'What's to stop them from coming for me?': Anti-trans bills outside NJ impact local youth

Since the beginning of 2022, lawmakers in 34 states — including New Jersey — have introduced legislation that activists say target transgender and non-binary people for discrimination.

In the past two months alone, Texas began investigating reports of gender-affirming care as child abuse, Florida enacted a law banning discussion of gender identity or sexual orientation in K-3 classes and six states — Iowa, South Dakota, Utah, Kentucky, Arizona and Oklahoma — have banned trans girls from playing on scholastic women’s sports teams. 

While the Garden State is consistently lauded for measures of LGBTQ and specifically transgender inclusion and protection policies, trans students here aren’t spared from the rhetoric their peers are facing around the country. 

In January, New Jersey state Republican lawmakers reintroduced legislation from the previous session that would also see trans girls banned from girl’s school athletics.

"This clearly is a complex issue and we don't want to hurt anyone,” Sen. James Holzapfel (R-Toms River) and Assemblymen John Catalano (R-Brick) and Gregory McGuckin (R-Toms River), who are sponsors of the bill, said in an email.

The lawmakers said “there are legitimate concerns” that cisgender female athletes are “losing the opportunity they deserve to compete and succeed in fair competition” when they are put up against trans women. 

Sen. Mike Testa (R-Vineland), another sponsor of the bill, suggested that allowing trans women and girls to compete in women’s sports violates “the spirit and intent of Title IX.” The law is meant “to ensure that (cis) female athletes have the opportunity to compete on a level playing field,” he said in an email.

Sen. Edward Durr (R-Logan), also a sponsor of the bill, claimed “there are physical differences that can’t be ignored” between trans and cis women athletes. He pointed to recent “high profile competitions” in which trans women have beat cis women, saying “it’s not right or fair” for trans women to compete against cis women. 

A USA Today investigation found that roughly 30 trans athletes competed in high school sports during the 2020-21 academic year in the 14 states that recorded such data. It also found that just two high school athletic associations — one in Texas and one in Hawaii — had received complaints about the participation of trans athletes since 2016. According to an Associated Press survey, sponsors of these bills in more than 20 states struggled to cite examples of trans girls in sports in their states.

The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association has allowed trans students to participate in sports consistent with their gender identity since 2009. In 2017, the organization removed the need for trans students to consult with a medical professional and provide official documentation to prove their gender identity before being able to compete in line with their gender.

Investigation:Conservatives want to ban transgender athletes from girls sports. Their evidence is shaky.

While the bills are unlikely to make it out of the Democrat-controlled Senate and Assembly education committees, their introduction here and elsewhere still sends a message to trans and non-binary kids in the state, trans youth and activists say. 

At best, bills like these help normalize homophobia and transphobia; at worst, they can lead to the death of queer youth, said a trans man and senior at Atlantic City High School who asked to be identified only as Jay.

“It doesn’t end with just the sports ban,” he said. “You can ban a kid from soccer, but what’s going to stop you from banning the kid from a choir or dance class?” 

Sports bleed into other aspects of life, Jay said. Education equity, healthcare access, creative opportunities, all are at risk once trans athletes are forced to compete with the wrong gender, he said. 

Jay worries that bills like Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education” — dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by critics — will “kill people.”

The law specifically bans public K-3 school teachers from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity, but also bars teaching that is not age- or developmentally appropriate. An older draft of the bill would have required public schools to out LGBTQ students to their parents, but that was pulled from the bill before it passed.

More:Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs 'Don't Say Gay' bill into law

“Telling the families of these students, outing them, it’s going to kill them,” Jay said. “Without them seeing the possibilities and being put in a safe environment, people will die.” 

But even when states just consider anti-trans laws, it takes a toll on the mental health of transgender and non-binary youth, according to a report from The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization. 

In 2021, as Texas lawmakers debated legislation to ban trans girls from school sports — which became law after the report was released — The Trevor Project saw a 150% increase in crisis contacts from trans youth in the state. An analysis of these contacts found that trans and non-binary youth in Texas “directly stated that they are feeling stressed, using self-harm and considering suicide due to anti-LGBTQ laws being debated in their state.” 

The effects of these bills don’t follow state boundaries, however. 

“I don’t think people take into consideration not just the direct impact (of these bills) but also the indirect impact,” said a.t. furuya, a youth program manager for the LGBTQ education and anti-bullying organization GLSEN.

“When young people — and it doesn’t matter what state they’re in — are hearing about their friends who they’ve met virtually or family members in other states, it sends a message that 'people I care for are unsafe,'” they said. 

According to furuya, such legislation also leads trans youth to think: “if these bills are coming for the people I care about, what’s to stop them from coming for me?” 

When elected officials or others with “assumed authority” make disparaging remarks about any marginalized group, not just trans people, it gives “permission to other people to also engage in fear mongering and spreading misinformation,” they said. Reports of bullying and harassment from students increase after politicians speak negatively about the LGBTQ community, said furuya. 

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And even in more progressive states, local officials may already be implementing anti-LGBTQ policies to less or no fanfare, warned Victoria Kirby York, deputy executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, a civil rights organization for Black LGBTQ and same gender loving people.

“Some of the things that you see going through state legislatures are actions that a school librarian can make a choice to make on their own, with or without publicizing it,” they said, referring to book bans being debated across the country. 

Pennsylvania:Community debates book bans at school meeting in Pike County

Iowa:West Des Moines school board votes to keep LGBTQ memoir 'Gender Queer' on the shelf

But, as much as homophobic and transphobic sentiments can cross state lines, so too can affirming and accepting ones, according to York.  

“It’s also important for kids in states whose lawmakers are doing these harmful things to hear that support coming from officials in other states,” they said. “Because then they will know that it’s just these politicians, sadly. It’s not everybody in power who are seeking to strip these rights and experiences from our kids.” 

Regardless of what state they live in, trans students are “exhausted,” according to furuya. 

“Our youth are fighting for their rights and showing up to the capitol in their state or the local city office. They’re tired and their mental health is declining,” they said.

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Trans students are looking at their peers getting to have fun while they are protesting and “fighting for their futures,” and it’s not fair, furuya said. 

“We don’t have the numbers to fight this on our own,” said Atlantic City High School student Jay. “It’s going to expand and it’s going to come at us without other people doing anything to stop it.” 

For people who want to support trans and non-binary youth, furuya said to remind them that they are loved, supported and that “you will continue advocating for them.” 

“Just say: ‘hey, if you’ve been listening to the news, if you’re aware of what’s going on, how can I support you? What supports do you need right now? Are you feeling safe at school?'” 

Furuya said that those questions are not often asked of kids who are at risk of violence, harassment and bullying. Even if a student says they’re fine, “it still sends a message to the young person that someone’s looking out for me and that someone cares that I’m here.”

Direct kindness and support help combat indirect negative comments, they said. 

And in New Jersey, trans youth have myriad rights and protections, according to Damien Lopez of Garden State Equality.

“At the pace they’re (trans kids) going, it’s in their blood that they know they deserve a great future,” he said. “I know that they’ll keep fighting for it, and we will, too.” 

Aedy Miller covers education and the economy for the Burlington County Times, Courier-Post, and The Daily Journal. They are a multimedia journalist from Central Jersey and a recent graduate of the George Washington University.

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