San Diego International Airport houses a restroom intended for all gender identification. The triumph in the 2024 elections gave Republicans, perpetuated by the invincible victory of Donald Trump, a perceived mandate for reassessing transgender rights. The prior election cycle, which was one of the most aggressive against LGBTQ rights and saw over $200 million funded into anti-trans advertisements, levered GOP officials at all levels of governance to feel more assertive.
Their motivation, exemplified by Ohio’s case, was directed towards establishing modalities addressing the visions of the mainstream population. Only a week following Trump’s confirmed presidential-elect status, a law was swiftly passed in the Republican-led state Senate of Ohio. This law constrained transgender individuals within K-12 schools and colleges from using single-sex facilities compatible with their gender identity. This covered a broad swath from bathrooms to locker rooms to dorm rooms.
Republican Governor Mike DeWine agreed with it and subtly signed the new law, rationalizing that such a move protects traditional norms. The legislation barred all public and private schools, and even colleges, from having multi-stall bathrooms that fell within a gender-neutral paradigm. Despite the law was not compelling schools to set up single-user restrooms, it became a recommendable option. If not, transgender students aspiring to use bathrooms safely should seek and get authorized access to the faculty facilities.
The impracticality of materializing this modification was noted by Mallory Golski, adroit in civic engagement and advocacy manager from the Kaleidoscope Youth Center in Columbus. She questioned the feasibility for underfunded schools to abandon their current cost-intensive projects and instead focus on the construction of new bathrooms. Ohio thus integrated into the other 13 states that, from 2021, started to control trans people’s penetration in restrooms.
These limitations affected mainly K-12 schools, but a few states extended their reach into all government establishments, imposing punitive accountability. Meanwhile, the new Ohio law stipulated that schools are allowed to use the students’ birth certificates to cross-check the gender assigned at birth. But, it provided no procedural implementation mechanism other than inciting transgender students’ self-regulation.
On the other hand, in Washington, Republicans challenged the election of the first openly trans individual to Congress, expressing skepticism towards the underlying motives. The party, in the absence of robust evidence, propagandized the banning of trans people from gender-aligned bathrooms, locker rooms, and dorms. They propagated this as a measure to safeguard students, although researchers found no links between trans-inclusive policies and threats to safety.
Conversely, it is reported that transgender individuals are victims of violent crime at a rate 2.5 times higher than their cisgender counterparts. Moreover, people with non-traditional sexual orientations are perceived to be at an increased risk of experiencing sexual violence. Educational studies have also juxtaposed restrictive bathroom policies and the escalated risk of sexual harassment and assault within trans students.
Since the introduction of the bathroom ban in May 2023, this resolve got reflected in Ohio during the national election. With the majority partisan support for the bill of 24 to 7, it is evident that people’s sentiment overwhelmingly lay within the right-wing agenda. Ohio’s minority leader, also the first openly gay elected to the state legislature, claimed on the Senate floor that the issue extends beyond bathrooms—it distorts and frightens citizenry.
By this law, the authorities conveyed to the younger generation that certain individuals are ‘lesser’—non-inclusive and obliged to comply with mainstream norms. This message was well received by Ohio’s trans youth, testified by the advocacy manager at Kaleidoscope Youth Center. Instead of strengthening their roots, aspiring trans youth, once eager to stay, are now conjecturing about relocation.
The stringent laws were repressively effective, pushing Ohio’s trans youth to think of running for the ‘hills.’ The dismal narrative of ‘Go anywhere but here’ became eerily common, enforcing the paradoxical message that the home state was no longer welcoming to a unique subset of its own generation.
Republicans saw this as a necessary push, believing that the American society’s values were being perversely disrupted by a minority viewpoint. And hence, they sought to protect traditional norms. Through this, the GOP hoped to prevent any potential ripple effects on the majority views from a societal perspective.
The Democrats could only offer weak opposition and divisive rhetoric in response. Instead of fostering solutions that cater to the plurality, they remain stuck in ideological battles, regularly echo the sentiment that Republicans are turning into oppressors. This narrative is unproductive for a united future, undermining the true spirit of democracy.
With the hope to bring harmony and inclusivity, Republicans persist in their effort to mitigate the imposed excesses of partisan ideologies. They envision a future where the adopted policies benefit society as a whole, preserving the American values and principles.