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Original Link: https://wildhunt.org/2025/03/editorial-a-light-in-the-dark-for-trans-rights.html
By Eric O. Scott
Something extraordinary happened in Montana this week.
Two bills targeting transgender people were up for their second reading in the Montana legislature. That is, unfortunately, not extraordinary at all; in Republican-led state governments across the United States, there are bills advancing that seek to strip trans people of their civil rights. Less than two weeks ago, the governor of Iowa signed a bill into law that removes gender identity from the list of protected categories in the state’s civil rights code and creates a strict definition of “male” and “female” based on a person’s genitalia at birth – the first state to outright remove these civil liberties protections from the law.
Montana State Capitol [Martin Kraft, Wikimedia Commons, CC 3.0]
The first of the two Montana bills targeted drag performances and Pride parades. Montana had, in fact, already tried to outlaw drag previously, but the law was struck down by the courts. The new law sought to get around the basic unconstitutionality of banning drag performances by creating “a private right of action against drag king or drag queen performances or a person who promotes or conducts drag performance” – that is to say, it would let transphobic bystanders sue drag performers for the crime of being sued. This is the new favorite playbook of Republican state legislatures to subvert the constitution, after it was used to effectively outlaw abortion in Texas prior to the Supreme Court making the question moot in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health.
The second law would have allowed – and possibly mandated – Child Protective Services and other agents of the state to remove any child “transitioning gender with the support of a parent or guardian” from their parents. This would be an incredible expansion of the state’s intrusion into the lives of its citizens – the bill explicitly labeled a parent supporting their child’s transition as putting the child in “immediate danger,” on the level of a child facing physical violence or abuse.
Both of these laws should strike any Pagan as incredibly dangerous. The former would create an opening for a disgruntled pastor to sue not only transgender Pagans, but Pagans of any identity whose practice does not strictly remain within the narrow bounds of binary gender. (Think, for example, of a Pagan priestess who aspects a traditionally male deity like Ares and speaks in his voice – is this a “drag king performance?” Is that priestess willing to be brought to court to find out?) And the latter should obviously terrify anyone who knows how CPS has been weaponized against members of our faith communities over the decades.
But here’s the remarkable thing: both of the bills failed, in both cases because Republican lawmakers broke from their party’s anti-trans platform at the last minute. And in both cases, it’s because queer lawmakers in Montana stood up for themselves and their communities.
Zooey Zephyr speaks into a microphone on an outdoor stage in San Francisco for the 2023 People’s March. [Wikimedia Commons, Pax Ahimsa Gethen, CC 4.0]
As reported by Erin in the Morning, state representatives Zooey Zephyr and SJ Howell rose to speak against these bills. Zephyr, who is transgender, spoke against the anti-drag bill:
“When the sponsor closed on this bill, he said, this bill is needed, and I quote his words, ‘because transgenderism is a fetish based on crossdressing.’ And I am here to stand before the body and say that my life is not a fetish. My existence is not a fetish. I was proud within a month ago to have my son up in the gallery here. Many of you on the other side met him. When I go to walk him to school, that’s not a lascivious display. That is not a fetish. That is my family. This is what these bills are trying to come after.”
And then Zephyr was joined by a Republican legislator, Sherry Essman, who used the surprising frame of parental rights – usually deployed to attack schools and libraries for queer inclusion – to speak against the bill.
“Everybody in here talks about how important parental rights are,” said Essman. “I want to tell you, in addition to parental rights, parental responsibility is also important. And if you can’t trust a decent parent to decide where and when their kids should see what, then we have a bigger problem.”
Thirteen Republicans flipped to vote against the bill, defeating it.
SJ Howell [Montana legislature]
Then Howell, who is nonbinary, spoke against the second bill, noting its vagueness and potential for misuse:
“Transitioning gender is not defined in this bill – so what does that mean? Maybe it means, as the sponsor said, surgery or medical treatment. Maybe it means therapy, mental healthcare. Maybe it means a kid who gets a haircut and a new set of clothes. Maybe a name change… a legal name change, or someone who wants to try out a different name. A strict reading of this bill could include all of that.”
Following their speech, the vote was held – and this time 29 Republicans flipped, with more voting against it than for.
We are living in a time where the Republican Party has made anti-trans policy a cornerstone of its platform for transparently cynical reasons. (“I talk about transgender, and everyone goes crazy,” Trump said on the campaign trail in 2023. “Who would have thought? Five years ago you didn’t know what the hell that was.”)
Since the inauguration, the president has signed a bevy of executive orders designed to further marginalize transgender people, often using the stalking horse of trans participation in sports as a way to bring uncompromising definitions of sex and gender into American life. He is attempting to drive trans soldiers out of the military, interfering with institutions that study and provide gender-affirming care, and making it difficult for trans people to obtain basic documents like passports. And as I noted above, Republican state legislatures tend to not only be moving in lockstep with the administration but in many cases, testing the waters further.
It would be easy to despair, and frankly, I have struggled with how to write about this since January 20 – I have been deeply afraid for my transgender friends and family, and especially in those awful first weeks, it seemed like any peek at the news would reveal some new way the Republican party was going to make their lives worse. And it’s not as though that feeling has gone away, though there are pauses on some of the worst excesses as lawsuits enter the courts.
But even in the midst of a deep-red state like Montana – a place that Trump won by almost 20 points in 2024 – there is room for hope, and even for victory.
“These kinds of votes are born out of trans representation in government,” said Zephyr on Bluesky. “Rep. Howell & I have built solid relationships with Republicans and those relationships change hearts, minds, and (eventually) votes.
“It is painful, grueling work. But it makes a difference.”
I think it’s also a call for those of us who support transgender people and their civil liberties – which, as I keep saying, ought to include every American Pagan, for self-preservation if no other reason – to do that grueling work ourselves, not just with our legislators, but with the other cisgender people in our lives, including the conservatives we know who aren’t on the right side of this issue. We have to build a network of solidarity that will allow our trans siblings to enjoy the same rights and protections as everyone else.
It’s tremendously inspiring to see trans spokespeople like Zephyr and Howell stand up and seem to flip a room in an instant. But as Zephyr makes clear, that vote happened because of long and diligent organizing. It’s our responsibility to keep doing the same until every last one of these anti-trans laws and orders is dead.
Extraordinary things can happen even in places where oppression seems entrenched — but only if we continue to do the work.
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About Eric O. Scott
Eric O. Scott is the Weekend Editor of The Wild Hunt. He holds a PhD in English and Medieval Studies from the University of Missouri and an MFA in Creative Writing and Media Arts from the University of Missouri – Kansas City. His writing on Pagan life has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, and has been a staff writer for The Wild Hunt since 2012. His first book, The Lives of the Apostates, was published in 2013 by Moon Books. The O does not stand for “Odin.”
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