By Chase Strangio, Staff Attorney, ACLU LGBT & HIV Project

Earlier today, ACLU attorney Chase Strangio wrote a note to South Dakota legislators, urging them not to sign HB 1008, which targets transgender students in South Dakota. They didn’t listen. Now it’s up to South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard to veto HB 1008 and make sure the government stops hurting vulnerable kids. Sign the petition to tell Gov. Daugaard to protect South Dakota students.

I am now 33 years old, and I have an incredible job and a loving family. I am proud of who I am and all that I have been able to accomplish. But if I were a student in South Dakota right now, chances are I would not survive into adulthood.

I didn’t realize that I was transgender until after college, but I struggled through high school. I felt a disconnect from my body and a feeling of shame that prevented me from fully embracing the world. I struggled with thoughts of suicide, drug use, and self-harm.

I am so thankful to be alive today. And I am alive, in part, because even in a time that was far less accepting of LGBT people, I never got the message in high school that being transgender was shameful. I was not ready to come out to myself during those years, but I am thankful that my teachers, administrators, and government representatives never sent me the message that I was so disgusting that I didn’t deserve to share space with my peers. That message would have pushed me over the edge. That message would have found its way inside my already self-hating consciousness and prevented me from finding the strength that I ultimately did find to survive.

Last weekend, Sen. Omdahl said of transgender young people, “I’m sorry if you’re so twisted you don’t know who you are,” but we need a bill to protect other people from them. I keep hearing those words, imagining what it would have been like for 15-year-old me to hear them. I would have been heartbroken.

Legislators in South Dakota voted on House Bill 1008, which required transgender students to be separated from their peers and forced into separate bathrooms and locker rooms. If this bill is signed, I have no doubt that there will be many transgender South Dakotans who will face bullying, harassment, and perhaps even death. We live in a time of crisis where messages like Sen. Omdahl’s contribute to an epidemic of suicide in the transgender community. Almost half of all transgender individuals attempt suicide at some point in our lives.

I have lost too many friends to suicide and watched too many transgender young people take their own lives.

VICTORY! PROTECT STUDENTS FROM ANTI-TRANSGENDER BILL

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I urge South Dakotans and people across the country to take seriously what it would be like to be a young transgender person being told you are so freakish that others must be protected from you. Growing up is painful and isolating at times no matter who you are. The last thing we need is the government to take part in the bullying of our vulnerable kids.

I was lucky enough to survive, and to fight on behalf of my community. I hope today’s vote doesn’t prevent future advocates from growing into adulthood.

By Molly Griffard, Out For Freedom Campaign Strategist, ACLU

It’s official: We’re seeing a pattern of extremes emerge in the first legislative session following the national recognition of marriage equality.

The 2016 legislative session is well underway and the most-ever anti-LGBT bills have been introduced in states across the country. Dozens of bills in half the states threaten the livelihood of LGBT people. In many states, vulnerable transgender young people are singled out for discrimination.

The measures range from allowing someone to be turned away in the name of religion because they’re a same-sex couple, to singling out transgender individuals and forcing them to use separate facilities, or else subjecting them to invasive examinations just to use the bathroom.

We’ll give you the good news first. In the first full month of state legislative sessions, we’re seeing many of these bills defeated.

In the past two weeks alone, the voices of  LGBT people and our allies have helped to squash harmful measures in Indiana, Washington, Virginia, to name a few. Our collective voice is louder than ever, and, the majority of the country is with us on our right to marry and to live free from discrimination.

The bad news is that there are plenty more scary measures that may continue to advance in the chambers. Just today, a senate committee in South Dakota passed HB 1008, a bill that would single out transgender students and make them use separate restrooms and locker rooms from everyone else. This just days after a South Dakota Senator said of the bill and transgender young people: “I’m sorry if you’re so twisted you don’t know who you are — a lot of people are — and I’m telling you right now, it’s about protecting the kids.”

We need to raise our objections and tell South Dakota that we won’t stand for this  anti-transgender rhetoric.  We need our leaders to stand up for and protect all kids, which includes LGBT students.

South Dakota legislators should learn from their counterparts in Virginia and Washington State.  Earlier this week, both states considered similar legislation to South Dakota’s HB 1008. There, legislators listened to their constituents and heard the stories of transgender people who would be impacted by the legislation.  And, in both states, bipartisan majorities voted against bills targeting the transgender community. 

There should be no debate when it comes to what we know to be true. Attacks on LGBT people are attacks on everyone. Not only does discrimination against LGBT people harm us all socially and fiscally, many of these bills would open the floodgates to discrimination against others.

For example, another bill in Tennessee that would allow counselors to turn patients away if they didn’t agree with their beliefs just passed with a strong majority in committee and may move on to the Senate floor. Not only would this allow counselors to turn LGBT people away, it opens the door to their turning anyone away –a pregnant teen, an unwed couple, a single mom. And more bad measures loom in Georgia, Florida, West Virginia and elsewhere.

Efforts to chip away at our hard-earned freedoms are far from over. In fact, we’re likely to see many more attacks on our right to equal access to housing, employment, and public accommodations. We’re likely to see the increasingly out of touch voices of fear and ignorance speak up even louder to try to defend their turf. If we continue to stand together, though, and make enough noise, we will win.

The cost of not winning is too great for the most vulnerable among us.

As the great Pastor Jean Marrow from Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ in South Dakota said of that state’s targeting of transgender young people, “The same babies we baptize with great hope are the kids we bury because of horrendous discrimination.”

Stand with us and demand that those who claim to represent us stop carrying these harmful measures that threaten to undermine LGBT equality. 

By Libby Skarin, Policy Director & Lobbyist

This piece originally appeard in the Argus Leader. 

For the past few years South Dakotans have been talking a lot about transgender people. Understanding what it is like to be transgender can be hard, especially if you’ve never met a transgender person. And as is often true, we don’t know what it is like for others until we’ve walked a mile in their shoes. When listening to the stories of transgender students one thing becomes abundantly clear: they just want to live their lives like everyone else and be treated respectfully. That’s why creating a law that treats these students differently from their peers and further stigmatizes them isn’t sensitive as Representative Deutsch stated in his letter – it’s hurtful.