"while it appears the war may slow temporarily given how Republicans performed in the US midterms..."
Unfortunately, given the fact that laws in the United States are primarily made at the state level, midterms have not done much to slow down anti-trans animus and proposed legislation in conservative states.
The Republican Party appears to be doubling down at the state level, with Florida and Texas leading the charge. Texas lawmakers, for example, just announced that they intend to codify the governor’s efforts last year to make providing medical care to trans youth a criminal offense. They’re also set to define any sort of public performance that includes crossdressing as sexually oriented, making taking a child to such a performance a felony offense.
While the lawmakers are targeting drag shows, the text of the proposed law effectively criminalizes trans people on pretty much any public stage where children are present in the audience. The lawmakers are perfectly well aware of this. They want it that way.
Tennessee is considering passing a law that is not quite as far reaching, but which still puts trans people at great risk.
As a queer man and ally to trans people, I’m doing the best I can to point out how laws like this are harmful and anti-American. I’m trying to fine tune a message that appeals broadly.
An article I wrote last week on the Tennessee law has gone viral in the Los Angeles Blade, besides doing fairly well on Medium. Yesterday, the Sinclair Broadcasting Group aired a news report on local television stations across the United States that featured, quoted, and linked to my article. While the reporter(who also writes for the white-supremacist The Daily Caller) clearly wasn’t fond of my comparing Tennessee lawmakers to literal Nazis, it looks like that message really does resonate with the general public.
Your message about just wanting to be left alone to live in peace is a message even conservative Americans can hear, understand, and back. Conservative Americans in general oppose authoritarianism at least in principle.
We need to keep hammering that nail.
