Youth Citizenship and Anti-Trans Legislation

By McKenzie Goff

Introduction

Transgender youth in the United States are currently being targeted by legislation that restricts or bans their participation in school sports and their access to gender affirming healthcare. “Thirty-three states have introduced more than 100 bills [in 2021] that aim to curb the rights of transgender people across the country…” (Krishnakumar, 2021), making 2021 the biggest year for anti-trans legislation to date. These bills most commonly aim to restrict the lives of transgender people in one of two ways: either limiting access to gender affirming healthcare or adding boundaries to participation in K-12 sports. Both categories of bills act as constraints on a trans person’s ability to act as a citizen. The passing of laws that restrict healthcare for youth, according to the trans children and the advocates that stand beside them, would be detrimental, resulting in the active harm of transgender children’s health and wellbeing. (ACLU, 2021; 40/29 News, 2021). In defense of the legislation, those backing the bills claim that the goal is to protect youth from making life changing decisions in their adolescence that they may ultimately regret (40/29 News, 2021).

The discourse surrounding the healthcare bills, due to the heightened concerns over potential for severe immediate outcomes, is significantly more prevalent than any discourse surrounding the sports bills. This is particularly true of the ways that transgender people are responding, with video clips of their speeches on the Senate and House floors easily discoverable online. While it is understandable that healthcare would take such precedence in this situation as these two categories of bills continue their process through America’s legal system, the one-sided nature of the discourse surrounding the sports bills still piqued my interest, as finding responses to the sports bills from the trans youth that they target is significantly more challenging. Both sets of bills will have tremendous harmful impacts on the lives of transgender people in America. While the healthcare bills have a direct impact on the physical, emotional, and mental health of trans people, the sports bills perpetuate a narrative around the existence of trans people on a societal level, arguing for a need to isolate the trans community from public participation in community activities.

Supporters of the bills claim that limiting transgender participation in sports teams that align with their gender identity is necessary to provide fairness for cisgender girls (We Are Iowa Local 5 News, 2021). Based on the relatively limited response coming from those in opposition, trans kids and their allies argue that the justification behind the bills lacks grounded evidence and the fear driven rhetoric is yet another unfounded attack on the LGBT community (Mississippi Public Broadcasting, 2021a, 2021b). I propose that the fearmongering present in this legislation runs deeper than just restricting access to necessary social community and healthcare. More specifically, I argue that the ability of the sports bills to hide in the shadows of the more pressing healthcare bills presents a concerning opportunity for the long- term stripping of citizenship from trans individuals, especially trans youth.

To open, I present the way that benevolent sexism is being actively used as a tool to push restricting sports bills. I will use a combination of citizenship theories to examine children’s enactment of citizenship and how the opportunity to participate in K-12 sports teams is an integral part of this process. From there, focusing on the Fairness Act out of the state of Mississippi, I will examine the rhetoric being used by state representatives, laying out the ways that the sports bills and the language that upholds them actively restricts this access to citizenship enactment. Looking beyond, I argue why these bills are so influential in the lives of trans youth and what public response to them should be.

Fragility Stereotypes

Legislators pushing Mississippi’s Fairness Act, or SB2536, utilized ideologies rooted in benevolent sexism to separate transgender and cisgender girls, labeling cisgender girls as those in need of protection while arguing that transgender girls do not. Prior to the late 20th century, the boundaries of what would or would not be considered sexism were defined by hostile actions. In 1996, Peter Glick and Susan Fiske proposed the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, a multidimensional model of sexism that presented “complementary gender ideologies that work in tandem to justify and maintain the unequal gender hierarchy” (Salomon, K., Bosson, J.K., El-Hout, M., Kiebel, E., Kuchynka, S.L., & Shepard, S.L., 2020). Rather than focusing solely on hostility,

Glick and Fiske argued for the addition of benevolent sexism, which frames women in stereotypical expectations. Benevolent sexism is broken down into three categories: paternalism, highlighting the need for men to protect and provide for women due to women’s weakness, gender differentiation, examining how a woman’s strengths are meant to be complimentary to a man’s weaknesses, and heterosexuality, the reliance of a man on a woman to satiate his romantic and sexual desires. the addition of benevolent sexism, which frames women in stereotypical expectations.

Benevolent sexist ideologies are built into the design of social expectation, as they are used to shape children for their roles in maintaining a patriarchal culture, one that places cisgender men at the center of power. I would argue that the subtle teaching of benevolent sexism turns stereotypes of fragility and domesticity into building blocks for young cisgender girls to build their identity around, perpetuating this form of sexism in legislation while simultaneously maintaining the exclusion of transgender people’s participation. By using benevolent sexism as their main appeal, legislators attempted to shift the focus away from transgender people that were going to be affected by the law, instead placing the spotlight on the paternalistic idea that this law would protect young cis girls.

What Is Citizenship?

For us to examine the ways that bills like SB2536 impact a child’s access to citizenship, we are obligated to recognize that the concept itself is not strictly a legal label, but is also built through discourse, thus holding the opportunity for both legal and social backlash. To do so, we can draw on the works of communication scholars Hector Amaya and Robert Asen. Amaya argues that citizenship is only able to exist in excess, and thus becomes a tool that’s sole use is to push down and away any whom those in power deem necessary to maintain their power status. This concept is what Amaya refers to as citizenship excess (2013). Amaya believes that those at the center of power, i.e., cisgender, heterosexual, affluent, white men, are able to accumulate political capital through discrimination. The dominant social group gradually becomes more accustomed to uses of discrimination that maintain the status quo, further perpetuating the cycle of capital gain. For those who are actively pushed down and away from the centralized form of citizenship, Amaya does not see any hope without entirely dismantling our concept of citizenship. This is where it is important to combine citizenship excess with the ideas presented by Asen.

Asen argues that rather than recognizing citizenship as a label that an individual either has or does not have, citizenship should be viewed as a role that can be taken on and removed depending on the circumstance and the needs of the situation. By expanding our ideas of citizenship outside of the legal context, Asen believes that room is made for creativity in citizenship acts. Those who lack the political capital that is pulled out of reach by the dominant group can regain agency and efficacy lost in legalistic forms of citizenship. According to Asen, there are five main foci that may be used when analyzing potential citizenship practices: generativity, risk, commitment, creativity, and sociability (2004). For the purposes of this paper, I will be focusing on creativity and sociability, as they are the ones that are most prominent in the examination of children.

Children are commonly disregarded in the world of citizenship as they are viewed as individuals that should be either protected or controlled rather than people capable of being social agents (Roche, 1999). This process is possible through the justification that the social realm of citizenship is unimportant or unnecessary. In 2004, a qualitative study run by Troy Glover examined how members of a rural town in Canada viewed their own citizenship through their participation in a community center. What he found was that their ideas of citizenship were based in communal construction through their interactions, something that reflects Asen’s concept of sociability. Glover also found that the social networks formed in community reinforced active citizenship participation. For children, we can see the ways that participation in school-run extracurricular activities provide an opportunity to build the same basis in citizenship through the process of meaning-making. In other words, as kids are forming connections with their peers and reinforcing these connections by establishing the meaning behind them, they are forming local citizenships that can become integral in how they enact citizenship as adults (Jans, 2018). By recognizing the realm of creativity and sociability, children become social agents, enacting citizenship on the local level of school communities.

Choosing A Case Study

With over 100 bills targeting trans youth across the country, the focus of analysis had to be narrowed to something more manageable. There are two main reasons for focusing on Mississippi. First, the information was easily accessible with this analysis being made mainly from Youtube videos posted where state representatives are discussing the bill. The second reason is that the claims made in these videos are relatively similar to the claims made in other states, without being overly hyperbolic to the point where those on the receiving end of the arguments may dismiss the ideas. This second point was important after observing the ways that Florida’s sports bill quickly made it to the frontlines of media coverage after it was found that the bill called for “genital inspections” of those who were interested in participating in school sports. This bill was later passed, but not until removing the allowance for genital inspections (Deliso, 2021). I decided that focusing on a state where the rhetoric used was relatively common would allow for a broader application of the findings.

Rhetorical Analysis When examining the ways that Mississippi state representatives discuss SB2536, there is an immediate form of othering that occurs. The Fairness Act specifically targets girls’ and women’s interscholastic sports teams, stating that “Athletic teams or sports designated for “females,” “women”, or “girls” shall not be open to students of the male sex” (MS, Legis. S., 2021). Rather than referring to either the gender identity or the sex assigned at birth of the participants on the sports teams, the state representatives choose overwhelmingly to refer to cisgender girls using gendered language, (i.e., girls or women) and to refer to transgender girls using sexed language (i.e., biological males, or simply males) (Mississippi Public Broadcasting, 2021a, 2021b; Mississippi Center for Public Policy, 2021; NBC News, 2021). This is most clearly demonstrated when Mississippi Senator Angela Hills states the following in response to a reporter asking girls and women brought up by Mississippi director of the Human Rights Campaign Rob Hill, “This bill ensures that women are not discriminated against. This is about women and women’s rights. This is a bill to protect women.” (Mississippi Public Broadcast, 2021b). Each time Hills states ‘women’ she places a slight emphasis on the word. This highlights the importance the word has. However, in using the gendered language which would otherwise include both cisgender and transgender women it is made clear that, to Hills, ‘women’ refers to cisgender women alone. This restriction of who is a woman and who is a girl in the views of this bill and those who support it is also made clear at the signing of the bill into law when Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves states that SB2536 “sends a clear message to my daughters and all of Mississippi’s daughters that their rights are worth fighting for” (NBC News, 2021). Once again, it emphasizes to anyone watching that transgender girls do not get to be included in ‘all of Mississippi’s daughters,’ and by extension, that their rights are not worth fighting for. Under the gaze of Amaya, this act of deciding who gets to claim themselves as women and girls can be viewed as those with excess political capital maintaining the status quo through the othering of transgender people. I would argue that this othering then makes it easier to push them down.

With the understanding of the labeling system at work in these discussions, it is easier to acknowledge the role of fairness in the Fairness Act and the way that benevolent sexism is being used as a tool against trans people. The stated goal of SB2536 is to protect cisgender girls and women from having to compete on an unfair playing field in K-12 sports. This reinforces the idea brought up by Roche that youth must be protected (1999). Yet in this scenario, that need for protection is being used through a narrower lens, one that recognizes that cisgender girls need protection from their peers, a concept consistently reinforced by the paternalistic narrative of benevolent sexism. This concept is then exaggerated by Senator Becky Currie who claims, “Allowing males to compete in girls’ sports reverses nearly fifty years of advances for women” (Mississippi Public Broadcast, 2021a). According to Currie, it is not just potential lost games and scholarships that are at risk, it is women’s rights in their entirety. However, the problem with this argument is that the claims don’t have any evidence to back them up. The idea brought up by Roche that youth must be protected (1999). Yet in this scenario, that need for protection is being used through a narrower lens, one that recognizes that cisgender girls need protection from their peers, a concept consistently reinforced by the paternalistic narrative of benevolent sexism. This concept is then exaggerated by Senator Becky Currie who claims, “Allowing males to compete in girls’ sports reverses nearly fifty years of advances for women” (Mississippi Public Broadcast, 2021a). According to Currie, it is not just potential lost games and scholarships that are at risk, it is women’s rights in their entirety. However, the problem with this argument is that the claims don’t have any evidence to back them up.

“Vilain, a pediatrician and geneticist who studies sex differences in athletes, says there are no good faith reasons to limit transgender women’s participation in sports, especially at the high school level. Vilain has advised both the International Olympic Committee and the NCAA, and says these laws generally aren’t based in scientific evidence, but rather “target women who have either a different biology or ... simply look different.”” (Ermyas & Wakeam, 2021).

There could be room to claim that Becky Currie is simply misinformed; however, her actions argue otherwise. Upon presenting her stance before the House, Currie refused to respond to questions, stating “I am not interested in getting in an argument on who’s boys and who’s girls and who thinks they’re what… everyone in here knows how he or she is going to vote” (Mississippi Public Broadcast, 2021b). Choosing to shut down any opportunity for conversation speaks to what the intention behind her vote is. The legislators present an argument that is meant to be about fairness. Currie choosing rhetoric that purposefully excludes an entire community without being willing to listen to the potential conflicts in that message makes it challenging to trust that the fairness sentiment is anything other than redirection. Governor Reeves takes this a step further when signing the bill into law. He establishes the role of SB2536 as a direct infringement on transgender girls’ access to citizenship enactment. Reeves reiterates the importance of fairness and then adds the following statement:

“But it’s not just about the winning and losing, it’s about the lessons that [my daughters and all cisgender girls] learn on the field. It helps them learn how to work together with their teammates. It helps them learn how to communicate, not only with their teammates, but to build relationships with other girls around the country. It is where they have formed lifelong friendships, both with girls on their teams and on the teams with whom they are competing.” (NBC News, 2021)

By referencing how important it is that young cis girls have access to this community, Reeves is simultaneously referencing the fact that trans girls are excluded from this. Until this point in the justification of SB2536, the goal of the bill was to maintain fairness for cisgender girls and women. There had been little mention of why sports are important other than as opportunities for players to succeed. Through winning games, improving their skills, and eventually earning college scholarships or advancement into professional athletics. This argument was not necessary in passing the bill, so what does its presence here mean? In this moment, Reeves acknowledges the need for youth to have access to community, something that can be considered a crucial aspect of citizenship enactment, especially for young people. By choosing to include this argument after the bill has already passed, Reeves pulls the curtain of fairness aside and reveals the ways the othering of labels facilitates the justification that transgender kids do not deserve the same level of community and citizenship access.

Implications of Analysis As many individuals begin to celebrate and reflect on how far the rights of LGBTQ+ American citizens have expanded in the 52 years since bricks flew at Stonewall, it is necessary that those successes do not lead to complacency. The anti-trans legislation that has pushed forward in full force through the first six months of 2021 stands as a reminder that trans Americans still face consistent restrictions over how their lives can and should be led. Much of the effort to fight back is being necessarily directed to the healthcare bills that will have a much more immediate impact on the young transgender community. Yet, the rhetoric behind bills like SB2536 have the ability to work in a much more subtle way. Choosing to examine bills banning trans girls from participating in K-12 sports teams that align with their gender identity highlights the ways that legal restrictions influence long-term assumptions that villainize entire communities. I argue that the separation of cisgender girls and transgender girls in these sports bills solidifies a form of social othering that can transfer to different situations. This ends up making it easier to discriminate against transgender people, like the discrimination present in the healthcare bills. If we pause to examine the separation that occurs between young trans and cis kids in a bill like “The Fairness Act,” we will be more apt to identify the problems that may occur over time. It is important that as these bills are being presented, non-trans communities lift the voices of those who are being attacked. This legislation works to boil down trans people to the harm that they may cause, despite lacking any evidence that they are causing harm in the first place. Trans people need to have the platform to discuss their humanity as it is being stripped away from them through fear-mongering strategies. If communities hold the politicians and legislation defenders accountable for their targeting use of language, then communities let trans people into the room where their voices can be heard and listened to, both around the political table and in their daily experiences.

Works Cited

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