Holding Corporations Accountable: The Assault on LGBTQ+ Youth
By Rachael Salisbury and Erik Mebust
Introduction
In recent years, the LGBTQ+ community has grown at a previously unimaginable rate. Led by Gen Z, more members of the public are comfortable openly identifying as LGBTQ+ than ever before, with the rate doubling to 7.1 percent from 2012 to 2022. Among Gen Zers who have reached adulthood, 21 percent identify as LGBTQ+.
Along with this increasing visibility has come a backlash that is putting the LGBTQ+ community and its allies at risk. Extremist right-wing activists have emboldened politicians to introduce over 300 anti-LGBTQ+ bills across 36 states in 2022 alone. Eight states have implemented more than a dozen such policies.
Among the most dangerous proposals are those that target LGBTQ+ youth. Studies indicate that the vast majority of these young people experience harassment because of their identity, and that they suffer from dangerous levels of depression and suicidality as a result. A recent CDC study found that nearly half of all LGBTQ+ teenagers seriously considered suicide in the first half of 2021. One in four made an attempt.
Decades of activism and research have produced interventions proven to help these marginalized young people cope with the challenges associated with their identities. Instruction in LGBTQ+ topics reduces the risk of suicide among LGBTQ+ youth. So does participation in student activities like sports and Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) peer groups, and access to gender-affirming healthcare. Yet the current wave of anti-LGBTQ+ policies would undermine access to these suicide prevention measures, and studies indicate that American youth will die as a result of such legislation.
The most prominent of these attacks has been a series of bills, commonly referred to as “Don’t Say Gay,” that prohibit discussion of LGBTQ+ issues in schools. These laws allow parents to sue school districts for any mention of material that is not “age-appropriate” — a standard so vague that it is likely to chill virtually all mention of LGBTQ+ issues in many schools.
While the audacity and cruelty of the Don’t Say Gay bills have rightfully drawn the attention of the public and the media, this focus on lesbian, gay, and bisexual rights has obscured a wave of policies cutting off access to gender-affirming medical treatments for transgender youth that poses an even more dire threat. These more widespread and successful attacks have put one in three trans youth at risk of losing access to care, and most major medical associations have repudiated these policies for cutting children off from medically necessary care.
This political assault on the LGBTQ+ community has been accompanied by a surge in inflammatory anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and disinformation. Political leaders on the right have adopted the bigoted and inflammatory language of “grooming” and “child abuse” from extremist voices on the internet, fueling record levels of harassment and violence against the LGBTQ+ community. They have also misrepresented the medical treatment provided to LGBTQ+ minors, fueling unfounded fears that droves of children are undergoing invasive surgeries.
Allies of the LGBTQ+ community must offer a strong counterpunch to these attacks, both by overturning and preventing the passage of the policies themselves, and by condemning the bigotry that animates them in the strongest possible terms. The assault on LGBTQ+ people has intensified rapidly over the past several years, and is likely to grow more dangerous still if its perpetrators are not held accountable.
To aid in the fight against this wave of anti-LGBTQ+ hate, Data for Progress has compiled a set of polling, policy, and data visualization resources to inform activists, corporate employees, and policymakers of the many tools available to them in our collective fight to protect the LGBTQ+ community from bigotry.
This policy memo focuses on bills, executive actions, and other state policies that seek to
1) silence discussion of LGBTQ+ identities in schools, and
2) restrict access to gender-affirming healthcare.
In order to understand the full extent of the damage that these hateful policies wreak upon the LGBTQ+ community, it’s crucial to take a look at the conditions contributing to their rise.