The Ballot Amendment:
This November, an amendment to the New York State Bill of Rights will be on the ballot—specifically one that affects transgender New Yorkers.
Proposal Number One, or Prop 1 as many are calling it, would add provisions about anti-discrimination to protect individuals from being discriminated against due to their gender identity, among other things.
The Backlash:
Proponents of Prop 1 are calling it a way to enshrine reproductive freedoms, as it also protects “reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”
The “gender identity” protections in the amendment aren’t the main selling point, though the New York Equal Rights campaign did say that Prop 1 would close “loopholes” left by the state’s current Equal Rights Amendment which doesn’t protect the LGBTQ community from discrimination.
But many New York anti-trans groups have taken the proposed amendment as an assault on women’s and girls sports—because under it, trans women could not be barred from a women’s sports team—and “a constitutional right to medical transgender procedures without parental consent,” in the words of the New York Republican party.
In an Instagram post, the New York chapter of anti-trans group Gays Against Groomers, a transphobic conservative organization that was banned from Reddit last year, claimed that Prop one will result in “the medicalization and indoctrination of children” and held press conferences about the ballot amendment yesterday.
And Protect Kids NY, an anti-trans group and collaborator of Gays Against Groomers, claimed that the amendment would require doctors to "to facilitate a child’s request to make permanent, life-altering ‘gender affirming’ decisions” and grant a “constitutional right” to biological males hoping to play girl’s sports.
The Background:
Though a federal Equal Rights Amendment has not yet been ratified by all fifty states, a majority of states have statewide equal rights amendments in their constitutions. And opponents of trans girls participating in girl’s sports have already attempted to bar them from doing so via local laws—which New York Attorney General Letitia James is attempting to overturn via lawsuit.
As for the claims that Prop 1 is creating a “constitutional right to medical transgender procedures without parental consent” there are many, many hoops transgender New Yorkers—no matter their age—have to jump through before they can access gender affirming care.
That said, New York does have a safe haven law on the books that prohibits state courts from enforcing out-of-state laws against gender-affirming care on minors that travel to New York to receive it.
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