Photo of a sign at the Protect Trans Kids protest in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 22, 2017 via Ted Eytan; map via Wikimedia Commons displays yes (red) vs. no (blue) votes for the 1992 Colorado Amendment 2, which would have outlawed Colorado municipalities’ ability to pass anti-discrimination laws pertaining to sexuality. Edits by James Salanga.
As the election approaches, reporters across several states — Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, and Missouri — are covering ballot races where voters are being asked for their opinion about how much trans people, and specifically trans youth, can participate in public life.
Seven ballot measures across the five states are covering whether they want to curtail athletic freedoms for trans kids, particularly trans girls, under the guise of “equity” and “fairness for girls” or ban gender-affirming care for trans youth.
In the case of Missouri’s Amendment 3, gender-affirming care for trans youth is already banned via Senate Bill 49 to sunset in 2027, but the measure — which also seeks to repeal legal protections for those seeking abortion in the state — would enshrine a ban on gender-affirming care in the state’s constitution. Similarly, the ballot measure in Nebraska seeks a state constitutional ban on gender-affirming care.
These measures represent “different slogans, same playbook,” as Hate State co-host and producer Xandra McMahon says in the latest and last episode of the limited series podcast. Named after a common moniker for Colorado given after voters approved a 1992 amendment preventing municipalities from enacting anti-discrimination laws protecting gay, lesbian, or bisexual people, the podcast seeks to encourage reporters to contextualize current anti-trans ballot measures with that kind of past history as Colorado’s long-held status as a trans sanctuary state shifts.
There is other precedent for litigating freedoms for a group of people through the ballot box, even in historic sanctuary states for gay and trans people: think California’s 2008 Proposition 8.
In the ‘90s, the groups behind Colorado’s Amendment 2 accused gay people of wanting special rights; Today, said Ann Marie Awad, who co-hosts and co-produced Hate State, conservatives are accusing trans people of being a “plague.” The backlash behind Amendment 2, added Awad, plays a large role in why Colorado is blue today.
“Part of our real frustration and desire of wanting to do this series in the first place is just seeing newsrooms sort of mess up on basic journalistic best practices just because the story is about trans people,” they said. “It's like, ‘Just because the story is about trans people, we don't have to go talk to actual trans people.’ Our biggest goal with this series is to be like, whoever you are, it affects you, and it affects people in your life, and here's how.”
The first two episodes of Hate State focus on Colorado’s history, spanning an explanation of how Colorado came to be the “evangelical Vatican”, the passage of and rhetoric behind the 1992 Amendment 2, and how the amendment was overturned. But the last episode of the series catches up to the present, providing context about research behind gender-affirming care that might be absent from in social media posts or political ads about anti-trans measures, and interviewing Kay, a trans teenager who is still navigating that care with his family.
Kay, 17, described his gender dysphoria as akin to walking down the stairs and thinking there’s another step when there isn’t.
“Your body’s like, ‘What just happened?’” he said on the third episode of Hate State. “That’s how looking in the mirror feels, or crossing an arm over my chest, or hearing my voice play back on recording. It's a very … base level primal confusion that just turns into intense frustration.”
Kae Petrin, president of the Trans Journalists Association, told the Hate State co-hosts that reporting on trans people is often “less likely to be about their experience navigating the world, and more about whether their experience can even be believed.”
The Trans Journalists Association found that, in an analysis of seven major news sites in the first 100 days of Trump’s election, 70% of the sample articles did not include a quote from a single trans person. The increasingly anti-trans legislative landscape means some trans people and their families are fleeing states passing legislation limiting trans rights, whether to sanctuary states or outside the U.S. entirely.
But many are also staying, a response Awad has seen firsthand.
“I live here in Denver and I know Denver to be full of a thriving queer community,” they said. “I know that people are not just lying down or moving away.”
Awad, a long-time public media journalist, hopes there continues to be more “thousand-foot stories” like those in Hate State covering how fights for people’s autonomy and rights remain connected across state lines and who funds the groups behind ballot measures.
“For the straight, cis audience, these issues are just as politically important as any other issues you're voting on this coming election, and have the ability to impact future elections just as much as any other thing on your ballot does,” they said. “It's not just a ‘lifestyle’ story. These are kids, and these are families, and there is evidence that supports trans lives.”
James Salanga is the co-director of The Objective.
This piece was edited and copy edited by Marlee Baldridge.