From athlete bans to canceled surgeries, it’s been a tough year to be transgender in Tennessee.
Earlier this year, WPLN News spoke with one trans high schooler in the wake of a legislative session that passed a record-breaking number of anti-trans law.
Lennon Freitas is a sophomore in Metro Nashville Public Schools. Since we last spoke, he’s changed schools, entered a new grade and started hormone therapy.
Testosterone deepens the voice and helps with growing facial hair. The treatments have been going well, for the most part, but Freitas has had to contend with a global syringe shortage.
“It is a nightmare to get needles for it. So, I end up missing a lot (of treatments),” Freitas says. “I just had to buy a hundred needles on Amazon. And I look like a drug addict on my Amazon. I’m not. I just want my testosterone.”
Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where Freitas gets checkups for his testosterone, has come under fire from Tennessee lawmakers for its gender-affirming care.
Earlier this year, Vanderbilt paused all pediatric transgender surgeries at the request of statehouse Republicans. VUMC says it was doing around five chest surgeries a year for those transitioning to male.
Freitas is not old enough yet to qualify for that surgery — you have to be at least 16 with a parent’s permission — but it does worry him.
“It’s just very difficult to get in touch with them about any transgender things. But I feel like that might have always been like that,” Freitas says. “I’m noticing it more now that I realized the severity of it.”
It’s not just gender-affirming surgeries under threat. The first bill proposed for this upcoming legislative session would ban the kind of hormone therapy Freitas is taking now.
There is language in Senate Bill 1 that would allow teenagers already on hormone therapy to continue their treatments. But if it were to pass, it would be the third year in a row that the statehouse has peeled back the rights of transgender Tennesseans.
Freitas says he wishes lawmakers would listen to trans teens like himself.
“I still believe that it’s possible to make a change here in Nashville for trans youth and trans adults,” Freitas says. “And I’m someone who’s willing to stay here and fight as long as I can. But if I lose my own rights, I’m just going to leave because I’d rather be safe than struggling here.”
If Freitas were to leave, he wouldn’t be the first. Earlier this year, two families who were suing the state on behalf of their trans kids left Tennessee. WPLN News spoke with one mom on her decision to leave.
It’s a choice that’s weighing heavily on families of trans kids. This year, anti-trans sentiment has impacted all aspects of life, from health care to education to self-expression.
Health care
Currently, the only law on the books limiting gender-affirming care for minors doesn’t really impact the care trans kids are getting in the state. But that could soon change.
GOP lawmakers propose ban on transgender healthcare for minors as first bill of 2023
Conservative lawmakers across the country have turned their attention to anti-trans legislation this year. That had already been the trend in Tennessee, but after a far-right podcaster railed against VUMC, it put Nashville in the national spotlight.
Vanderbilt is the latest target in a far-right campaign against transgender health clinics
In October, state lawmakers sent a letter to VUMC, demanding an end to genital surgery for minors — a procedure the hospital says it was never doing.
In recent weeks, a Memphis hospital also announced it was canceling gender-affirming surgeries, days before a 19-year-old patient was supposed to undergo chest surgery.
Methodist Le Bonheur intends to restart gender-affirming surgeries in Memphis after pause
After the ACLU threatened legal action, a spokesperson for Methodist Le Bonheur said the change was temporary, so that the hospital could review questions about the surgeries for its care providers.
School bills
A sweep of bills passed this year, limiting what trans youth and young adults can do. Tennessee expanded its ban on transgender athletes to include college sports.
After banning trans athletes in K-12 sports, Tennessee Republicans take aim at college
The statehouse also created financial penalties for K-12 schools who allow trans students to play on the sports team that aligns with their gender.
Tennessee already has a law on the books banning trans kids from using the school bathroom that aligns with their gender. That was first challenged by two families in Williamson and Wilson counties, but their lawsuit was dismissed after both plaintiffs left Tennessee. Another family has since signed on to the legal challenge.
Tennessee’s anti-trans bathroom law is going back to court with new challengers
One bathroom bill has already been overturned by the courts. The 2021 law never went into effect because of a temporary injunction, after Nashville coffeeshop Bongo Java motioned to sue the state. It would’ve required trans-friendly businesses to put red and yellow warning signs outside of their bathroom. A federal judge ruled that unconstitutional.
A federal judge strikes down a state law as ‘a public jab at transgender Tennesseans’
Drag shows and Pride
This year, conservative state lawmakers have taken issue with drag shows and Pride celebrations across the state.
A state representative from Jackson took legal action to stop local Pride organizers from holding a drag show in a public park earlier this year.
In Chattanooga, a woman performing in a family-friendly Pride event received backlash after people on social media incorrectly assumed she was in drag.
The organizers of Murfreesboro’s Pride have been told that their permits for future Pride celebrations will be denied because of their inclusion of drag shows.
Conservative backlash to drag shows could endanger the future of Pride celebrations in Tennessee
Senate majority leader Jack Johnson of Franklin has filed legislation that would ban drag performers from holding shows in public spaces.
The language of Senate Bill 3 refers to drag shows as “adult cabaret performances” and to drag performers as “male or female impersonators.”
That wording has advocates worried for the future of trans rights in Tennessee.
Henry Seaton, a trans advocate for the ACLU of Tennessee, says this law has the potential to affect all trans people, not just drag performers.
“They don’t define male and female impersonators as just drag performers. That can easily be a trans person,” Seaton says. “There’s the phenomenon of walking while trans, where specifically women of color … often times get the police called on them just for being trans.”
If Senate Bill 3 passes in the new year, Seaton says it will ban vulnerable young people from being able to see themselves as successful adults.
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