Last year, the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage across the United States, and members of the LGBT community and their allies celebrated nationwide. The nation seemed to be at its proudest just in time for the parades. Many felt happy to be gay Americans, two descriptors that were becoming increasingly compatible.
At the same time, I observed a growing trend. A number of states have recently passed what many consider to be anti-gay and anti-transgender laws, with an extreme example being North Carolina. Though, this is not the trend that makes me the most nervous. As a minority group, LGBT people need allies to accomplish such momentous occasions as the marriage equality ruling. What makes me nervous is that some may think the fight for equality is finished.
After such an accomplishment, it is understandable that the LGBT rights movement settled down. After such hard work, a break seems well deserved. As quickly as marriage equality came, threats popped up. From Kim Davis, the clerk who refused to grant marriage licenses to gay couples, to religious freedom laws, what seemed to be a great moment in LGBT rights was quickly sobering.
In North Carolina, a recent law passed in response to a transgender-friendly Charlotte city ordinance. The law bars people from entering public bathrooms other than the one that corresponds to their biological sex. Furthermore, the law prevents cities from enacting anti-discrimination laws to protect LGBT people and repealed Charlotte’s own anti-discrimination law.
Across the country, certain states have been passing laws meant to protect the religious freedom of their residents by giving them the right to opt out of dealing with situations that could go against their religion. To much backlash, Indiana passed a religious freedom law last year, and in Georgia, a religious freedom bill went unsigned by the state’s governor this past March.
Religious freedom acts seem like an obvious positive, but unfortunately, the current incarnation of these bills targets LGBT people. Disguised as religious protection, these laws truly provide excuses for anti-gay people to refuse service purely based on sexual orientation. In Indiana, an amendment to the bill was later passed to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.
It is no secret that the religious freedom acts are surging in popularity because of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Many LGBT individuals, aware of this correlation, grew nervous that these religious freedom laws would be twisted from providing protection of religion to providing legal grounds for discrimination in the public and private sectors.
Obviously, those with deeply held religious beliefs should not be forced to violate those religious beliefs. However, when these laws are written to target an already oppressed minority group and legalize discrimination based on sexual orientation, then the opposition to these laws and bills is justified.
Similarly, bills enacted as a precaution to protect bathroom privacy are largely based upon a non-existent threat. There is no basis for claiming sexual predators have abused transgender protections in bathrooms. The number of states enacting these anti-trans laws is not in line with what is needed in the country at this time. The average life expectancy of a trans woman of color is 35 years, according to The Huffington Post, due in large part to the high murder and violence rate against trans people.
Prohibiting a trans woman, for example, from entering a woman’s bathroom — the bathroom that matches her gender identity — is a cruel way of forcing trans people out of public areas. The very real threat of violence to a transgender person in the bathroom of a gender they do not identify with is enough to question whether or not these laws would stand if held up against the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
In Indiana, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was later amended to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in general as a response to backlash from major companies and organizations. North Carolina, and other states that have considered and/or adopted these and other anti-LGBT policies, have faced the same backlash and criticism.
The criticism is powerful because it shows that our allies are not resting after a momentous win in LGBT equality. Without allies, the gay and trans movement would progress at an incredibly slow speed, if at all.
Even after a momentous nationwide victory, the LGBT community needs allies to fight against the very real and dangerous threat of anti-gay and anti-trans laws sweeping parts of the country.
Marriage equality was as an issue of education and exposure. Similarly, the more people are aware of the dangers of these laws and the more people know and understand the struggles of the LGBT community, the better off our country will be. This effort cannot be accomplished without allies.
