In Missouri, the recent emergency rule issued by Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey banning gender-affirming care for both minors and adults has caused alarm and concern for the transgender community. The state’s most extreme restrictions on healthcare for transgender people have left faith leaders like Rabbi Daniel Bogard considering fleeing the state. Bogard’s son, who is just nine years old, requires gender-affirming care that includes haircuts and clothes, but the new rule has left Bogard and other trans parents in the state fearing the government may come to take away their children.
The language used to describe the totality of what’s happening in Missouri is hard to find, and words like “fascism” and comparisons to the treatment of European Jews leading up to the Holocaust can be easily dismissed. However, Bogard and others in the state feel that the situation is akin to being a Jew in 1930s Europe, and they fear the situation will only get worse.
Trans people in the state are scrambling, with rumors of lifesaving gender-affirming care being available in Illinois, but even that option is uncertain. Behind the anti-trans policies in Missouri and elsewhere in the country is a rhetoric of otherization and demonization of trans people and trans bodies. Bogard estimates he has lobbied and testified in Jefferson City about a dozen times this year, begging for protection of trans rights.
Missouri’s Democrats, though they have no power, fight with every ounce they have for the state’s trans kids. However, national Democrats need to do more to understand the urgency of protecting trans rights and do everything they can to fight the GOP’s attacks. As Bogard says, protecting trans rights is the fight of our generation, and we need national Democrats to stand up and do more.
As a rabbi, Bogard finds hope in the thousands of years of stories about trans Jews. There have always been trans Jews because being trans is just another way of being human. Bogard points to the Reform Movement’s support for trans rabbis officiating marriages and the officiated conversions of trans people, as well as their position paper on the human dignity of trans folks, as proof that being trans and being Jewish are not mutually exclusive. Bogard also notes that anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ hate is closely linked to anti-Semitism and calls on Christians to stand up for trans Missourians.