, these proposals are a blatant effort to deny transgender people the freedom to be ourselves at school, at work, and the support of the medical care many of us need to live,” he added. “We at the ACLU and our nationwide affiliate network stand ready to defend our freedoms and our families from this baseless assault.”
The bills introduced so far are largely in the South and Midwest. Some are in Republican-dominated states that have already passed anti-LGBTQ+ laws, such as Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, Iowa, and Missouri. Others, however, are in Democratic-governed states where they have little chance of passage, such as Illinois, Minnesota, and Washington.
But even when such bills do not pass, they do harm, the ACLU points out, as debate over them is marked by hateful rhetoric. Young LGBTQ+ people feel particularly threatened, as indicated by a Trevor Project study last year.
“The ACLU will not stop speaking out against these cruel attacks nationwide,” the organization vowed in a statement on its website. “LGBTQ people have a right to live in safety, to thrive, and to be treated with dignity.”
he leader of the California Senate on Friday said she would run for governor in 2026, entering a campaign that is far from the minds of voters but is quickly filling with candidates in a state that requires frequent fundraising to compete in some of the nation’s most expensive media markets.
Toni Atkins, a Democrat from San Diego, made history as only the third person and the first woman to hold both of the state Legislature’s top jobs — speaker of the Assembly and president pro tempore of the Senate.
Atkins is still in the latter role, but plans to step down early next month as she enters the final year of her term and cannot seek reelection because of term limits.
California, despite its progressive reputation, has never had a woman or an openly LGBTQ governor. Atkins, who is a lesbian, could be both. But she’ll have to compete against a strong field of Democrats, including Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, former Controller Betty Yee and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis. Attorney General Rob Bonta is also considering a run to succeed current Gov. Gavin Newsom, who cannot seek a third term.
Kounalakis, Thurmond, Yee and Bonta have the benefit of appearing — and winning — in a statewide election, meaning voters will be familiar them. Atkins has only ever been elected by voters in San Diego.
But she is well-versed in the inner workings of the Capitol and policymaking. She has negotiated multibillion-dollar budgets and major legislation with two governors. And she has a compelling personal story — growing up in a house with no running water in rural Virginia before making her way out West and becoming one of the most powerful elected officials in the state.
“I certainly don’t fit the mold of past governors or even some of the candidates that will be in this race,” Atkins said. “I’m going to lean on my story, because I think Californians are going to want someone more like them.”
Atkins came to California in 1985 to help care for her sister’s young son. She later worked at a women’s health clinic that performed abortions before getting elected to the San Diego City Council. She had a brief stint as mayor before getting elected to the state Assembly in 2010 and the state Senate in 2016.
In the Legislature she worked with former Gov. Jerry Brown and Newsom to craft a series of budgets marked by multibillion-dollar surpluses. That ended last year when the state had a multibillion-dollar deficit.
Newsom has steadfastly refused sweeping tax increases to balance the budget — something Atkins, too, said she would try to stay away from if she were elected governor.
“We want to preserve what we’ve done. It took a lot of work,” Atkins said. “I would not gravitate toward raising taxes in this moment. I don’t think it’s called for yet.”
A bill advanced by Florida Republicans on Wednesday would ban teachers and other government employees from displaying a rainbow flag — even wearing one as a lapel pin for a day — but they could hang the full-size flag of any “recognized nation” as long as they want, according to the bill’s sponsor.
Flag displays that depict a “racial, sexual orientation and gender, or political ideology viewpoint” would be banned from any state or local government building, including public schools and universities, under the bill authored by GOP Rep. David Borrero.
Opponents say the bill is inspired by hate. Borrero said it protects children and it would ban even lapel pins representing the flags of the LGBTQ and Black Lives Matter movements.
“Public classrooms should not be the place where our kids go to be radicalized and evangelized into accepting these partisan, radical ideologies,” Borrero said. “It’s wholly inappropriate to be putting those types of flags in front of public school students and in government buildings.”
Asked about other flags, Borrero said those of sovereign states recognized by the U.S., such as Israel, could be displayed in a classroom. Because the U.S. doesn’t recognize Palestine as a nation, this would rule out the Palestinian flag.
The ban wouldn’t apply to students, or to government employees when they’re not at work or in public buildings, Borrero said. But it would extend to lawmakers’ offices, and at least some Democrats said they’ll break the law if the bill is ever signed by DeSantis.
“Are we in Russia? Are we in Cuba? That’s authoritarianism. That’s fascism at it’s best,” said Sen. Shevrin Jones, who is Black and gay and has a “Pride at the Capitol” poster with rainbow colors in his public lobby, along with other pride symbols.
“How I was raised, the rainbow meant hope. … I can promise you it wasn’t that that made me gay,” Jones added. “I’m not taking a damn thing down. I want everybody to see it.”
Robert Boo, CEO of the Pride Center at Equality Park, in his office in Wilton Manors, Fla., on Jan. 17, 2024. Rebecca Blackwell / AP
Florida lawmakers have already passed several anti-LGBTQ laws while Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis runs for president. DeSantis has signed bans against teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. He’s banned transgender health care for minors and created new hurdles for transgender adults, and made it easier for parents to get books with LGBTQ themes removed from schools.
This bill advanced with a party-line 9-5 vote by the House Constitutional Rights, Rule of Law & Government Operations Subcommittee faces an uncertain path, even with Republican supermajorities in the Legislature. It has one more House committee stop before being considered by the full chamber. A companion Senate bill has been referred to three committees and hasn’t been scheduled for a hearing.
DeSantis’ office didn’t respond to an email asking if he supports the legislation.
Democratic Rep. Michele Rayner, who is Black and lesbian, spoke with frustration that anti-LGBTQ bills keep coming up in the Florida Legislature, ignoring more pressing needs such as access to affordable housing and property insurance.
“Once again we’re focusing on things nobody has asked us to focus on,” said Rayner, sitting in her office near a stack of “Protect LGBTQ+ Students” flyers printed over rainbow colors. “I have a Black Voters Matter sign outside of my office. It will remain outside my office regardless of what bill they pass because there’s a thing called the First Amendment.”
Borrero’s bill would also apply to local governments such as the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Wilton Manors, a gay-friendly town of 11,000 where Pride flags fly almost everywhere, including City Hall during Pride Month. A bridge leading into town is framed by rainbow-colored barriers and a Pride flag and a trans pride flag fly year-round above a small park across the street from City Hall.
Robert Boo, CEO of the town’s Pride Center, said DeSantis and the bill’s backers hope to “erase the LGBTQ community” and throw “red meat” to their political supporters while ignoring complicated issues plaguing the state.
“Wilton Manors is the second-gayest city in the country. It is important for Wilton Manors to be able to raise the flags that represent the community’s members,” Boo said. “This may not pertain to middle Florida and they may not want to do that, but I think municipalities should have the ability and freedom to put up the flags that best represent their constituents.”
Two of the country’s largest transgender rights organizations are merging, telling NBC News that joining forces will allow them to better combat years of conservative efforts to roll back trans rights.
The National Center for Transgender Equality, or NCTE, a group that focuses primarily on federal policy reform, and the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, or TLDEF, which works to advance trans rights through litigation, will merge by this summer to become Advocates for Trans Equality, or A4TE.
“We’ll be able to operate with double the influence, double the power,” said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, the executive director of NCTE, who will assume the same position at Advocates for Trans Equality. “At a time when states are considering a record number of anti-transgender bills, trans voices are needed now more than ever, and we have to be operating at a different scale.”
The merger comes amid what many advocates have described as a crisis for LGBTQ people, but especially transgender people. Conservative lawmakers introduced more than 500 bills targeting LGBTQ people last year, shattering the previous year’s record of 315. The majority of that legislation targeted trans minors, either by seeking to restrict their ability to play on school sports teams or limit their access to transition-related medical care.
From left, Kris Hayashi, former executive director of the Transgender Law Center; Andy Marra; and Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen at Capitol Hill.Courtesy Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund
Twenty-three states have passed laws barring trans students from playing school sports on teams consistent with their gender identities, as opposed to their sexes assigned at birth, and the same number have restricted or banned trans minors from accessing gender-affirming medical care, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
Andrea Hong Marra, TLDEF’s executive director, who will become the CEO of Advocates for Trans Equality, said TLDEF has grown significantly since she joined in 2018 — from a staff of four to 27 and a budget of about $830,000 to $4.5 million — and has secured a number of significant legal wins for trans people. But, she said, one thought still keeps her up at night: “It’s not enough.”
Then came the wake-up call, Marra said. In February 2022, Texas’ Department of Family and Protective Services began investigating parents who were suspected of having provided their minor children with transition-related care — the first time state officials had ordered such investigations. She said she took Amtrak down from New York City to meet with Heng-Lehtinen at his home in Washington, D.C.
Heng-Lehtinen said they decided “we need something cataclysmic, and that’s how we came up with this idea of merging” the organizations, both founded in 2003.
The merger, Marra said, is not about business. Both organizations’ revenues have grown over the last few years, according to public documents. And all staffers at NCTE and TLDEF will keep their jobs through the merger, Marra and Heng-Lehtinen said.
“This is a values decision,” Marra said. “This is about strengthening our movement and giving trans activists a real opportunity to lead and drive progress towards equality and freedom.”
Heng-Lehtinen and Marra agreed that national nonprofit groups like theirs need to be doing more for trans people and that merging will allow them to do that.
Heng-Lehtinen said NCTE and other groups have secured major wins for trans people in recent years, which, in turn, led to increased conservative backlash. For example, the center worked for years to make the Transportation Security Administration’s screening process more gender-neutral to avoid invasive and humiliating searches that trans people have often faced and criticized. The State Department also began offering a gender-neutral X marker on passports in 2021, and nearly half of states have passed laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in public accommodations and housing. Public support for same-sex marriage has also remained high, at 71%.
“We have, little by little, seen the public understand more accurately what it means to be transgender and start to see us as full human beings,” Heng-Lehtinen said. “So the opposition really took note of this and tried to assess how do they roll back that tide, and that’s when they decided to go after trans kids, because they are the least understood out of the whole LGBTQ spectrum. And by attacking trans kids and exploiting the public’s lack of familiarity, they can make inroads to erode public support and LGBT rights writ large.”
Heng-Lehtinen said that when he took over, he wanted to address the concerns, which took time and affected the organization’s capacity. He said he worked to help change 100 of the policies in the organization’s employee handbook and overhauled how it approaches transparency and management. NCTE also worked to build close relationships with grassroots trans rights groups in states that face an onslaught of legislation targeting trans people.
He said the organization will also release more information about the results of its U.S. Transgender Survey soon. In 2016, the organization released its first U.S. Transgender Survey, the largest survey of trans people, which has been used by Congress and the Supreme Court. The group intended to release the second version of the survey in 2020, but the release was delayed by the internal strife and then the coronavirus pandemic. The survey was also delayed, Heng-Lehtinen said, because it received so many responses — more than triple the roughly 28,000 it received in 2015.
Bringing the organizations together, Marra said, will allow Advocates for Trans Equality and the movement for trans rights in general to better weather the kinds of storms trans people are facing.
“I think that this merger is going to create greater hope for not just the activists that give 125% each and every day, but also the kiddos and their parents at home in their communities across the country that are looking for the national voice for trans rights,” Marra said.
On Wednesday, the unions for the two nonprofits — NCTE United and the Union of Legal Workers for Trans Liberation — shared a joint statement on Instagram saying they are “excited to join forces” but noted that neither union was “involved in any planning of this merger.”The statement said management staffers were offered salary increases and bonuses if they chose to stay or three months severance pay if they chose to leave but “management has yet to propose any such benefits for the union.”
The unions added that they are concerned the combined organization “may intend to continue the practice exhibited by TLDEF and NCTE management of prioritizing management and executive level hires while ignoring staff needs for programmatic union positions.”
In response to the statement from their unions, NCTE and TLDEF said in a joint email statement that they have started working with the unions now that their intent to merge is public.
“We want bargaining to work as it should, and are committed to working with the unions as employees have a crucial role in shaping the new organization, Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE), and fostering a workplace that is fair and just,” the email said, in part.
Republicans in West Virginia have upped the hostility among those on the right toward transgender people. There, the LGBTQ+ community is currently grappling with significant legislative challenges that have the potential to impact the rights and lives of transgender individuals drastically.
Multiple draconian bills were introduced in the state’s legislature this week, with advocates drawing attention to their severe implications. One forces mental health professionals to “cure” transgender people from their gender identity, and another categorizes transgender people as “obscene material,” essentially making transgender individuals’ existence in many public spaces illegal, independent journalist Erin Reed, who specializes in transgender-related legal coverage, reports. Yet another criminalizes their presence near schools.
“Trans people know they are — there is nothing to ‘cure.’ The truth is, trans people of all ages are living happy, complete, and joyful lives — this contradicts the false narrative created around our community by extremist politicians,” West Virginia activist Ash Orr told Reed. “This piece of legislation attacks our most basic values of privacy and control over our own bodies, and is based on misleading or even outright false ideas.”
Orr added: “This is a blatant attempt to criminalize and erase the trans community of West Virginia.”
Senate Bill 194 is particularly alarming. This proposed legislation seeks to impose a total ban on gender-affirming care for transgender individuals up to the age of 21. It also mandates that therapists and social workers in the state attempt to “cure” transgender identity. This bill extends the reach of a previous ban on gender-affirming care for those under 18, passed in 2023, and categorizes being transgender as a “sexual deviation.” Additionally, it broadens the definition of minors to include individuals up to age 21.
Conversion therapy, the discredited practice of attempting to change somebody’s sexual orientation or gender identity, has been rejected by scientists and declared harmful and dangerous. Also, it should be noted that science does not support the notion that being LGBTQ+ can be reversed. Just as gay, bisexual, and lesbian people can’t be “cured” of homosexuality, transgender people cannot be “cured” of being trans — and do not need to be.
The bill not only targets medical professionals involved in providing gender-affirming care but also extends to mental health care professionals and counselors. Under the provisions of this bill, any form of medical or therapeutic intervention aimed at facilitating gender transition for individuals under 21 years of age would be deemed unlawful.
The bill mandates severe penalties for practitioners violating these regulations, including the revocation of licensure and substantial civil penalties. Furthermore, Senate Bill 194 aims to prevent any state funds from being utilized, directly or indirectly, for gender transition treatment. The bill also includes whistleblower protection clauses, ensuring that individuals who report violations are safeguarded against discrimination.
Senate Bill 195 presents another troubling development. As reported by Reed, this bill classifies transgender individuals as “obscene” and proposes to bar “transgender exposure, performances, or display” to minors. This could effectively criminalize the public presence of transgender individuals, as avoiding being perceived as transgender by a minor would be nearly impossible.
The bill’s broad scope extends to adjusting the definitions and penalties within the existing legal framework, with particular emphasis on expanding the definition of indecent exposure to include transgender representations. Notably, the bill contains language considered a slur against transgender people.
Senate Bill 197 further exacerbates the hostile legislative environment for transgender individuals in West Virginia. This bill, which aims to prohibit “obscene matter” from being within 2,500 feet of a school, effectively criminalizes the presence of transgender people near schools or in front of minors, classifying it as indecent exposure. Coupled with Senate Bills 194 and 195, the proposed legislation forms a triad of measures that collectively threaten to significantly curtail the rights and freedoms of the transgender community in the state. Moreover, these bills not only broaden the scope of what is considered unlawful but also intensify the penalties involved, including increased fines and extended jail time for violations.
The implications of these bills are extensive and deeply concerning. They not only threaten the mental and physical health of transgender individuals but also signify a dangerous erosion of LGBTQ+ rights in West Virginia.
Their implications also extend beyond West Virginia, potentially leading to similar legislation in other states as Republicans continue their attack on one of the most marginalized communities in America.
“The rise in legislative attacks aimed at our community is concerning, but it shows the desperation of lawmakers and extremists who are against transgender rights,” Orr said.
Cheryl King hosts an original spin on Valentine’s Day – Blue Valentines. This celebration of love and its opposite will feature stories of love gone wrong (and right). Join us for comedy, burlesque, song and dance routines, and magic as we celebrate couplehood and singlehood. Featuring new comedy routines from the mind of Cheryl King, plus new sexy routines from Malia Abayon, Titus Androgynous, The Phoenix Dancers, singer/songwriter Karenna Slade, and The Forbidden Magician. Adult-oriented material, for those 18+. Parental guidance is suggested. Tickets $20 in advance, $25 at the door
Membership Offer
Buy a membership and get up to 50% off this event at checkout
Tickets
Ticket typeAdvanceSale endsFeb 10, 6:30 PMSale ends: Feb 10, 6:30 PMMore infoBuy online & save $__! For events with a dance floor, seating is limited: Advance tickets guarantee entry, but not necessarily a chair. Doors open one hour before the start of the event, and general seats are first-come-first-serve. Members have access to a number of reserved Member-Only seats up until the start of the event. Contact the box office if you have a mobility need or other specific seating accommodation requirement. (All sales are final)
