How GOP efforts to restrict trans rights take a page from the antiabortion playbook
WASHINGTON -- Bans on treatment. New laws threatening doctors with malpractice suits and criminal charges. Praise from lawmakers who say their legislation is meant to protect minors, even as the new policies infringe on the rights of adults.
As state legislatures wind down and the 2024 election cycle kicks off, the similarities between the fights for abortion access and transgender rights have come into stark focus. Republican lawmakers have introduced a record number of bills in states and Congress that would restrict the rights of transgender people and the healthcare they receive.
While the scope and magnitude of the legislation is unprecedented, the strategies being used are not.
"You can look at the antiabortion playbook and see parallels here every step of the way," said Chase Strangio, the deputy director for transgender justice with the American Civil Liberties Union's LGBT & HIV Project. "What we're seeing is a lot of the effort from the right that had gone into systematically eliminating access to abortion ... being shifted into attacks on trans people."
For decades, restricting access to
