Why the Deluge of Transphobic State Laws?

OK, what is this thing?

I need to do more thinking about this, but it's been hard, because the stunning flood of transphobic state laws (over 500 introduced this year and it is only April) has been kind of like standing under a waterfall. It's hard to think and write when you can't grab a full breath.

But I do have an idea that I need to flesh out. And, speaking of fleshing out, this is a slime mold, drawn to order by the AI MidJourney. Maybe it reminds you of something?

Slime molds are creepy entities that are actually a mass of single-celled organisms joined together temporarily to make up a more complex, large body that can move, seek out food, and reproduce. And oddly, I think they can help answer a key question. 

How can you possibly get that many transphobic bills and laws in four months?

So here is my thought: Donald Trump gave us a human embodiment of an alternative type of politician: one not interested in governing (much too boring! geeky! compromising! a beta male thing! contemptible!). Trump instead wanted the presidency as a platform for celebrity that could generate the two things he desires--adulation and monetary profit. And he would get those not by "being presidential," but by being outrageous, a WWE character delivering constant drama. He would provide aggrieved conservative fans of patriarchy and whiteness with the thrill of a ringside seat as he smacked down their perceived enemies and kicked them in the face. "The libs" would howl and cry, and Trump fans would drink their delicious tears and get a sadistic thrill.

His fans roared and applauded. But for the rest of us, it was ghastly. Not just painful, as we got kicked at, but tacky and gross. Trump was the embodiment of that "Calvin peeing" car window decal, taking a whizz on the dignity and ideals of American democracy as he bullied the vulnerable.

Around a third of Americans could not get enough of the Trump Show. Not all Republicans--there was a sector who found him exhausting and distasteful. They just hated Team Blue and stayed loyal to Team Red, in some weird sports metaphor of how democracy operates, even when the quarterback was a schmuck.

In the end, Trump lost his bid for re-election--let us thank the stars.

But thousands of little politicians out there are fans who aspire to be the next Trump. There are some big names, like the governors DeSantis of Florida or Abbott of Texas, or the federal Representative and professional troll Marjorie Taylor Greene. But most are pipsqueaks unknown on the national stage. Representatives in state legislatures whose names are barely recognized in their home districts, let alone intoned on the national news. They aspire to Trumpish fame, but come across as impotent caricatures, posing on tacky Christmas cards with the whole family wearing matching outfits and matching semiautomatic rifles. They are mere amoebae.

And that's where the slime mold metaphor comes in. These tiny state representatives aspire to stomp like a giant, smashing norms of civility and hearing shrieks. So they have given up their vaunted individuality to do it. The ameoba-politicians have merged into legislative slime molds. Slime molds do not have brains, but these legislative conglomerates do not need a brain to act: there are PACs and "think tanks" out there that have come up with a plan and drawn up model legislation. They provide the ostensible brain.

The reason this is so destructive for trans people is that those entities acting as brains have fixated on us as the safest target to throw to the lions. Sure, there is action on other culture-war targets, like demonizing immigration and terminating education about racism as supposedly harming white children and violating “parental rights.” But abortion has proven an electoral losing topic, and of the various marginalized groups to kick at, trans people are deemed the smallest, least-supported group, so the safest one to stomp. 

So these national culture-war organizing brains have sent the same message to all the Trumpy slime molds in state legislatures at once: here are the bills to pass. Ban support of trans kids as child abuse.  Ban trans youth from playing sports as an attack on cis girls. Ban use of Medicare by adult trans people. Ban discussions of gender identity and sexual orientation in schools as "sexualizing children." Force schoolteachers and counselors to out trans kids to their parents. Shift the Overton window, and in time you can ban all gender transition and roll back protections for LGBQA people, but don't worry about that yet. Just merge and Hulk up and smash trans people, and you can be that big orange kaiju you so long to be!

And now all these red state legislatures are passing a flood of nearly-identical transphobic bills.

That's my basic read of the situation. A slime mold metaphor.

Drag Bans 40 Years Ago and Today: The Case of Annie Lennox

 

This is the video for the 1982 Eurythmics song Love is a Stranger. It became a hit on MTV in the US in 1983--and then got pulled by the station.

The video starts out with Lennox in this classic femme "blond bombshell" look, but a minute into the video, she pulls off the blond wig, revealing slicked-back short red hair. By the end of the video, she is also sans lipstick and wearing butch mirrored sunglasses and a suit and tie.

It's a gender-queering video. That was true of a lot of the other British synthpop videos that were in heavy rotation in the early 80s on MTV, from bands like Culture Club and Adam and the Ants. But the wig-removing reveal had been a classic of "female impersonator" drag shows intended for mainstream audience consumption since the 1920s. And leaders of American conservative evangelical Christian congregations gave sermons about the evil of MTV destroying teens' morals that used the Eurythmics' video as key evidence of depravity. They presumed Annie Lennox was a man in drag, called this degeneracy, and generated outraged letter-writing campaigns from congregants to MTV.

So the station pulled the video, bowing to this pressure and announcing the decision that "crossdressing men" were not suitable material for their programming, which children could view.

Residents of Britain thought this was hilarious: proof both of Americans' backward religious prudery, and ignorance, since Annie Lennox was assigned female at birth.

The Eurythmics' response was initial disbelief, followed by Lennox publicly stating that she was not in fact a man, though it shouldn't matter. But MTV agents said she needed to prove it. Lennox was rightly affronted (were they implying she should undress for them?). Eventually she had a certified copy of her birth certificate mailed to MTV, and after more internal debates among corporate staff, the Love is a Stranger video was put back into the broadcasting rotation.

The thing is, while the outraged evangelicals of 1983 were incorrect about Annie Lennox's birth-assigned sex, they were not wrong about her being in drag. The entire video is an exploration of femme drag and masculine drag.

And here we are, 40 years later, with US state legislatures in red states enacting laws against drag, because minors might see it, and that would supposedly be intolerable "grooming" activity, "sexualizing innocent children."

What I'd point out is that the whole MTV fracas just made the video more popular. The irony is that people shouting "don't say gay!" all the time are saying "gay" all the time, leading kids to have schoolyard conversations about what it is that these adults say they shouldn't hear about. All the public discussion about not letting minors gender transition means that more young people than ever are aware that this is a possibility, giving them tools to articulate their own gender identities. 

Let's be clear: it also terrifies kids to see the rage and hate on adult faces aimed at people like them. It is very scary to come out as a youth, with adults screaming that they will not allow you rights.

And it's pretty depressing that gender-policing bigots on the political right are not only engaging in the same activities they were 40 years ago, but now they are spewing hundreds of state bills and laws banning books, forcing teachers to misgender their students, banning trans kids from participating in healthy athletics, etc. etc. etc.

This is driving a whole lot of people, whether young or adults, into the closet. But that closet is now huge! A third of the students at my midwestern university identify as something other than a cis straight person, even if many of them are only out about that in private spaces and trusted social circles.

And in those secure spaces they are doing what Lennox did in this video of 40 years ago: defying the gender police.