The GOP s latest culture war is focused squarely on the nation s transgender community, specifically transgender youth. It isn t a new war, simply a new front in an old war that can be traced back to the famed bathroom bills from some years ago that spread across dozens of states. Those bills were introduced in tandem with former President Donald Trump s targeted federal government-led attacks that included the overturning of anti-discrimination statutes protecting trans people and an outright transgender ban in the U.S. military.
Now, in the wake of Trump s humiliating electoral loss, Republicans have accelerated the state-level attacks to a breathtaking level. In just the first three months of 2021, GOP-led state legislatures introduced more bills aimed at transgender people, especially youth, than they did over the entire previous year. There are now more than 80 bills introduced this year alone that, according to Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, are not