More states restrict transgender youth medical care as GOP galvanizes base around issue

The Nebraska Supreme Court upheld a law restricting medical care for transgender youth. That comes after New Hampshire’s governor signed a law banning gender transition-related surgeries for minors. Laura Barrón-López looks at the wider political battle over transgender rights as the 2024 election nears.

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Amna Nawaz: Today, the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld a law restricting medical care for transgender youth. That comes after New Hampshire’s governor signed a law last week banning gender transition-related surgeries for minors.

Laura Barron-Lopez looks at the wider political battle over transgender rights as the 2024 election nears.

Laura Barron-Lopez: New Hampshire is now the 26th state to restrict or ban gender-affirming care, as Republicans seek to galvanize their base around the issue nationally.

For more on these legislative moves and what they mean for the rights of transgender people in the U.S., I’m joined by Leigh Finke. She became the first trans person elected to the Minnesota legislature in 2022 and is the executive director of the nonprofit Queer Equity Institute.

Leigh, thank you so much for joining the “News Hour.”

State Rep. Leigh Finke (D-MN): Thank you for having me.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Laws restricting gender-affirming care have now been passed in some form in more than half the states across the United States. You started the Trans Refuge Project, so people know how safe it is for trans people in any given state.

Can you give us the lay of the land right now?

State Rep. Leigh Finke: The lay of the land is very bad.

Things are very, very hard for trans people in the United States right now. And the Trans Refuge Project is an attempt for us to not just understand what’s happening, but for us to understand how we can help people where they are, without necessarily having to move.

Everybody can’t relocate their family. So Queer Equity Institute is trying to build network and coalition to help people where they are, because half of the country is living under these bans and it is getting worse.

Laura Barron-Lopez: And how has this situation changed since you entered the Minnesota legislature?

State Rep. Leigh Finke: When I entered, it was about six or seven states. Obviously, two years later, we’re at 26, so things have gotten dramatically worse.

We’re also seeing states push more cruel policies, right? They’re running out of states that are going to be able to ban gender-affirming care, so they’re moving on to even more anti-trans, cruel, hateful policies that are being pushed in the states that have already done so. So it continues to get significantly hard.

Laura Barron-Lopez: The Supreme Court recently said that it would hear arguments about Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors, and that case could be hugely consequential for all the states that have bans.

How concerned are you about the legal path forward?

State Rep. Leigh Finke: I’m very concerned about the potential outcomes of that case.

We have seen what this court is capable of and what it does to our bodily autonomy and our rights as vulnerable citizens in this country, and I think, if they were to uphold the ban on gender-affirming care in Tennessee, and that were to be the policy of the entire United States, we would once again be facing a very uncertain decade or two, as we settled into what would be a dramatically darker America for trans people.

Laura Barron-Lopez: I want to ask you about a specific kind of gender-affirming care, and that is surgeries for minors.

According to an e-mail obtained by the LGBTQ news site The Advocate, Neera Tanden, the domestic policy adviser for the Biden White House, said — quote — “Gender-affirming surgeries are typically reserved for adults, and we believe they should be.”

We should note that the Biden administration continues to fight gender-affirming care bans, including bans on surgeries across states, in the courts, but that language sparked criticism from LGBTQ rights groups and advocates. What’s your response to that?

State Rep. Leigh Finke: I share the concerns that were raised when we heard that, right?

I think that Tanden could have stopped at gender-affirming surgeries are typically reserved for adults that is true. There are very few surgeries that are conducted on minors in the United States. Those decisions are very difficult. They are best made by families and doctors in very specialized circumstances.

And making those autonomous decisions should be up to the families and their physicians and not any politicians of any party.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Do you think that that kind of language from the White House does more harm, even though they are continuing to fight these bans in court?

State Rep. Leigh Finke: Yes, I mean, the Biden administration has been the most pro-trans presidential administration that we have ever seen in the history of this country by far.

But, yes, it does — it is something that we need to be cautious about. I do not want to have the — any language that is showing that the trans rights movement that we are a part of, that we are fighting on the lines, on the front lines of saying bodily autonomy and family autonomy is what matters, and it’s best if we do not interfere with that on-the-ground work that we’re doing.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Speaking of the 2024 presidential election, that’s front and center right now for a lot of Americans.

How are you viewing this election from the perspective of transgender rights and rights for LGBTQ people?

State Rep. Leigh Finke: Yes, I mean, in terms of trans rights, the work that I do on the ground as a trans activist, there is no question about the outcome of this election that we need, which is to elect now a President Harris.

We know that the alternative is untenable across the board. There is no denying what the second Trump administration would do. We have a very clear statement of values from the contemporary American Republican movement, which is that trans people should not have legal recognition, we should not have health care.

There is no question about what we need to do in the future in terms of presidential politics.

Laura Barron-Lopez: If Donald Trump were to be elected for a second term, what kind of impact do you think that would have on trans rights?

State Rep. Leigh Finke: I think it would be catastrophic. We have a — we already live in a country with state attacks that are going largely undefended, just given the system that we have.

If we were to add the federal government on top of that backing these states, trying to export the harm and the hate and the cruelty of these red states that are attacking trans people in just the most vicious ways possible, to export that to the federal government and to see the damage that could be done, I mean, it’s very difficult to overstate how hard that would be and what lengths we would have to go to survive.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Leigh Finke of Minnesota, thank you for your time.

State Rep. Leigh Finke: Thank you.