The November midterm elections are poised to offer, in some
sense, a referendum on the Trump administration’s two-year assault on
the rights and liberties of women, immigrants, people of color, and
LBGTQ communities. In Massachusetts, the referendum is literal: Voters
will be asked on the ballot whether they want to uphold or repeal
anti-discrimination protections for transgender people in the state.
In 2016, one month prior to Donald Trump’s presidential election, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law a
bill that updated the state’s civil rights statutes to protect
transgender individuals from discrimination in public places, including
restrooms, locker rooms, restaurants, stores, and medical offices. Now,
thanks to the concerted efforts of anti-transgender opponents using
transphobic misinformation and scaremongering, Massachusetts will become
the first state to question whether to uphold or repeal such hard-won
protections.
The 2016 law, and those like it around the country, far from assured
an end to rampant anti-transgender discrimination. But a repeal on the
grounds framed in the Massachusetts referendum — steeped as it is in
bigoted, anti-transgender myths — would not only assert that transgender
lives do not matter, but that they constitute a public threat.
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Source: The Intercept_
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