Last week was trans awareness week, and as the parent of a trans woman, I observed November 13-19 as a day of remembrance for those who have suffered from transphobic discrimination and violence. We all know that certain conservative lawmakers are anti-LGBTQ+ (to put it mildly), including New Mexico State Senator Gregg Schmedes (D-19).
Senator Schmedes re-posted a tweet by The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) recently: It reads, “Repost if you agree: Every child is born in the right body.” The post included links to #bornintherightbody #biologicalintegrity. He added his own comment, “You’re not the problem. Our sick society is. They tell you that you need to change. Truth: you’re a beautiful creation.”
Senator Schmedes is a member of the ACPeds, which is a right-wing fundamentalist group that endorses “Judeo-Christian” and “traditional values,” including beliefs that life begins at conception and that gay parents shouldn’t be able to adopt children. According to the ACLU, the group split off from the American Academy of Pediatrics when the Academy stated in 2002 that it supported second-parent adoptions by lesbian and gay parents.
The Southern Poverty Law Center lists ACPeds as a fringe anti-LGBTQ hate group that masquerades as a medical association to push anti-LGBTQ “science.” In addition to opposing adoption by LGBTQ couples, the ACPeds links homosexuality to pedophilia and endorses conversion therapy for LGBTQ youth. Here’s the kicker: The group believes transgender people are mentally ill and has branded transgender health care for youth as child abuse.
ACPeds launched the website biologicalintegrity.org with the intent of aiding families and healthcare givers to subject transgender children to conversion therapy. The objective of this site is to encourage transgender youth to “embrace their biological sex” and adopt a “clear heterosexual identity.”
So-called “conversion therapy,” or “reparative therapy,” is a range of scientifically discredited practices that falsely claim to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. Many studies have found that conversion therapy is ineffective and/or harmful, and is linked to depression, suicide, anxiety, social isolation, and a reduced capacity for intimacy. A 2020 report by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law finds that non-transgender LGBQ people who experienced conversion therapy were twice as likely to contemplate suicide and to attempt suicide compared to their peers who hadn’t undergone conversion therapy.
So why are right-wing theocrats so obsessed with trans youth?
According to Randall Balmer, a Dartmouth professor and author of “Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of Religious Right,” the reason is simple: Evangelical votes.
In his book, Balmer traces the rise of the evangelical voting bloc from the 1960s to its rise as the single most important voting group for GOP candidates today, and what better way to get evangelicals riled up than to attack drag queens and trans youth?
In an interview, Balmer says: “They (GOP candidates) have an interest in keeping the base riled up about one thing or another, and when one issue fades, as with same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage, they’ve got to find something else,” Balmer said. “It’s almost frantic.”
What boggles my mind is why focus on right-wing evangelical groups when white evangelical voters make up 30% of GOP identifiers and only 14% of the U.S. electorate? Why do Republican candidates support anti-LGBTQ legislation when nearly 8 in 10 Americans back nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people, and two-thirds of Americans oppose bills that limit the rights of transgender people?
The irony is that this small minority is the most powerful voting bloc in America, and is responsible for giving Trump his big win in 2016, as well as voting in the likes of Mike Johnson and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Incumbent GOP lawmakers have “thanked” their evangelical voters by passing laws targeting trans youth and LGBTQ citizens.
Senator Schmedes is up for re-election next year in the New Mexico Senate, and like scores of other GOP candidates, he’s courting the far-right evangelical base by posting anti-LGBTQ garbage and conversion therapy pseudo-science.
Time for America to push back against a minority that seeks to discriminate and demonize human beings who just want to be who they are.