On March 23, 2016, North Carolina governor Pat McCrory signed into law a piece of legislation, the effects of which would cause ripples of shock, discord, and contention throughout the social fabric of the United States. The law, House Bill 2 (HB 2), often referred to as the “bathroom bill,” prohibited the use of public restrooms in all public spaces, including government buildings and schools, for those individuals whose gender identity differed from the sex that appeared on their birth certificates (Gordon, Price, & Peralta, 2016). The law was aimed at transgender individuals. The term transgender is often defined as “An umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from the sex they were assigned at birth” (GLAAD Media Reference Guide, n.d.), although the term signifies different things for different people (Sullivan, 2009, p. 71).

Governor McCrory justified this horrific bill as an effort to buffer children and women from purported ‘sexual predators’ in public restrooms (despite there being no facts to support this assertion). In addition to legalizing discrimination against transgender individuals, HB 2 also made it impossible for workers to sue on the grounds of discrimination in state court, as well as prevented cities from actualizing social policies, such as an increase in minimum wage (Blest, 2017). McCroy, along with Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest and Speaker Tim Moore, also blocked a Charlotte, NC ordinance that sought to augment nondiscrimination practices for LGBTQ individuals (Blest, 2017).

Although the “bathroom bill” was repealed in 2017 after overwhelming pressure from citizens and businesses, many cite that a “compromise bill” (sometimes called HB 2.0) cropped up in its place, “leaving state legislators in charge of policy over multi-stall bathrooms, and [putting] a temporary halt on local governments passing nondiscrimination ordinances until 2020” (Silva, 2017). Since the bill’s initial emergence in the NC house, repercussions have reverberated throughout the nation. Copycat bills were proposed, seeking to dismantle the rights of LGBTQ individuals. Likewise, droves of supporters fought to protect LGBTQ persons. There has been an increased amount of violence against transgender individuals since 2016, with GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) reporting that 2016 was the deadliest year on record for transgender people (Schmider, 2016). Twenty-seven people were murdered (including a 16-year old). This is a rate of over two killings per month. Most of the murder victims were transgender women of color (Schmider, 2016). It is important to note that many murders of transgender people are delayed for inclusion or not included in the yearly tallies of these homicides. This is due to a variety of factors, including lack of knowledge, acknowledgment, or reporting of the gender identity of the victim (Human Rights Campaign, n.d.). There have also been accounts of individuals barging into bathrooms to verify the physical sex of the people using the restroom (Blest, 2017).

Nonetheless, some of the reaction to the bill has been overwhelmingly supportive of trans individuals: the NBA All-Star game refused to hold its event in North Carolina, the NCAA and ACC changed venues for their championship and tournament games so as not to play in North Carolina. Artists such as Bruce Springsteen refused to perform in the state, DeutscheBank and PayPal cancelled plans to expand in North Carolina, and Google Ventures decided not to invest further in the state (Blest, 2017). Unfortunately, other states have followed North Carolina’s lead. Texas’ Senate Bill 6 (SB 6) was sent for a vote by the full Texas Senate in March 2017 and passed (Ura, 2017). Though eventually defeated, SB 6 would have punished trans individuals with fines of up to $10,500 (for a second offense) when apprehended using bathrooms that do not align with the sex listed on their birth certificates. In addition to the aforementioned legislation aimed at reducing rights of trans individuals, over 100 anti-LGBTQ bills throughout twenty-nine states were introduced in 2017, with dangerous repercussions for trans individuals (Miller, 2017). Such legislation, for example, would allow universities and high schools to discriminate against LGBTQ individuals (SB 17 in Kentucky), or forbid changes to an individual’s gender marker on their birth certificates (HB 1894 in Arkansas).

Even more recently, President Trump has stated that he is seriously considering defining gender as “as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth” (Green, Benner, & Pear, 2018), with the sex listed on one’s birth certificate serving as the defining criteria for one’s identity. Such a move would undoubtedly restrict the rights of transgender individuals even further. In July 2017, Trump announced via Twitter that he was rescinding an Obama-era policy allowing transgender individuals to serve in the military and receive funding for gender confirmation surgery. This “transgender military ban” has been blocked by several lower courts, and as of December 2018 is being considered by the 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals (Barnes, 2018). It is likely that this policy change will make its way to the Supreme Court, where it will be addressed by newly reconfigured conservative court (with the recent addition of Justice Brett Kavanaugh) (Barnes, 2018). Thus, as fear and misunderstanding of trans people have heightened to a fever pitch of legislated hatred, a more in-depth discussion of transgender individuals is urgently needed.

Transgender people, also referred to as “trans” individuals, are persons whose gender identity does not align to the sex assigned to them by medical professionals at birth. However, the term transgender can signify a plethora of different things for different people. Some who fall under the transgender umbrella include people who are ‘agender’ or ‘genderless,’ identifying as neither male nor female (Weber, 2014), ‘androgynous,’ having both male and female characteristics (Weber, 2014), ‘bigender,’ identifying as male or female at different times and switching between the two (Weber, 2014), ‘demigender,’ having a partial connection to a particular gender (Gender Wiki, 2016), ‘gender creative,’ in which individuals (typically children) do not conform to particular gender norms (Sirois, 2016), ‘gender expansive,’ one who expresses their gender in ways that broaden the culturally defined behavior expectations (Welcoming Schools, 2019), ‘genderfluid,’ one who expresses both male and female characteristics at different times (Weber, 2014), ‘gender non-conforming/variant,’ one who does not act according to societal expectations for their sex (Weber, 2014), ‘gender questioning,’ one who questions their own gender identity (Weber, 2014), ‘gender non-binary,’ who disregard the idea of male/female dichotomy or continuum with androgyny in the middle and view gender as more of a web or three-dimensional model (Weber, 2014), ‘two spirit,’ indigenous Americans who possess attributes of both genders with distinct social/tribal roles (GLAAD, n.d.), ‘intersex,’ those individuals born with indeterminate genitalia/reproductive organs, and/or different chromosomal constitution (GLAAD, n.d.), and ‘pangender,’ those who identify as a third gender with both male and female aspects (Weber, 2014), to name just a few.

In order to understand transgender persons, it is imperative to examine the psychosocial forces at work while they were children. Kohlberg’s theory of gender development (1966) is a useful lens by which to study the trajectory of trans individuals, as it suggests that a child’s own understanding of gender proceeds in stages. Progressive development through these stages solidifies and becomes more complex. The first stage, gender identity , is usually reached around age two, at which point, the child ...