A Guide for defending Trans Rights in the Round House (2025)
Lookout for These Sponsors
NM House of Representatives:
Rod Montoya (R) HD-1
Mark Duncan (R) HD-2
Brian G. Baca (R) HD-8
Stefani Lord (R) HD-22
Alan T. Martinez (R) HD-23
Jenifer Jones (R) HD-32
Rebecca Dow (R) HD-38
Luis Terrazas (R) HD-39
Gail Armstrong (R) HD-49
John Block (R) HD-51
Cathrynn N. Brown (R) HD-55
Harlan Vincent (R) HD-56
Randall T. Pettigrew (R) HD-61
Andrea Reeb (R) HD-64
Jimmy Mason (R) HD-66
NM State Senate:
William Sharer (R) SD-1
Jay Block (R) SD-12
Candy Spence Ezzell (R) SD-32
David M. Gallegos (R) SD-41
Gabriel Ramos (R) SD-
Larry R. Scott (R) SD-42
These lists are made up of: all sponsors to NM HB 205 (2023), Candidates who won there elections featuring anti-trans talking points; (including but not limited to abortion restrictions).
Legislators are listed in order of District #.
Bolded Names are expected to introduce a disproportionate number of anti-rights bills.
Lookout for These Red Flags
Attempted Previously in New Mexico
Restrictions on Abortions
"Women's Rights" (excluding trans women)
Parents' Rights (at the expense on their child's rights)
Parental Notification/Consent (forced outting)
"Biological" Males/Females ("Biological" is the dog whistle because it is a refusal to use the word "cisgender", transgender people are still biological.)
Women's Sports Regulations (that only allow cisgender participation.)
Religious Beliefs of Medical Providers (Essentially giving EMS and medical providers the ability to refuse to render care to trans people or other groups)
"Single-Sex" Facilities (Putting trans people in inappropriate and unsafe prisons, emergency shelters, but also restrooms, dorms, and locker rooms.)
Pro Tip: When you're reading a bill for the first time, use the ctrl+f shortcut on adobe and/or chrome and enter the words "Sex", "Gender", "Biological", "hormon"*, "male"/"female", "binary", "groom", "birth", "genitals" etc. This will highlight each instance of whatever you entered, and if the titles of the bills feature any of the language featured above, or are sponsored by any of the legislators listed above, this will take you directly to the anti-trans material
*
Potential Inspirations from Other States
Repealing/Amending Anti-Discrimination Laws
Anything having to do with removing "DEI", "Gender ideology" or "Non-traditional lifestyles".
Voter ID laws (bad in general, but trans people who are somewhere in the midst of changing their legal name are included with the other groups targeted.)
Changes to ID laws that limit sex marker options, or require an explanation for a name change, or limit situations wherein a name can be changed. (see common assumptions.)
Any Changes to the definition(s) of:
Marriage
Gender/Sex/Male/Female/Man/Woman
Gender Affirming healthcare
Any new form of data collection/publishing or intergovernmental distribution/exchange that includes information on the following: gender, sex, sexual orientation, STI status, medications, pronouns etc.
Lookout for Opportunities to Make Progress
Republican Strategy Predictions 2025
Newly elected republican legislators are coming hot off of a blatantly transphobic campaign trail, and will feel as though they need to deliver on their anti-trans promises.
Instead of Sitting and waiting to play defense, continue forward with the momentum that has been building for the last few years. Advocate for pro-LGBTQ+ and pro-trans policies so that the excited opposition can know that hatred won't go over well with their new audience.
If you are wondering what is left for NM to do in terms of LGBTQ+ rights, this is a link to the scorecard by the Human Rights Campaign. Look for the areas where improvement are still needed.
[More on this Coming Soon.]
Lookout for Common Narratives
Top 3 Most Common Anti-Trans Legislative Efforts
Top 3 Most Common Anti-Trans Legislative Efforts
Parental Rights
These bills present themselves as a demand for increased parental notification for any medical situation that may occur while the student is in school.
However, nearly all of these bills feature language that would specifically require that schools provide notice before:
any LGBTQ+ or Pro-Equality guest speakers visit a school; and
any discussion relating to LGBTQ+ people takes place during a class, after-school club, or other special event.
The notification is typically followed by a stipulation that no such event/class is required of all students and that parents have the choice to opt out of such a class/event, even if the child wants to attend.
Continuing with that theme, these bills often require that teachers who know of a student who is using pronouns at school that differ from the ones they use at home to disclose that information to the parents, even in situations where the teacher has reason to believe that doing so may result in child abuse, the child being pulled out of the school by abusive parents, or subject to other forms of neglect and/or mistreatment.
These mandatory disclosure laws sometimes also are applied to medical care, which leave no room for people below the age of 18 to work with their doctors to decide their own care for things like vaccines, contraception, abortion, gender affirming care, STI treatments, mental health conditions (depression, autism, suicidal thoughts
Restrictions on access to gender affirming care for minors
Almost always, these laws are followed by legislation attempting to ban or at least refuse coverage for gender affirming care for adults.
Doctors agree, Patients agree, and the statistics support the practice of providing gender affirming care for minors. [READ THIS]
Protecting women's' sports
These laws aim to prevent transgender women/girls from playing on teams with cisgender women/girls. Sometimes, these laws are written to only let transgender athletes play in against cisgender athletes of the opposite binary gender, and sometimes these laws just prohibit transgender athletes from participating, and the third kind is ultimately the point of the other two. No laws specifically prohibit trans men/boys from participating in women's sports.
In its most disturbing form, legislators in other states have actually proposed genital inspections of student athletes to ensure that transgender students are not attempting to play soccer with their friends.
Typically these laws only apply to middle and high school students and amounts to socially isolating children by excluding them from their teammates.
Some laws are presented as though they will effect collegiate or professional sports, but the NCAA makes the rules for college, and each league makes their own rules for Professionals. The Olympics has its own bylaws depending on each sport, and state legislatures aren't in charge. Federally, laws could be passed that impact the NCAA or Professional Leagues, but professional sports rarely have trans people playing.
On average, Trans women are taller[1] and faster[2], but some cisgender women are taller than the average transwoman, and some cisgender women are faster than the some trans woman. Athletic competition is influenced by genetic mutations [3], diet [4], schedule [5], socio-economic background in childhood[6], month when a person was born[7], and while being transgender may on average result in a certain advantage in some sports, every person has a unique number of traits that may be advantageous or disadvantageous on average.
We don't segregate sports based on race or ancestry anymore, and we shouldn't go back to doing that regardless of any differences in athletic performance between races[I don't want to link to any of these]. Why start segregating athletic competition when the performance differences between trans and cis athletes are comparable to the differences between racial groups?
Again, State regulations against transgender athletic participation mostly prevent 10-year-olds from spending time with their friends doing something constructive/beneficial for their physical/mental/social health.
Glossary
Cisgender ("Cis"). adj. Having a gender identity that does correlate with the sex one was assigned at birth.(Opposite of transgender)
Intersex. adj. Having biological gender markers that cannot easily be categorized as being male or female.
Non-Binary. ("NB" or "Enby") adj. Having a gender identity that does not align with being a man or woman, or lacking a gender identity, or having variable/multiple gender identities.
Binary. Adj. Being a man or woman.
Transgender ("Trans"). adj. Having a gender identity that does not correlate with the sex one was assigned at birth. (Opposite of cisgender)
Transmisogyny. n. the societal practice that subjects all transgender people to mistreatment but to varied degrees, binary transgender men are subject to less abuse/mistreatment compared to gender non-conforming people and transgender women.
Resources
NM Legislature Website: https://www.nmlegis.gov
Site Dedicated to this Topic: https://translegislation.com/learn
ACLU Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill Tracker: https://www.aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights-2024
