Well, this is something I never expected. Clients and potential customers are calling me to sell their homes. That’s not unusual, but the WHY is unusual and disturbing. They are calling me because they are leaving Utah due to the anti-trans laws our phobic legislature has passed and they simply don’t feel they and or their children will be treated fairly or potentially not be able to receive future health care here that addresses their needs.
There’s the ‘Final Pre-Election 2024 Anti-Trans Risk Assessment Map (Google it) which came out this year and was updated before we all voted for President last week. It shows which states have a DO NOT TRAVEL warning (Texas, with Florida a close second) and which states may be safer. If you go to the map at the www.aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights-2024 you can click on each state and it will show you the legislative bills there that have passed and were defeated and will be updated as bills are written for future legislation in 2025 around the country. You may not have heard or seen any anti-trans ads here in Utah because national politicians don’t spend much money on ads here as we’re a ‘given Red State’ but across the U.S. anti-trans ads were a major part of many campaigns.
If you click on Utah on the website you’ll see there are ten bills the ACLU followed in Utah that passed into law or were defeated, including public accommodation bans, school facilities bans, etc. It’s a real fear of parents around the country and in Utah that their Transkids might be taken from them or that our legislators will meet this January and pass laws to force Transkids and people into medical detransition, ban the use of anything but dead names, and disallow gender to be changed in legal documents. Cities and towns can pass the same kind of laws, like Odessa, Texas that became the first city in the nation to pass a $10,000 bounty on transgender people inside bathrooms.
The rise of anti-trans bills around this country is astounding and sadly the fear mongers will submit more laws next year to restrict gender-affirming healthcare for trans and gender-expansive people this year with most of the bills targeted against children under the age of 18. Dr. Diana Finkel at Rutgers University Medical School noted, “If you, as the parent of a 16-year-old, want your child to have breast augmentation because she wants a larger bosom and she is a cisgender girl, she can do it” but noted that the law would ban a trans girl from having the same surgery.
Given we don’t know the outcome for sure with last week’s election but certainly the creation of anti-trans laws and their enforcement will continue despite what so many medical professionals and their research have found… that touting the mental and physical health benefits of gender-affirming care is good for children and adults seeking to transition.