By Lance Chilton
According to Friday morning’s Albuquerque Journal, Nebraska’s legislature has moved along a new bill to ban gender-affirming care for transgender people. New Mexico’s legislature in its 2023 session moved in the opposite direction–the progressive direction–regarding both transgender care and abortion.
In a symbolic gesture, the Legislature congratulated Equality New Mexico on its 30th anniversary of productive advocacy for LGBTQ individuals in Senate Memorial 33. The bill passed the Senate 26-0, but most of the Republicans were “absent” or “excused” for the vote. In addition, there were several substantive bills protecting the rights of transgender individuals and those who provide services to them.
Republican-sponsored bills were put forth to restrict transgender females from participating in female sports activities, to prevent teaching about transgender issues in school, to require parental consent for gender procedures, and even to castrate “certain” sex offenders. These were turned back, and, in their place, House Bill 7, House Bill 207, and Senate Bill 13 all passed. These bills protect LGBTQ individuals against discrimination. They also protect those who provide LGBTQ people with psychological, medicinal or surgical care and prohibit the release of information to out-of-state entities seeking to prosecute them or their patients for accessing such care.
Surveys have shown that a very high proportion of LGBTQ persons have dysphoric and suicidal thoughts (54% within the past year, according to one study). Like many insurance policies sold in New Mexico, Medicaid covers gender-affirming care, including surgery. Studies show that gender-affirming care decreases depression, self-harm, and anxiety.
In a blind study, participants were more likely to identify transgender women as women after facial feminization surgery, increasing their likelihood of “passing” as women. Passing could potentially increase their safety, as transgender people are over four times more likely to be victims of violent crime than cisgendered people.
Regarding discrimination related to reproductive care decisions, it is likely that the most common reproductive care decision that could trigger discrimination or harassment would be stillbirth or abortion. According to the “Pregnant at Work” initiative of the Center for WorkLife Law, “In most circumstances, it is illegal for your employer to fire, harass, or penalize you at work because you experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth, or because you had an abortion, are thinking about having one, or decided against having one.”
With respect to abortion, Democrats in the Legislature recognize the fact that the majority of their constituents believe that abortion should remain legal and available. Two recent nationwide studies, done by the Pew Foundation and by NPR/Ipsos, came to the virtually the same conclusion: 60-61% of Americans believe abortion should be legally available in most or all circumstances.
As noted above, the three bills that passed protect transgender individuals and those who provide needed services to them, as well as protecting those undergoing abortion and their abortion providers. In contract, those on the right side of the aisle introduced bills to limit abortion late in term or “partial birth” abortions, both of which are almost vanishingly rare, to require licensing and inspection of abortion providers, to require them to carry heavy malpractice insurance, to consider abortion done after heartbeat is detected a felony, and to require resuscitation of any fetus delivered alive as a result of abortion, whether or not there was any chance of survival. These anti-choice bills went nowhere. And of course the 2022 decriminalization of abortion in New Mexico in 2021 House Bill 7, stands.
As with so many issues, those having to do with sex and sexuality make many of us happy we live in a Democratic state. Kudos to our governor and our legislators for recognizing our right to self-determination in these areas, even if the Supreme Court of the U.S. has denied that right.