If you're one of the 70 percent of Americans who don't know a transgender person, hi. My name is Leigh Finke, my pronouns are she/her/hers, I'm a parent, I live in a rental, I have a great girlfriend, a strong community in Minnesota, and I'm a member of the House of Representatives.
I will be in 2022 First openly transgender state legislatorOver the past two years, I have worked with Governor Tim Walz and Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan to pass at least six pieces of legislation protecting the rights and access to health care for transgender people, many of which I authored. I love being transgender, I love my community, and I am honored to have the opportunity to fight for our future.
The biggest initiative we did in Minnesota, and the one that got the most attention, was Trans Haven StateThe Transgender Protection Act protects transgender, nonbinary and Two-Spirit patients and their families who come to Minnesota for transgender health care, shielding them from other state laws that limit or prohibit their access to that care. I think of this as a bubble law. If you are in the Minnesota bubble for this care, you will be protected by our values of bodily autonomy, access to world-class health care, and independent decision-making free from government interference.
Like all medical care, transgender medical decisions are complex and individualized. In Minnesota, we treat transgender people as such and allow patients and families to decide how best to proceed. The values of Minnesota's transgender law are the same as those of Minnesota as a whole: compassion and bodily autonomy, freedom, and dignity.
Transgender health care is health care, and transgender people are happier and healthier after transitioning. There's no question about that. NCTE surveys 92,000 transgender Americans And 94 percent say they are satisfied with their life after transitioning. Affirmative healthcare allows transgender people to live their best lives. It is healthcare that helps us become the best version of ourselves.
The Trans Refugee Act also provides that if a transgender minor is in Minnesota to receive medical care and the minor's parents disagree about how that care should be administered, a Minnesota court can hear the dispute and determine whether transition-related medical care is in the patient's best interest.
Contrary to what J.D. Vance and many on the conservative right say, is saying Minnesota does not have a legal mechanism to remove a child from parental custody because of a transgender medical decision, nor can Minnesota force a patient to undergo gender transition-related medical care. Minnesota does not have a mechanism to grant custody of someone else's child to a non-parent adult for the purposes of receiving gender transition-related medical care. These scenarios of forced gender transition and loss of child custody are pure fiction.
Disinformation like this, spread for political gain, is a problem we face every day as trans advocates. These lies spread fear born of mistrust and a lack of understanding of difference. This hateful rhetoric is constant and harmful, and follows a long and tedious history of anti-queer politics.
For a century, radical political movements in the United States have fought to undermine the rights of LGBTQ people to live their true, happy lives. The same obsessive lies about who we are, how we live, and how we love have been spread for decades, leaving us vulnerable to discrimination, rejection, arrest, and violence.
In the 1950s, we were fired from our civil service jobs for hiding our homosexuality. In the 1960s and 1970s, police raided our social gatherings, arrested us, and exposed us in local newspapers. In the 1980s, the federal government mocked and ignored the HIV epidemic that would claim the lives of 500,000 Americans. In the 21st century, same-sex marriage was seen as a dangerous threat to the entirety of human civilization. When that false threat crumbled, the government turned its attack on transgender people.
The fact is, we are here, we will stay here, and we just want to live a life of safety and dignity like everyone else.
I am proud to work with Tim Walz to make Minnesota a beacon of hope for the transgender community. Right-wing panic-inducing rhetoric about queer people and our civil rights has destroyed countless families and taken too many lives. These lies must be vigorously rejected. Transgender lives must be seen as equally worthy of dignity and protection.
Leigh Finke represents St. Paul in the Minnesota House of Representatives. She is the first transgender person elected to the state legislature and serves as the chair of the Minnesota Queer Legislative Caucus.
