This Symposium comes at an agonizing time for trans youth in our country. In 2021, one state passed a law categorically banning gender affirming medical care for transgender youth; four years later, half the states have such a ban. Right now, the Supreme Court is considering the level of constitutional scrutiny that such bans must be tested under.2 Since 2023, state legislatures have proposed over 1500 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills, almost 150 of which have become law. Half the states ban trans youth from participating in school sports, and about 15 states have some kind of restroom restriction. At the end of his second term, President Biden signed the National Defense Authorization Act with a rider banning TRICARE insurance coverage for medical care for transgender youth, the first anti- LGBTQIA+ federal law enacted since President Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.

All of that was before President Trump’s latest inauguration. Today, the second Trump Administration is relentlessly attacking trans people and endangering our access to medical care and accurate identity documents, our ability to work for the federal government and serve in the military, our youth’s ability to be themselves at school, and the safety of trans people who are incarcerated. This is a coordinated, comprehensive assault on trans people, the material conditions of our existence, and our ability to participate in civic life. It’s no wonder that trans people wake up every day and wonder how we are supposed to live in a country where the federal government is determined to erase us.

Keep Reading Remarks on “Transcendence: Legal Efforts to Protect and Advance LGBTQIA+ Youth Rights”