March 31 – April 4
Last week, on Transgender Day of Visibility and the following days, our community showed up powerfully to push back against a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation — and we’re so grateful to everyone who testified in person and online.
Now, several bills are moving forward and your voice is urgently needed.
TL;DR — Actions You Need to Take
- Call Your Representative (SB 10): The massive omnibus sunset bill has language in it that would make the gender-affirming healthcare and trans athlete bans in Missouri permanent. While some lawmakers admitted discomfort with these sections, the bill is still moving and has strong backing due to unrelated tax incentives. Call your representative and tell them to VOTE NO on SB 10.
- Call the Senate Families, Seniors, and Health Committee (SJR 57): The bill aiming to create a constitutional amendment to redefine sex as only “male and female” while simultaneously creating a bathroom ban for all trans, nonbinary, intersex, and two-spirit people is up for executive session. Call the Senate Families, Seniors, and Health Committee and tell them to VOTE NO on SJR 57.
A Deeper Look: SB 10
There are big threats actively moving in the Missouri Legislature attempting to make gender-affirming healthcare for youth a permanent ban in Missouri. SB 10 (R-Hough) is set to be voted on tomorrow to pass out of the House Government Efficiencies Committee. It will then move to a discussion and vote through one of the House Rules committees.
If you’re not familiar with SB 10, it is a huge omnibus bill on the topic of sunsets in laws. During the hearing last week, the bill sponsor noted that he knew some leaders would not like the sections that remove the sunsets on gender-affirming healthcare and transgender youth’s ability to play sports — he said he wasn’t there to talk about those.
Only one person, paid to speak by the LGBT Courage Coalition run by Jamie Reed, spoke in support of these pieces of the bill. Unfortunately, the bill is highly supported by lawmakers and lobbyists because of the positive tax credits that would become permanent in other sections of this bill.
Our voice matters tremendously in making sure that sections 163.048 and 191.1720 are omitted from this bill when it passes the House. We’re asking you to call your representative to VOTE NO on SB 10.
A Deeper Look: SJR 57
Last week, we also showed up to testify against SJR 57 (R-Fitzwater) in the Senate Families, Seniors, and Health Committee. This bill synonymously defines “sex” and “gender” as male and female only while requiring all publicly funded organizations and institutions to regulate restroom usage accordantly or else risk their funding. It does this by putting this to the voters through a constitutional amendment asking voters to ban access of trans, nonbinary, intersex, and two-spirit people to restrooms.
As we suspected, Republican Senators on the committee were incredibly dismissive of doctors, scientists, transgender adults, and allies advocating to stop this bill. Our fierce allies, Senators Nurrenbern and Lewis, pushed their colleagues to listen to the facts being shared by testifiers and called out the harm this bill would cause. However, Senator Nicola was extremely dismissive to any fact on the matter stating that his religious beliefs dictate how he legislates. You can hear it from him directly on how he won’t listen to doctors who disagree with God in our social media video.
We’re asking you to call the Senate Families, Seniors, and Health Committee to VOTE NO on SJR 57. We also ask you send a special thank you to Sens. Nurrenbern and Lewis for their visible display of allyship and for standing with the rights of transgender people in Missouri.
TONIGHT: House Committee Vote
The House Emerging Issues Committee voted tonight on the following bills we heard last week. For context, a passing vote moves a bill onto a House Rules Committee for another vote before it can pass to the House Floor for debate. These are the three that took place:
- HB 1362 (R-Phelps): This bill aims to erase transgender, intersex, nonbinary, and two-spirit individuals and make it extremely difficult for them to update their driver’s licenses. Combined with SB 100, these communities would find it near impossible to have ID documents that match their gender identity limiting their access to jobs, housing, education, and basic life activities and services.
- SB 160 (R-Hudson): This bill originally required universities and colleges to provide taxpayer funds to student groups that discriminated against its students based on the group’s political, ideological, or religious beliefs. Thankfully, it was amended before passing out of the senate to state groups cannot discriminate or harm other students in accordance with SCOTUS’ decision in Healy v James (1972). We oppose the idea that student groups can use their own concept of beliefs and ideologies to operate clubs and groups on campuses, as these could easily become breeding groups for white supremacist, hate-fueled rhetoric.
- SB 38 (D-Washington): The CROWN Act, whose full name is the “Missouri Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair,” is one that would protect Black public school students from race-based hair discrimination. We are thrilled to support this bill!
