but All Around Here NOT HERE,

Queer UMN students express anxiety over antiLGBTQ+ laws

UNDER ORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES, THIRD-YEAR COMPUTER engineering student Marceline Sorensen’s decision to transfer to another university would be a simple move based on finances.

But for Sorensen, who is transfeminine—and for other trans students today—the U.S. political landscape has altered the circumstances.

When Sorensen leaves Minnesota next year, she will leave a legislative environment that has taken strides in recent months to legally protect transgender people who receive gender-affirming care. Wisconsin has no such protections, and has seen recent attempts at curbing youth access to gender-affirming care.

For that reason, Sorensen is considering keeping her health care in Minnesota and traveling between Madison and the Twin Cities—more than a four-hour drive with light traffic—to access that care. Even then, she said, she has no confidence this option will endure.

Lawmakers across the country have introduced a record number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills in 2023—the ACLU is currently tracking more than 450 of them. As of early April, CNN reported the number of introduced bills targeting LGBTQ+ rights was more than double last year’s figure.

“I am honestly concerned that, if that stuff manages to cement itself, that it will slowly eat away at places like Minnesota,” she said.

Many queer University students echo such worries. According to a recent AccessU: Queer on Campus survey of more than 300 undergraduate students, most queer respondents said they were highly concerned about efforts across the country to ban gender-affirming

BY NOOR ADWAN, CALEB HENSIN, ANDREW KICMOL, MARENA REICH AND AARUSHI SEN

care, drag shows, transgender athletes’ participation in sports, books with queer themes and discussions of gender and sexuality in schools.

Although the legislation is occurring elsewhere, the impacts resonate with their lives. For some, like Sorensen, those impacts are felt firsthand. For others, their concern is primarily for their loved ones.

“I have a couple friends who are transgender who are really scared about what’s going on in our country, because, obviously, these are targeted attacks,” said Garrik Martin, a second-year plant science student who is gay.

Kat Rohn, executive director of OutFront Minnesota, a queer advocacy group, said this legislation could have devastating impacts on young queer people’s sense of the future.

“It’s extraordinarily damaging for folks to not be able to be their full and authentic selves,” Rohn said. “We know that LGBTQ youth, in particular trans youth, who have supportive families have markedly improved mental health outcomes. It’s something like 73 percent reduction in anxiety, depression and suicidality.”

Mycall Riley, director of the Gender and Sexuality Center for Queer and Trans Life at the University, said this legislation has created “heightened anxiety” in young queer people at the University—to the point where some are factoring legislative friendliness to queer people into their post-graduation moving plans.

“It’s terrifying,” Sorensen said. “There are large swaths of the country that I would just not be comfortable going to.”

Rohn said OutFront receives dozens of calls and emails every week from Minnesotans concerned about anti-LGBTQ+ efforts, with young people expressing particular worry about bans on gender-affirming care.

According to the ACLU, 32 states have introduced more than 120 anti-LGBTQ+ bills related to health care this year. Of those, 14 have been passed into law, and 82 are advancing through their states’ legislatures.

“Banning access to gender-affirming care really worries me,” said Emily Nelson, a third-year food science student who is bisexual. “I have a lot of friends who have received gender-affirming care and are

For the past seven years, the Brovald-Sim Community Journalism class, AccessU, has covered a different campus community, including the addiction community, the rural and out-state student population, the disabled community, and Black communities on campus. The goal is to create a news site devoted to a ‘hidden’ campus community and report deeply on it through news stories, profiles and a large survey. This past spring, the class decided to focus on the LGBTQ+ community on campus—a community that finds itself under the political microscope in recent months.

All of the students quoted in this article agreed to share their gender and sexual identities for publication and spoke openly about their experience watching legislatures across the country curtail LGBTQ+ rights.

As the co-editors wrote on the project's website:

“There is no monolithic queer community, but rather a diverse collection of communities. Further contributing to this diversity are the intersecting identities that create overlapping systems of disadvantage within these communities. Our goal with this semester-long project was to amplify the voices and center the experiences of queer communities at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.”

Led by instructor Gayle Golden, the AccessU model, which is supported by the Brovald-Sim Community Journalism Fund, builds on the principle that community journalism begins where the people live and with what they care about.

For more, visit accessu.hubbardschool.org/ queeroncampus so much happier for it.”

Anthony Phelps, a fourth-year biology student who is queer, described the sweeping legislation as “textbook fascism” on the part of Republicans.

“You single out a group of people who are a minority group in society, and you instill these new rules and restrictions and claim they are inherently, in some way, inferior or dangerous,” Phelps said. “I think this is just the beginning.”

Many students said they wanted to see the University speak out about these legislative efforts. “I think [the University] absolutely should speak out more. I think it’s a responsibility of every University, person, company, anything with a position of power and influence should be speaking out right now,” said Lily Gordon, a third-year nursing student, who is queer. “It’s difficult as a queer person to take full responsibility for spreading awareness on these issues … it cannot be just up to us.”

“I do think the University of Minnesota needs to take a more proactive stance,” said Lucy Gunelson, a second-year environmental geoscience student, who is queer. “The only thing that is keeping the University of Minnesota accountable right now is the students.”

But students weren’t particularly optimistic the University would take any action. “They take a neutral standpoint to not upset anyone. I understand it, because the University is a business,” said Meg Chyna, a first-year student in the College of Science and Engineering, who is bisexual and nonbinary. “It’s just how they always respond to conflict.”

When asked if the University had plans to speak out against the rise of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, University Public Relations Director Jake Ricker offered the following response via email:

“While we recognize concerns in our community about what’s happening in other parts of the country or the world, we are focused on what the University can lead on our campuses, and where we can have meaningful influence here in the state of Minnesota.”

A PRODUCT OF POLARIZATION, LEGISLATIVE SHORTCUTS AND LOOMING PRIMARIES

Andrew Karch, chair of the political science department at the University, said this rise of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation is a relatively recent phenomenon. The first introduction of a “bathroom bill,” for example, was in North Carolina in 2015.

It’s also a byproduct of increasing political polarization, he said.

“The states themselves are becoming more polarized, and so you get more states that are under a unified control, or what some people would call a trifecta,” Karch said.

Minnesota is just one of these states under unified control. Last November, the DFL flipped the Senate, giving DFL lawmakers control of Minnesota’s House, Senate and governorship—in other words, a trifecta.

Of the 14 states that have passed anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that the ACLU has tracked, all but two have Republican trifectas. Kansas and Kentucky have Republican-held legislatures but Democratic governors.

Karch said another reason for the recent influx in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation is the role of interest groups, which can create model bills to disseminate to legislatures around the country. “Now, because of technology, it’s extremely easy for these groups to get these models under review in a bunch of different states,” Karch said.

Interest groups use social media campaigns to reinforce their goals. In 2020, the American Principles Project, which organized legislation opposed to trans participation on sports teams, ran thousands of ads on social media sites like Facebook that depicted boys defeating girls in various sports, all with the same message: “Is this fair?”

Other groups, including the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Research Council and the Liberty Counsel, function as a sort of repository for pre-made legislative ideas—“copy-and-paste legislation”—that elected officials can tailor to their state, Karch said.

“These groups have made the model bill available,” Karch said. “Republican officials who prioritize these topics are moving into office and so they’re looking for these types of templates that they can use in their own work.”

Anthony Niedwiecki, president and dean of Mitchell Hamline School of Law, said the recent increase in antiLGBTQ+ legislation has also been fueled by next year’s presidential campaign.

“[Republican lawmakers] are trying to pick these issues that they think motivate voters, but aren’t really addressing real problems,” Niedwiecki said. Policy positions like anti-LGBTQ+ legislation “are really designed to get people to the polls.”

Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson last June, Niedwiecki said Republican lawmakers needed a new issue to galvanize their base.

“It’s not as easy for them to talk about abortion at this point,” Niedwiecki said. “So they’re looking for other issues they think will motivate people.”

“STAY HOPEFUL”

Other students worry, as Sorensen does, that even Minnesota could fall prey to this wave.

“I don’t know how long I can be protected by the current legislation that we have in Minnesota,” said Vix Lewis, a third-year education student who is transfeminine and queer. “While it is great legislation, there’s no telling how long it’s going to last.”

“Politicians are temporary,” Gunelson said. “While we have an amazing situation right now, is that going to change in four years?”

“I’m thankful I live in Minnesota, and I do like what is going on in this state in reaction to anti-trans legislation and anti-LGBTQ legislation across the country. But even then, I’m always worried,” Phelps said. “What could happen next?”

But Niedwiecki said he doesn’t anticipate a political pendulum swing in Minnesota anytime soon.

“I don’t see a huge change, where, all of a sudden, all [of the] State—the House, the Senate and the governor’s office—would go to Republican control,” Niedwiecki said. “It would be hard to reverse any of the gains that are made right now, at least in the near future.”

He said he hopes the classes he’s taught in his career related to law surrounding transgender people will help arm future generations of lawyers with the tools they need to protect transgender people.

“Those [courses] are important because you’re training people to go into the field and fight against these laws, or for laws that really protect transgender individuals and transgender youth out there,” he said.

Tony Winer, a retired law professor from Mitchell Hamline and the first tenure-track professor in Minnesota to teach a law and sexuality class, said he hopes the increased visibility of queer issues in today’s legislative environment will ultimately garner more acceptance for the LGBTQ+ rights movement.

“The more you try to silence this kind of discourse, the more it becomes the center of the public eye,” Winer said. “The fact that right-wing politicians are trying to suppress the freedom of trans people brings them more into the public view. And the more they’re in the public view, the more people see it and are less threatened by it.”

Winer said that much of this anti-LGBTQ+ legislation is reactionary pushback against the various strides the queer community has made in the last few years. In response, states such as Minnesota are also reacting by bolstering protections for queer people within their borders. In 2023, Minnesota has moved to ban conversion therapy and protect transgender people seeking gender-affirming care.

Furthermore, most Americans don’t support the recent surge in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. A 2022 Pew Research study demonstrated that more than 60 percent of Americans favor protecting trans people from discrimination, and a 2022 Gallup poll found more than 70% of Americans favor the legal validity of same-sex marriage.

OutFront Minnesota’s Rohn said she wants queer people with anxieties about this legislation to know they aren’t alone in their fight.

“I just remind folks: stay hopeful, know that there are people fighting for you, and it will get better,” Rohn said. “But it is really hard right now in this moment to see that.”