What we are witnessing in the Wisconsin State Legislature and across the United States is nothing short of a calculated and deeply injurious campaign against transgender people, particularly transgender youth, driven by Republican lawmakers who have chosen to weaponize identity for political gain. There is no better way to define it. This relentless barrage of legislation is not merely misguided; it is cruel, unnecessary, and morally indefensible.

These bills do not emerge from any genuine concern for fairness, safety, or educational integrity. Instead, they are crafted to stigmatize, marginalize, and dehumanize a small and vulnerable group of young people who are simply trying to navigate their adolescence with the same dignity and freedom afforded to their straight and gay peers. The notion that teenagers—already grappling with the complexities of identity, belonging, and self‑worth—should be thrust into the center of a manufactured culture war is abhorrent.

In Madison, during this session, numerous bills have been introduced. Last month, a flurry of activity occurred on the floor as five bills passed along party-line votes. They were measures dealing with gender transition surgeries on minors and allowing people to sue hospitals for any “physical, psychological, emotional, or physiological injury” caused by such operations. Other bills would force K-12 schools and colleges to create policies blocking transgender students from playing on sports teams that don’t correspond with the gender on their birth certificates, prohibit male students from using female locker rooms, and create a new avenue for female college students to sue campuses that don’t follow those policies. 

The GOP has once again identified a minority group to vilify, and the pattern is unmistakable. Rather than addressing the pressing issues that actually affect American families, ranging from healthcare access, economic stability, public safety with gun violence, and childcare costs, they have chosen to fixate on policing the identities of people. It is a mean-spirited diversion, a cynical exploitation of fear and misunderstanding for partisan purposes, and it reveals a profound dereliction of what I consider moral leadership.

What makes this onslaught particularly reprehensible is its utter lack of necessity. Transgender youth are not harming anyone by existing. They are not undermining society by participating in sports, using appropriate facilities, or seeking medically supported care. The only “threat” they pose is to the fragile worldview of those who cannot tolerate difference. And rather than cultivating empathy or understanding, these lawmakers have opted for punitive legislation that inflicts real harm, ranging from psychological to social, and in some cases, physical.

While I do not personally understand the issues of being a trans person, nor do I need to in order to have empathy, I can very much speak to being a gay teenager. As such, I can stand firmly and state it is unconscionable to legislate suffering onto young people who are already disproportionately vulnerable to bullying, depression, and self‑harm. These bills do not protect anyone; they endanger lives. And it simply must not be accepted by the citizens of our state or country.

I find this crusade not only mean‑spirited but profoundly un-American. A nation that prides itself on liberty and justice cannot, in good conscience, allow its elected officials to scapegoat a marginalized group for political theater. We should be expanding compassion, not constricting it. We should safeguard the rights of all students, not selectively strip them away.

History will not look kindly on this moment. And it shouldn’t.