There’s no secret why there’s been a rash of legislative proposals across the United States in recent months aimed at transgender and nonbinary people. The various measures seek to restrict where individuals can go to the bathroom and whether they can receive gender-affirming care. Most recently, the legislation is aimed very specifically at banning transgender adults and youth from sports competitions that match their gender identity. It’s red meat for right-wing politicians seeking to win over Christian evangelicals and other social conservatives. Trans people are an easy, relatively powerless target for Republicans who can use fear of those who are different — only about 0.6% of adults in the U.S. identify as a trans man or woman — to create anger and hostility.
This drumbeat of malice implies that transgender individuals are on some personal crusade to take over the planet. Yet, here in the real world, as their families and friends can tell you, they are simply looking for love and acceptance like any other human being. Further, it should be noted, their circumstances are hardly unique or new. Leading medical organizations have long recognized the need for gender-affirming care for young people, and this most recent wave of hostile legislation has been opposed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and others.
That leaves the rest of us with a clear responsibility to identify and repudiate examples of hate speech and cruelty. An opportunity to do so arrived just this week with the unexpected — and thoroughly obnoxious — public announcement from Del. Kathy Szeliga that she is reintroducing the “Save Women’s Sports Act” she sponsored in the last Maryland General Assembly session. The legislation would require that scholastic teams conform to “biological sex”; schools that fail to meet this standard could be sued by dissatisfied athletes. The bill was rejected earlier this year by the House Ways and Means Committee, but the sponsor is undeterred. In her one-page June 27, 2023, announcement, she notes that a recent Gallop poll found that “69% of people said that athletes should be allowed to play on sports teams that match their birth gender” which is 7 points higher than it polled in 2021. In other words, the fearmongering is working, so she’s ready to cash in — in six months, when state lawmakers return to Annapolis.
This is a shameful choice for any number of reasons, not the least of which is it attacks a vulnerable population that is causing no demonstrable harm. And woe to any society that sees human rights only through the prism of how an ill-informed majority see things. In May of 1965, Gallop polling found more Americans thought that President Lyndon Johnson was moving too fast on integration than too slowly by a greater than 3-to-1 margin. When you are just 0.6% of the adult population, one can expect empathy to be even lower. How much easier, at least politically for the District 7 (Baltimore and Harford counties) delegate, to side with someone like Riley Gaines, the University of Kentucky swimmer who sees herself a victim because she once had to compete against University of Pennsylvania’s Lia Thomas (with whom she tied for fifth place in the 200-yard NCAA freestyle championship last year). Thomas became the first openly trans woman champion in the NCAA women’s division after winning the 500-yard freestyle in the same meet.
But it is especially concerning because, while this kind of cultural warmongering may have boosted Donald Trump’s political career in red states, it likely dooms the Republican Party to the political wilderness in Maryland. Larry Hogan won two terms as governor as a Republican because he carefully avoided this sort of trap, understanding that Maryland is not Mississippi or Montana or Missouri on social matters. In 2022, Republicans were trounced for statewide office with MAGA-identifying Del. Dan Cox at the top of the ticket. Next year is shaping up to be a repeat with a seat in the U.S. Senate at stake.
Moderate Republicans, independents and even some longtime Democrats can’t be entirely comfortable with the Maryland GOP’s descent into irrelevancy in statewide elections as their candidates continue to pirouette to Trump’s siren song. Vilif
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Baltimore Sun editorial writers offer opinions and analysis on news and issues relevant to readers. They operate separately from the newsroom.
