Montana GOP caucus calls for censure of transgender lawmaker

A group of Republicans in the Montana legislature have called for the immediate censure of Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr — the state’s first and only openly transgender legislator — after she told lawmakers on Tuesday that there will be “blood on your hands” if a bill to ban minors from accessing gender-affirming health care is approved by the state House.

“If you are forcing a trans child to go through puberty when they are trans, that is tantamount to torture. This body should be ashamed,” Zephyr said Tuesday during a floor debate over amendments to Montana’s Senate Bill 99, a wide-reaching bill that would prevent medical professionals from administering gender-affirming health care to transgender youths under 18.

“If you vote yes on this bill and yes on these amendments, I hope the next time there’s an invocation when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands,” Zephyr said. 

Responding to Zephyr during Tuesday’s floor debate, Montana House Majority Leader Sue Vinton (R) said the legislature will “not be shamed by anyone in this chamber. We are better than that.”

Gender-affirming health care for both transgender youths and adults is backed by most major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

More than half of transgender and nonbinary young people in a recent survey said they had seriously considered suicide over the past year.

The Montana Freedom Caucus, a coalition of state House and Senate Republicans, called for the immediate censure of Zephyr, in a statement posted to the group’s social media late Tuesday. The group said she attempted to shame members of the legislature by using “inappropriate and uncalled-for language” during Tuesday’s floor debate.

“This kind of hateful rhetoric from an elected official is exactly why tragedies such as the Covenant Christian School shooting in Nashville occurred,” the group wrote in its statement, referring to a mass shooting in Tennessee last month that left six people dead, including three 9-year-old students.

Local authorities immediately after the shooting said they believed the suspect, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, who was fatally shot by police, was transgender. Nearly a month later, Hale’s gender identity remains unclear.

The Montana Freedom Caucus in its statement also repeatedly misgendered Zephyr by referring to her using male pronouns.

Senate Bill 99, otherwise known as the “Youth Health Protection Act,” passed both chambers of the GOP-controlled state legislature in March. Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican who has voiced support for the bill, sent the measure back to the legislature this week, requesting additional amendments be taken up.

Senate Bill 99 and each of Gianforte’s proposed amendments, including one that would define male and female in state law to mean a person’s sex assigned at birth, passed the House on Tuesday. The amended bill was approved Monday by the Senate.

Another Montana bill, Senate Bill 458, would similarly apply a narrowed definition of sex to all aspects of state law. The proposal would define a man as someone who produces sperm and a woman as someone who produces eggs.

The state Freedom Caucus’s call for the censure of Zephyr comes just over a month after state Republicans in Oklahoma voted to censure Democratic Rep. Mauree Turner, the nation’s first openly nonbinary state legislator, after Turner allowed an individual who had been protesting legislation to ban gender-affirming health care to use their office following an arrest.