LAUSR

What is the current U.S. sociopolitical climate like for transgender people? On July 26, 2017, President Donald Trump tweeted that after consultation with his generals and military experts “the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military” (Hennigan, Los Angeles Times, Thursday, July 27, p. A10). A 2016 Rand study commissioned by the Pentagon estimated that as many as 6,630 of the 1.3 million military service members are transgender personnel (Rand Corp., June 30, 2016). This action was just the latest in a series of events discriminating against transgender men and women. In February 2017, the Trump Administration withdrew the protections that President Obama had instituted for transgender students in public schools; and on March 6th the Supreme Court refused to hear the case of a transgender student from Virginia who had sued to use the boys’ bathroom at school (Wright, 2017). This left the issue up to individual states. From 2013 to 2016, at least 24 states considered “bathroom bills,” or legislation that would restrict access to multiuser restrooms, locker rooms, and other sex-segregated facilities on the basis of a definition of sex or gender consistent with sex assigned at birth or “biological sex” (National Conference of State Legislatures, April 12, 2017). North Carolina enacted this type of legislation and later repealed it because of boycotts and other organized reactions from the law’s opponents. Legislation is still pending in Missouri, South Carolina and Texas (NCSL, 2017). However, Texas is moving the legislation along. In the hours just after midnight on July 25, 2017, the Texas state Senate gave final approval to a bill restricting public restroom access for transgender people (Ura, The Texas Tribune, July 26, 2017). The Republican-controlled Senate in Texas approved a proposal mandating that transgender people use public restrooms based