
Pride Flags hang from the Arizona State Capitol Executive office tower west wing building in Maricopa County during Pride Month in celebration of a diverse LGBTQ+ community in Phoenix, Arizona, on June 4, 2024. The flags began flying from the building during Pride Month for the first time under Arizona's Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs in 2023, in stark contrast to anti-LGBTQ+ legislation from Republican lawmakers in Arizona. Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images.
Many within Arizona’s LGBTQ community expect to see an increase in legislation that targets them due to the Republican majority that will once again control Arizona’s state house.
This would be an increase in an already high number of anti-LGBTQ bills that get proposed in Arizona’s legislature every single session.
Donald Trump’s reelection has further put the LGBTQ community on edge. Trump has stated explicitly that he would ban transgender individuals from serving in the military, and in general has stood hard in opposition to LGBTQ rights.
Arizona Trans Youth and Parent Organization (AZTYPO), a non-profit focused on providing safe spaces for families with gender-diverse children, holds support groups about once a week for transgender youth and their families, and they don’t plan on letting up.
“We’re just going to keep on, keeping on,” said Tami Staas, executive director of AZTYPO. “We’re not going to change what we’re doing, we’re going to keep meeting the needs of families.”
The organization has held two support groups since Election Day, and attendance has doubled — people Staas hasn’t seen in attendance in years have shown up.
“People are scared,” Staas said.
The immediate reaction following the election of Donald Trump was, “where can I go? Should I leave the state or the country?” Staas said. But most things are speculative at this point, and people are playing the waiting game, she said.
Project 2025 is the main driver of the fear the community is feeling, and it is what concerns House Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos, D-Laveen, the most.
“If Project 2025 does come to be implemented, you could have people being fired across the country, including here in Arizona, because they’re gay or because they’re trans,” De Los Santos said. “People’s lives are on the line, and people’s livelihoods are on the line.”
De Los Santos, who is also co-chair of the Arizona LGBTQ Legislative Caucus, believes that Republicans in Arizona’s legislature will introduce copycat bills based on Project 2025.
“The LGBTQ Caucus is going to be ready to defend against those kinds of terrible bills and to make sure that Arizona is a place where everybody, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation, can thrive,” De Los Santos said. “Project 2025 is a blueprint for discrimination, and we want to make sure that that doesn’t come to pass here in Arizona.”
What to expect
Because of the election of Donald Trump, Republican legislators in Arizona may be more emboldened to take action against the LGBTQ community, said Bridget Sharpe, Arizona state director of the Human Rights Campaign.
De Los Santos has proposed a statewide nondiscrimination bill in the past that he plans to bring back, but it likely faces the same fate as in the past — not even being heard in committees.
Committee chairs decide on which bills to vote for, and Republicans—who in the past have focused more on anti-LGBTQ legislation than measures to protect residents from discrimination—control the legislature and are unlikely to bring De Los Santos’ bill to a vote.
There’s a large coalition of LGBTQ rights groups in this state that have been “battle-hardened” at Arizona’s state house – and they don’t plan on backing down, said Gaelle Esposito, a trans woman and lobbyist with the progressive firm Creosote Partners.
HRC AZ will continue to be a presence at the state capitol, both to hold those behind legislation attacking the community accountable and to create opportunities for the majority party to have conversations with the LGBTQ community, Sharpe said.
Now, visibility is more important than ever; it’s what humanizes a community and helps people to learn more about and sympathize with, Esposito said.
The illusion of “saving children”
A number of bills proposed by Republicans in previous years that would negatively affect the LGBTQ community are rooted in one thing: the idea that they need to “protect and save” children in some way. What they intend to protect youth from, however, is unclear:
LGBTQ individuals are not more likely to assault a minor than anyone else is: in fact, LGBTQ youth are nearly four times as likely to experience child sexual abuse than their straight, cisgender peers.
The proposed legislation also often tends to be centered around youth, specifically transgender youth.
“The [Republicans] get to valorize themselves in a really perverse way, trying to claim it a title of like these, protectors of children, and it’s all a smoke screen for bigger and larger attacks,” Esposito said. “It’s all an attempt to take what is a natural instinct for every parent to worry about their kid…and weaponize it to drive wedges between families and their kids.”
The argument is comparable to the conversations that surrounded legalizing same-sex marriage years ago, and during the HIV/AIDS crisis, Sharpe said: basically, “is it safe for kids to be around gay people?”
“In reality, these kids just want to be themselves; they want the freedom to be themselves,” Sharpe said. “They’re just hearing this horrible rhetoric from the adults in their life, and unfortunately, some of those adults are elected to run our state.”
The Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on suicide prevention among the LGBTQ community, reported a 700% increase in crisis calls from LGBTQ youth following the election.
LGBTQ young people who reported living in very accepting communities attempted suicide at less than half the rate of those who reported living in very unaccepting communities, according to the Trevor Project.
They also found that 39% of LGBTQ young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year — including 46% of transgender and nonbinary youth.
“If you really wanted to protect kids, you would want to see that reduction in suicide rate. If you really wanted to protect kids, you would let them be who they really are, instead of forcing them into some box that you think they should be,” Staas said. “If they [Republicans] wanted to protect kids, they would support them.”
The idea that teachers are encouraging their students to “change sexes” is baseless. Instead, there are educators across Arizona who are simply supportive of their LGBTQ students – but are being demonized as groomers by the far right, Sharpe said.
A refusal to understand
Because Republicans certainly face a veto from Gov. Katie Hobbs for any anti-LGBT legislation, ballot referrals will be one way around the executive branch to send bills right to the voters.
Sen. Ken Bennett, R-Prescott, garnered attention for voting to block a bill that would ban trans students from using school facilities that align with their gender identity and ban school employees from using a student’s preferred name and pronouns without parental consent.
The bill would have bypassed Hobbs and went straight to the ballot for voters to decide on had Bennett not cast a “no” vote.
Bennett was the lone Republican who voted against the ballot referral. He will not be returning to the legislature, however, as he lost his primary to Mark Finchem, who was elected into office this month.
Finchem previously voted in support of a bill that prohibits transgender female students from sports designated for females and supports allowing parents to seek conversion therapy for their children.
“I think the lesson of Ken Bennett is that human decency is not partisanly sorted, but the incentives within the Republican Party are currently aligned against it,” Esposito said. “He listened and he respected the voices of trans youth and their parents, medical professionals, and was willing to grow and acknowledge that.”
Most Republicans are unwilling to have conversations or try to understand the trans and LGBTQ community, Staas said. “I’m more than willing to sit down with anyone from the right. I’d love to meet with them, I’d love to tell them about my family,” she said.
Speaking from experience, however, Esposito believes it will be difficult to find support from Republicans when it comes to protecting the LGBTQ community, because even though some might have empathy for the community, political incentives don’t let them express it.
The months of political ads that attacked transgender people, on top of new legislation every year that attempts to remove rights from the community, make it easy to feel afraid, Esposito said.
Much of the political conversation is centered around trans youth, but the attacks from the right go beyond this group — negative effects will be felt by trans people of all ages, Esposito said. Accessing healthcare and changing identification documents are the first battles the community will likely need to fight, she said.
In Florida, it is nearly impossible for a transgender person of any age to find coverage for gender-affirming healthcare, and that is what Republicans in Arizona have their goals set on, Esposito said.
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