28 Wisconsin
As of October 17, 2023 (less than two weeks before me writing this), the Wisconsin Senate approved a Republican-sponsored bill which would effectively ban gender-affirming surgery for minors. The bill, Assembly Bill 465, was confirmed with over double the number of Ayes as Noes. Amidst everything currently going on in the world, it shouldn’t have surprised me that they chose this moment to try slipping this legislation past any media coverage, yet the news of its approval still left me with my jaw on the floor. The bill begins:
“This bill prohibits health care providers from engaging in, causing the engagement in, or making referrals for, certain medical intervention practices upon an individual under 18 years of age if done for the purpose of changing the minor’s body to correspond to a sex that is discordant with the minor’s biological sex. The prohibitions under the bill do not apply to any of the following: 1) a health care provider providing a service in accordance with a good faith medical decision of a parent or guardian of a minor born with a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development…”
As you make your way through the rest of the Pressbook, I hope our thoughts on and definitions of sex and gender stand out to you in contrast with how this bill imagines sex and gender. I hope you question exactly what a “good faith medical decision” would look like to the individuals approving this legislation, and what they might imagine the repercussions to be for any physicians whose definition does not align with theirs.
After this paragraph, the bill continues on with an intentionally confusing list of sections and subsections with terms, definitions, explications of the bill’s limitations and powers, and plenty of legislative jargon throughout. The gist, as stated by Wendy Strout, the Wisconsin Director of the Human Rights Campaign organization, is that this legislation “will only make it difficult or impossible for a transgender or non-binary child to grow up as their authentic self… [these bills] are nothing more than efforts to stir up stigma and hate.”
Democratic governor Tony Evers promises to veto the bill when it crosses his desk, though this has not happened as of the time I am writing this. With Wisconsin Assembly Bills 377 and 378 coming down the pipeline soon, both of which target transgender students from kindergarten to college who would like to participate on the school sports teams which align with their gender identity, I expect that Evers will face the same responsibility to veto these to protect our youth.
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To ground us in some resistant work being done in response to this type of legislature, I want to talk about the Raging Grannies. I had the opportunity to meet the Madison chapter of this organization at a farmer’s market, where a “gaggle” of older folks dressed up in eccentric rainbow attire were handing out pride flag pins. Even better, though, is that they were simultaneously singing “politically charged ditties” layered onto easily recognizable tunes – and gathering dozens of spectators in the process! Doing some research into them, I found that these cohorts of 60-90 year old women travel the state protesting in song. Since the organization’s beginnings in 1987 British Columbia, the leaderless groups have been protesting for abortion rights, trans rights, social justice, environmental justice, and an end to unnecessary war.
As some of the members have expressed in interviews, they aren’t nearly as worried about getting arrested for these demonstrations as they would have been when they were younger. And sometimes they do get arrested! Since most are no longer in the job market, though, and could not be put in serious economic danger by a mark on their public record, they acknowledge that they are in prime positions to do this kind of resistant work which is inaccessible to others.
So far, they have received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice and have been honored with the first-ever Forward Award for Grassroots Activism. I really encourage you to check them out – and maybe even to find the chapter nearest to you! Oh! And check out their database of songs if you have a chance!
Sources:
Wisconsin Senate approves bill banning gender-affirming surgery for minors | PBS NewsHour
Protest with sass – Isthmus | Madison, Wisconsin
Wisconsin Legislature: AB378: Bill Text