What It’s Like Living As a Trans Floridian
by: mike morse (they/he), 7/24/2023
Living as a Trans American means constantly feeling like I’m fighting for the right to live. The past year, I have watched states create legislation that bans trans existence, through denying medical care, name changes, proper name and pronoun use in schools, and bathroom access. While some states have created protections, federal lawmakers are now targeting trans people at a national level as well, currently through amendments to an FDA appropriations bill. Nowhere feels safe anymore as a trans person, so all that’s left to do is fight back.
Throughout the month of June, I attended three Florida Board of Medicine meetings, two in-person and one on Zoom. I chose to attend these meetings as a body and voice in protest of the Board members creating strict requirements that mandate trans people to jump through harsh hoops, such as demanding more check-ups, medical tests, and psychiatric assessments, in order to receive gender affirming care. Starting on May 17, Florida’s HB 1421 and SB 254 required that Florida’s Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine create informed consent forms (ICFs) to allow both adults and minors to continue gender affirming care. By the end of these three sessions, the Boards decided to make the ICFs as complex as possible. In my opinion, their requirements, such as unnecessary appointments and tests, are outside the scope of standards that should be allowed to be set by a state-appointed body; these are medical practices that should be determined by the individuals’ provider. The bill also prevents nurse practitioners from prescribing hormone replacement therapy, requiring 80% of trans Floridians to find new providers, myself included.
My journey with testosterone (T) therapy has been a bit of a roller coaster — while overall I have appreciated and thrived from the effects of T, like any other medication I have experienced some side effects. A little over a year ago, I decided that the side effects were affecting me more than I could handle, and felt as though my body needed a break. Now, I am looking at restarting my hormone treatment, however I am unable to find a doctor to continue care through. Before the bills came into effect, my provider (who is a nurse practitioner) helped me stockpile around 6 months of T, even though at the time I was still not ready to restart my treatment. Unfortunately, since I did not technically begin my hormone treatment before HB 1421 went into effect, I am not considered a “gender care patient” at my clinic, and therefore they are not allowed to treat or monitor me for using T. I now face this personal dilemma — do I try to find a new doctor, and compete with tens of thousands of other trans patients trying to establish care as a new patient with the handful of doctors who are willing to see trans patients in this state? Or do I start my own DIY treatment, learn how to order my own blood work tests, and monitor my own hormone levels? I’m sure as hell not the only trans person sitting at this crossroads right now.
On July 1, Florida’s bathroom ban (HB 1521) also came into effect. This ban prevents individuals from using the bathrooms or changing rooms aligned with their gender identity in state-funded or subsidized facilities (such as airports, parks/beaches, schools, universities, government buildings, libraries, even state-subsidized sports fields). Using the “incorrect” bathroom is now considered a criminal offense. Instead, we are required to use restrooms affiliated with our sex at birth, where sex is defined based on whether an individual produces eggs or sperm for reproductive purposes. If an individual uses the room affiliated with their gender identity rather than their sex, and refuses to leave after being asked, they are subject to trespassing charges, which can result in 1-year sentences. According to them magazine:
In Florida, trespass is either a first- or second-degree misdemeanor, depending on whether or not someone else is present at the time of the incident. Considering the nature of the Safety in Private Spaces Act though, it’s likely that most cases would receive a first-degree misdemeanor charge, which carries a prison term of up to one year or a $1,000 fine.
I know many trans people are also worried about the possibility that sex offender charges may eventually become a part of the disciplinary responses, especially if someone is charged in a space where a child is present. Although I do not see this concept in the finalized law, early drafts of the bill contained sinister wording that suggested some people choose to enter the “wrong” restroom for “the purpose of arousing or gratifying a sexual desire.” Even though this terminology was not ultimately included in the law, it doesn’t undo the harm that it perpetuated against the perception of our community, since we already receive such negative reputations for using restrooms in public. The law is worded so vaguely that it seems that every state-sanctioned facility will be able to create their own rules and regulations when enforcing it. Additionally, every state-financed institution will be required to submit their plan for implementing this new law by April 1, 2024. Should any state-financed entity NOT abide by this law, the state Attorney General is encouraged to subject the entity to disciplinary action, including a fine of up to $10,000, which will go to the “General Revenue Fund”; this law is just another money making scheme for the state.
On a personal note, this law is already having a tremendous impact on my life. If I can help it at all, I only use the bathroom at home, at a friend’s house, or in a place that I absolutely trust. If those places are inaccessible to me, I need to first look for a private business and also hope they have single stall restrooms. Although I am aware that private establishments do not have the same legal basis to block me from using the restroom of my choice, the very existence of these laws will enable the transphobic individuals who support this legislation to harass or attack trans people anywhere they want. Choosing to use a public restroom presents a risk that elicits such extreme anxiety in my body, I would rather avoid the situation altogether. All my trans friends move similarly through public life at this point.
Last week, I took what I consider to be a pretty great risk. I was at a county public park, there were children around, whole families, and I really had to pee. I found restrooms — they were not single stalls. I chose to enter the women’s room, since that is legally where I “should” go, and to my relief it was empty. I sat down quickly to release my pee — the whole time I could feel my face was flush, heart pounding, toes tapping as I eagerly awaited someone else to come in and notice me. By the time my long stream, which I had been holding in for entirely too long, had ended, no one else had entered, so I decided to wash my hands as well. The second I stepped out of the restroom a man approached me. My stomach sank, and my heart beat so fast I was convinced it would fly out of my chest. My gut told me to run immediately. But after a moment, all he asked was “anyone else in there?” I replied no, so he locked the door behind me and then proceeded to lock the men’s room as well. I was so relieved, but this fear will continue to hit me anytime I choose to use a public restroom until this ban is overturned. Typically, I do not dare enter any restroom alone at this point if I can help it; safety in numbers has never felt more real.
Trans people won’t be the only ones affected by this either. Cis women who appear “masculine” and cis men who appear “feminine” in any way are at risk for harassment and questioning as well. This already happened in Las Vegas, a place where bathroom bans do not exist yet. Additionally, trans women and transfeminine people will likely face significantly more violence as a result of these laws, due to the nature of the violence transfems face. Although these lawmakers have made many generalized transphobic comments, they have also made some especially heinous, explicitly transmisogynistic statements (that I do not wish to repeat.)
I consider myself to be quite privileged, as a white, relatively healthy, twenty-something year old transmasc person. While these laws will affect me, I am definitely not at the highest risk. Black, brown, and Indigenous trans folk already suffer violence at exponentially higher rates compared to white trans people. This difference in violence is sure to transfer over to how these bathroom laws are implemented. The wording of the law focuses at length on how these bans will be reinforced within state correctional facilities, places in which state-sanctioned violence already occurs at an extreme level, especially since nearly half of the incarcerated population in the state of Florida is Black, while Black people only make up 14% of the overall state population.
As a white trans person, I already see a lot of racism within the trans community, and it is now more important than ever that I do everything in my power to combat this. Especially as some of the gender affirming care bans are being overturned and fought for being unconstitutional, trans people will continue to medically transition, and then be at higher risk of being charged with being in the wrong bathroom. I believe academics might even consider this to be a new prison pipeline — I have tentatively titled it myself the “transition to prison pipeline.” As of 2016, trans people were already more than 4x more likely to be arrested than the cis population: “16 percent of trans-identified adults have been incarcerated, compared to 2.7 percent of cisgender adults.” This law will disproportionately punish trans people of color, so we, as a trans community, need to do everything in our power to be prepared to help each other out during this time through community organizing, bail funds, and other systems of social support.
Additionally, children are being targeted by this and other anti-trans and anti-lgbtq+ laws being passed with regards to school policies. Already, children (and teachers) are being denied from being allowed to use their pronouns or chosen names at school. They are also being required to use the bathroom related to their assigned sex at birth, although schools are given the ‘option’ to build gender neutral bathrooms should they choose (however very few schools will want to spend the money on this construction project.) Time and time again studies and real life experiences have shown that social support is the number one necessity for trans people, both children and adults, to live a full and meaningful life. Children will die because of these laws. A 13-year-old Australian trans boy recently committed suicide after not being accepted at school, even though his own family was accepting. Children are already an oppressed class, and these laws are being passed under the guise as “protecting the children/parents rights,” but in reality they are merely removing more autonomy from children, and reinforcing unhealthy power dynamics between adults and children.
These fascist laws being introduced by Florida lawmakers and reinforced by (mostly Desantis-appointed) professional boards are doing nothing but playing out a political agenda that attempts to eradicate transness. These so-called “experts” are ignoring decades of research that proves trans-affirming care and social support are the best way to improve the overall lives of trans people. Rather than using their public positions to stand up for and protect the public, these evil and insidious individuals are prioritizing personal profit and power. For a wide range of reasons, an unfathomable amount of preventable deaths of trans folks will occur over the upcoming years because of these laws. There is no other way to discuss these laws without acknowledging that they are contributing to trans genocide.
To me, being trans is all about the community I’m a part of. If it weren’t for my community, I do not believe I would be able to live a life that I am happy with. The only way we, the trans community, will be able to effectively fight this genocide is to truly lean into one another. We need to organize, support, and encourage each other more than ever. We need to show up and take care of ourselves and each other in the ways that the rest of the world refuses to. We need more safe spaces, more trans-prioritizing medical providers, more peer housing and food circles. Living in fear will only cause us to succumb to the pressures that want us dead. I personally refuse to back down until I know that we’re all being taken care of.
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