Our view: We will safeguard trans, all LGBQT+ civil rights

USA TODAY Network Northeast Editorial Board
Updated ·3 min read
27

Daily now come the dispatches from skirmishes along the newest front lines of our national culture war.

There is a relentless drive from parts of America’s right wing to disenfranchise the rights of our neighbors and our family who identify as members of the astonishingly diverse LGBTQ+ community — particularly people who live and work in our communities and identify as transgender.

From L to R: The traditional Pride flag; the transgender flag; the pansexual flag; and the bisexual flag.
From L to R: The traditional Pride flag; the transgender flag; the pansexual flag; and the bisexual flag.

And these fresh attacks, on the heels of the United States Supreme Court’s landmark overturning of the Roe v. Wade guarantee of a woman’s right to choose, are not just happening in so-called red states — places like Florida, Texas and North Dakota.

Now, here in the northeast — a region that largely trends liberal in outlook and Democratic at the ballot box — we are beginning to see efforts to undermine the basic civil rights of transgendered people and others who identify as LGBTQ+.

Consider:

  • According to an American Civil Liberties Union tracker, there are currently more than 450 bills being considered by legislatures across the nation that would roll back or limit LGBTQ+ or trans rights.

  • Three such bills have been posted in the halls of the state legislatures Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and six in Trenton, New Jersey.

  • In Pennsylvania, one such bill seeks to limit athletic activity in public schools and colleges “to be expressly designated male, female or coed.”

  • In New Jersey, some proposed legislation is aimed at giving parents a right to seek vouchers to re-enroll their public-school students in non-public schools should they object to material taught in the public schools — in which a curriculum that is inclusive of LGBTQ+ perspectives is now standard.

None have been posted in either Delaware or New York. But our colleagues across the region have reported and will continue to report on local efforts to ban drag story hours in local libraries, restrict identity labels in public schools and more.

Many, as our colleague Candy Woodall of USA TODAY has reported, are being pushed by some of the same conservative organizations that worked to overturn federal abortion rights.

And, as Woodall has written, dozens of Republicans are adopting anti-trans planks as parts of their platforms for election to all manner of government posts in the general elections set to play out later this year and next year.

Florida, of course, has been an epicenter of these latest culture war clashes, where Gov. Ron DeSantis has embarked on what he has described as an anti-woke campaign aimed at undoing decades of social progress many of you, our readers, probably take for granted.

Where we stand

As we said last summer in the wake of the undoing of Roe, we will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with those who advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, women's rights and civil rights.

We believe in the basic truth that civil rights are essential for all Americans —and not simply essential, but guaranteed.

And we believe that attacks on those rights are counter to what most of you believe — that your neighbors, your friends and your family members are entitled to fundamental rights regardless of how they identify.

The right for people of any identity to marry, for example, has been a fact in the United States for nearly a decade. At times, the progress we’ve made on expanding civil rights — especially for LGBTQ+ people — can feel like something to take for granted here in our northeastern communities.

But the truth is those rights need our resolve — they must be buttressed and preserved at every possible turn, in our view.

We work to serve communities that value diversity of identity — that value individual choices related to identity — and we know that our readers share that value.

Now is a moment in which we ask you to lend your voice to a just and worthy idea — that every American, regardless of how they identify, is entitled to our longstanding civil rights.

Share your views

We welcome readers' viewpoints on LGBTQ+ rights, marriage equality, civil rights and social justice.

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This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Trans LGBQT+ rights are essential editorial