On Friday, March 31st, I sang “My body is my own/ I am in control” while laying on the cold Montana State Capitol Rotunda floor with 50-60 other people in a “lie-in” to mark Trans Visibility day. The event was organized by Forward Montana, with speakers sharing their lived trans and queer experiences, including Montana’s first openly transgender state legislator, Zooey Zephyr. One young CSKT member, Joshua Victor Charlo-Crumley, stated, “Starting hormones was my suicide prevention.” All of this was to remind the Montana state legislature of our community and how much harm bans on gender affirming care and restrictions on gender expressions afflicts. We sprawled our bodies, sang harmoniously together, and let out pent-up frustrations by screaming out as a reminder of autonomy and the collective power queer, non-binary, trans, two-spirited folk, and their allies are capable of.
Montana is one of 45 states this year to introduce dangerous anti-LGBT2S+ bills in a national, conservative-led effort. Montana bills include efforts to allow dead naming in public schools, banning gender affirming care for minors, drag ban in public spaces and legal definitions of sex. The conservative think tanks pushing these bills are great at unifying the Republican base with a particular message– usually one that’s centered around an unpopular social issue, and almost always one that turns one neighbor against another. They are so skilled at social messaging that they can truly affect change for the worse. In the last two years approximately 750 (435 in 2023 and 315 in 2022) bills were introduced to restrict the freedom and access to healthcare for LGBTQ2S+ people. In that time the support of such legislation has risen 15 percentage points. Thankfully, even with the rise of support, this type of legislation is still unpopular. 54% of Americans say they oppose anti-trans/LGBTQ2S+ bills and 50% said in the 2022 midterm exit polls that “society’s values on gender identity and sexual orientation are changing for the worse.”
There has been a lot of national attention on this issue in the last few weeks since Tennessee has banned drag shows in public spaces, Arkansas passed a terrible bathroom bill, and numerous ID/birth certificate laws have been signed by Republican governors. But let me share some good news: 91% of anti-LGBTQ2S+ bills failed to become law in 2022. It is likely we’ll see a similar outcome in 2023. The aforementioned drag ban in Tennessee has now been blocked by a judge and there will be legal challenges to fight all over the country. Other good news includes the following: House Democrats have introduced a trans bill of rights, Minnesota gov signed an executive order protecting gender affirming care, and the Biden-Harris administration has made many efforts to combat bad state legislators.
It's important to remember that the current efforts to uphold the gender binary are deeply rooted in European colonization and white supremacy. Western values of sexuality and gender were enforced as a tactic to assimilate indigenous populations of the Americas and Africa to gain control of their bodies, their autonomy, and – of course– their land. The colonization of the US and the colonization of the gender nonbinary are intrinsically linked, and we are living through the modern day consequences by way of all of these anti-LGBTQ2S + bills and by the ever increasing impacts of the climate crisis.
Indigenous communities have traditionally tended to place a higher value on earth's ecosystems while Western colonizers have assumed they can extract natural resources as much as they want, and the Earth will regenerate itself. As stated in the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Climate Change Strategic Plan: “The Earth is our historian; it is made of our ancestors’ bones. It provides us with nourishment, medicine and comfort. It is the source of our independence; it is our Mother. We do not dominate Her, but harmonize with Her.” Around the world, indigenous communities steward only 22 percent of the world's land, but have conserved 80 percent of the planet's biodiversity. These lands also contain 36 percent of the world's remaining forests.
The echoes of Western colonization make it far more challenging to address the climate crisis and implement just and equitable solutions. For many indigenous trans, queer, and two spirit folks, fighting for sovereignty over their bodies is deeply linked to fighting for the sovereignty over their homelands.“As Indigenous flesh is an extension of the soil, it is inherently understood as a connection to both land and body sovereignty and cannot be removed: the land is kin.” writes Hope-Ann Ace in “Treaties: The Symbiotic Connection Between Land and Body Sovereignty, An Exploration into Re-Presencing Indigenous Epistemologies to Re-story Sovereignty”.
What I hope the community can take away from a rotunda full of Montanans chanting and screaming, refusing to be silenced, is that we can resist. Hundreds of folks across Montana have testified against anti-trans legislation and we can keep fighting. I want to uplift the work of Forward Montana, who helped lead the organizing of Helena’s lie-in event, and the ACLU of Montana. I encourage everyone to directly contact the governor's office as soon as possible to voice opposition to anti-trans or anti-LGBTQ legislation. The phone number is (406) 444-3111. You can view a fact sheet of current bills to oppose here.
Lyndsey Holloway is a legislative and organizing fellow with the Montana Chapter of the Sierra Club. This post was written on Séliš / Ql̓ispé territory in Missoula, MT.
