Faced with wave of hostile bills, transgender rights leaders are playing “a defense game”

For decades, the plotline for LGBTQ+ activism in the U.S. was one of advances — often slow-paced and hard-fought but inexorably moving forward. Now, faced with unprecedented attacks in state legislatures, transgender rights leaders acknowledge they are playing defense — and two of the biggest groups are joining forces to counter the onslaught.

“This is going to be a defense game — and a movement-strengthening game,” said Andy Marra, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund. “We have witnessed a sophisticated, well-coordinated and highly resourced effort to dismantle the years of progress that our movement has made.”

The essence of the attack: Scores of bills enacted in Republican-governed states over the past few years targeting transgender people. Many of laws ban gender-affirming medical care for trans minors or bar trans athletes from competing on girls’ and women’s scholastic sports teams.

With a new wave of anti-trans measures already introduced this year, the TLDEF and the National Center for Transgender Equality announced in January that they plan to merge this summer. The new organization will be called Advocates for Trans Equality; Marra will be its CEO, while its executive director will be Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, who now holds that title with the NCTE.

Marra said a key moment in deciding to consider the merger came in 2022. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott, both Republicans, directed state child protection workers to investigate families of trans children for what Abbott termed “abusive gender-transitioning services.”

“I knew we needed a stronger, bolder response to the unprecedented vitriol and legislative attacks on trans people nationwide,” Marra said.

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