This week, a group of Democrats announced that they are working to codify protections for transgender Americans into federal law.
The proposed legislation, the “Transgender Bill of Rights,” would codify the Supreme Court case Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which protects employees against discrimination if they are transgender or gay, The Hill noted.
The bill reportedly expand access to “gender-affirming” health care, which includes hormone therapy treatment and sex reassignment surgery.
The proposal would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to explicitly include protections for gender identity and sex characteristics, expand access to gender-affirming care and ban conversion therapy.
It would also require the attorney general to designate a liaison dedicated to overseeing enforcement of civil rights for transgender people and invest in community services to prevent anti-transgender violence.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and co-chair of the Transgender Equality Task Force, said in a statement that the resolution would ensure transgender people can lead “full, happy lives.”
Reportedly, over 80 other Members of Congress co-sponsored the bill along with Jayapal, who is chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Co-Chair of the Transgender Equality Task Force.
“Our Trans Bill of Rights says clearly to the trans community across the country that we see you and we will stand with you to ensure you are protected and given the dignity and respect that every person should have,” Jayapal said in a press release. “We know that trans people, and trans people of color in particular, face some of the greatest barriers in access to opportunity, services and resources, and facing some of the worst discrimination. With this resolution, we salute the resilience and courage of trans people across our country, and outline a clear vision of what we must do in Congress in order to allow trans people to lead lead full, happy lives with the basic freedoms to housing, physical and mental healthcare, and employment without discrimination or a risk to their lives.”
The bill’s supporters cited the Supreme Court’s decision last week to overturn Roe v. Wade, which gave women the "constitutional" right to abortion in all 50 states in 1973. In the press release, the Democrats behind the "Transgender Bill of Rights" claimed “the Court seems poised and willing to take on other hard-earned constitutional rights.”
In the Supreme Court’s opinion released Friday in the abortion case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the justices wrote that the U.S. Constitution does not protect the right to abortion and determined that Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey were wrongly decided.
“The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives,” the opinion stated.
“Like the infamous decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, Roe was also egregiously wrong and on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided. Casey perpetuated its errors, calling both sides of the national controversy to resolve their debate, but in doing so, Casey necessarily declared a winning side. Those on the losing side—those who sought to advance the State’s interest in fetal life—could no longer seek to persuade their elected representatives to adopt policies consistent with their views. The Court short-circuited the democratic process by closing it to the large number of Americans who disagreed with Roe.”
The language in the opinion is similar to an amicus brief filed by Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch last summer, which Townhall covered. In her brief, Fitch urged the Supreme Court to strike down Roe and Casey.
“Roe and Casey are egregiously wrong. The conclusion that abortion is a constitutional right has no basis in text, structure, history, or tradition,” Fitch said in the brief. “So the question becomes whether this Court should overrule those decisions. It should.”
“The Constitution does not protect a right to abortion. The Constitution’s text says nothing about abortion. Nothing in the Constitution’s structure implies a right to abortion or prohibits States from restricting it,” Fitch continued in the brief. “Casey repeats Roe’s flaws by failing to tie a right to abortion to anything in the Constitution. And abortion is fundamentally different from any right this Court has ever endorsed. No other right involves, as abortion does, ‘the purposeful termination of a potential life.’”
Both Roe and Casey were overturned in the Dobbs case, sending the issue of abortion back to the states and their elected representatives. As a result, several states have created legislation to protect the unborn, while other liberal states are working to expand "abortion tourism" for out-of-state patients.