A sexual predator may not reside or work within 2,000 feet of a school. If Senate Bill 197 was to pass after being recently introduced by a Republican lawmaker in West Virginia, a trans person would find themselves in handcuffs if they came within 2,500 feet of a school. This under the precedent that trans people are not actually fully functioning and perfectly human beings, but that they are rather “obscene matter” that, according to Senate Bill 195, a “reasonable person” finds lacking “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”
There are so many counterarguments any actual “reasonable person” can make about these bills. It’s hard to know where to begin, but let’s start with this - trans people are human. Their pure existence isn’t equitable to committing a crime. They were born in the wrong body and they have every right to reprimand that in whatever manner they choose. Why? Partly because it is their life and their body, and so it must be their choice; partly because it has absolutely nothing to do with you or anyone else.
Shame on me for thinking we had left the days where people equaled different values long behind us. It seems I was utterly wrong. According to Senate Bill 197 and 195, a person can actually lack literary, artistic, political and scientific value. And if a person does seem to be lacking in any of these categories, that is the cutoff to their humanity. In other words, if a reasonable person, of which I can assure you the lawmaker behind these bills isn’t one himself, doesn’t think an individual is delivering an adequate amount of value in cultural or scientific areas, that individual is more appropriately labeled as matter. Not just any matter, but obscene matter. Such matter that must be kept away from impressionable kids at a larger distance than a legitimate sexual predator must be. I seem to remember learning about a certain someone in history class that also thought people could be detached from their human status, after which there was no limit to the barbarous torture you could subject them to.
Even if we disregard the obvious faults and inhumane logic which presides in these bills, I also find it particularly interesting that gender-affirming care and expressions of gender that do not socially align with that assigned at birth is alone capable of making someone void of value. One would think, especially in the ultra-capitalist and consumer-based society we live in, that profession, material contributions and attitudes are more appropriate measures of individual value. Of course, I prefer not ranking individuals as of different worth at all, but if this Republican lawmaker insists, I do not see any logic in ranking scale. That is probably because there is none. I cannot recall having ever seen a more blatantly transphobic expression than what Senate Bill 197 and 195 propagates.
It is just as important to discuss the obvious flaws of these proposals as it is to note what kind of lawmakers are making them. Approximately 90% of West Virginia’s Congress is Republican. In September 2022, they passed a complete ban on abortion (except in cases of rape, incest and medical emergencies - but even then with strong limitations), officially stating that their pre-Rode 1849 criminal abortion ban was in effect. Clearly, this is no Congress for the people.
I do not know who it was that said this first, so I can unfortunately not quote them, but when proposals such as Senate Bill 197 and 195 appear, those of us who are not trans must remind ourselves that even though they might not currently be coming after us, they will eventually. Slowly and with great precision, almost unnoticeable to the ignorant eye, we (and by we, I mean anyone who isn’t a straight, white, Christian, cisgender male) will become their next target. The next group of people who are obscene matter to any reasonable person (that is, straight, white, Christian, cisgender males) and must be kept away from children.
Evidently, they are so eager to strip us bare of our rights that our right to choice has already encountered its dark farewell. We might hope that someone will come to our rescue when they start coming for more than just our right to choice - the problem is, when they do, there will be no one left to help us. Anyone who would have cared for our lives will be long gone by then.
Simplistically, this is the message I am trying to make: If we do not stand up for the preservation of humanity, for the survival and liberty of those born in the wrong body, then we will have no right to complain when no one does that when it is our turn to stay at least 2,500 feet away from schools. Senate Bill 197 and 195, proposed by Republican State Senator Mike Azinger, is the schoolbook example of systematic persecution’s opening act.
Sources
Monteil, A. (2024, January 16). Bills introduced in West Virginia would categorize trans people as “obscene matter.”Them. https://www.them.us/story/west-virginia-bills-introduced-would-categorize-trans-people-as-obscene-matter
NPR.org. (n.d.). https://legacy.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2006/oct/prop83/ncsl_residency.pdf
Senate leadership. West Virginia Legislature. (n.d.).
West Virginia. Center for Reproductive Rights. (2023, April 5). https://reproductiverights.org/maps/state/west-virginia/
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