The Arkansas legislature today can override the governor's veto of a bill to criminalize trans healthcare because they adopted a new constitution in 1874 as part of a white backlash to Reconstruction that dramatically increased local control.
It was their fifth constitution. For the first time after the civil war, segregationist legislators outnumbered pro-Union legislators and they wielded their power accordingly. One act of reactionary backlash 150 years ago begets another today.
Now I'm reading a PhD dissertation on the subject and here's another unsurprising fact: the 1874 constitutional convention was a political reaction to a campaign of white violence against Black people in the state scholarworks.uark.edu/cgi/viewconten…
If you dig into any power structure in America you'll find white supremacy before you get to the basement.

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More from @AriDrennen

7 Apr
Whenever I see people talking about the “skyrocketing” rates of people saying that they’re trans, I think of this chart. They used to punish children for being left-handed and force them to write with their right hand. Guess what happened after that stopped? Image
One constant that’s present literally everywhere in human history is that people in dominant groups will invent reasons to persecute people different than them, no matter how silly the reasons and no matter how cruel the effect. This is all familiar. ImageImage
Reading all this, Jesse Singal could have made a fortune in the mid twentieth century arguing that left-handed was inherently risky and that children should simply not be allowed to be left-handed without proof that there was no other option. ImageImage
Read 5 tweets
6 Apr
The Arkansas Academy of Pediatrics opposed HB1570, the bill to ban healthcare for trans minors. If the medical board follows their lead and refuses to discipline doctors who provide care, there's no enforcement mechanism but patient lawsuits or a lawsuit by the Attorney General ImageImage
A lawsuit against a doctor who provided care in defiance of the law or a medical board that refused to discipline them would inevitably be escalated through the court system. If the court's ruling is consistent with Bostock, HB1570 cannot stand.
Interpreting section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act in light of Bostock's holding, hormone treatment and corrective surgical procedures that are available to one set of patients (which HB 1570 specifically provides) cannot be denied to another on the basis of sex stereotypes. Image
Read 6 tweets
2 Apr
There’s nothing inevitable about history’s gaze. But as more and more trans people tell the world who they are and acceptance grows, I truly believe that we will someday look back at this spring as another of America’s many shameful chapters on human rights.
Whether it marks the start of a long, shameful chapter or the end of one is up to all of us.
In the long term though, I don’t think that this backlash against trans people will win. The internet pushes people to novelty in a way that would make it impossible to put the lid back on gender diversity without structural changes. If people know they can be trans, some will.
Read 5 tweets
1 Apr
The disinformation being spread around puberty blockers on this website looks a lot like the disinformation around vaccines, and often it seems to be coming from the same people. The overwhelming consensus of medical professionals is that puberty blockers are safe and effective.
Furthermore, nearly every discussion around puberty blockers that centers cis skeptics fails to acknowledge that for trans youth, going through the wrong puberty can lead to changes that may require years and thousands of dollars of medical procedures to remedy.
Nor is the age at which puberty occurs some permanently-fixed biological milestone. On average, girls begin puberty today five years earlier than they did in the 1920s. There's absolutely nothing wrong with buying more time.
Read 4 tweets
30 Mar
I want to highlight the trans kids featured in this excellent Guardian article by @SamTLevin because I think the debate about trans rights often gets lost in hypotheticals and fails to include the people with the most at stake Image
Wyatt had to walk all the way across his high school to use a staff bathroom. His friends say they don’t care what bathroom he uses. He is 14 years old. Image
Ava was relieved that the Utah bill to ban her from swimming failed. She hopes to be able to swim in high school. She is 12 years old. Image
Read 10 tweets
29 Mar
Arkansas just banned ALL trans-related healthcare for trans youth while also defining biological sex as relating to reproductive capacity, which should make everyone nervous about where this authoritarian political movement is headed. This is not a culture war. It's just a war.
Funny that they didn't cite any sources here, unlike throughout the rest of HB 1570. I wonder why 🤔 Image
Also that they bothered to define hair plugs as nongenital gender reassignment surgery ImageImageImage
Read 4 tweets

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