The economic consequences of anti-trans legislation

Make Me Smart April 25, 2023 Transcript

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Kimberly Adams 

Hello, I’m Kimberly Adams. Welcome to make me smart, where none of us is as smart as all of us.

Amy Scott 

And I’m Amy Scott. In today for Kai Ryssdal. Thank you for joining us on this Tuesday. It’s April 25. And today we’re talking about the wave of legislation attacking transgender rights with hundreds of bills being introduced in state legislatures, and at the national level by conservative lawmakers.

Kimberly Adams 

Right. We want to know more about what’s behind all these bills. And even though these are obviously laws that impact people’s emotional mental well being and families, also their economic consequences, potentially to all this. So here to make a smart about this is independent journalist and trans rights activist Erin Reed. Erin, welcome to the show.

Erin Reed 

Hi, thanks for having me on.

Kimberly Adams 

First of all, can you give us a sense of what’s happening with anti-trans legislation in 2023 and how common these bills are becoming?

Erin Reed 

Yes, of course. So this year, we have just crossed as of this week 500 bills that target the trans community in a broad variety of ways. A good third of these bills seek to restrict health care, mostly for transgender youth, but in some cases for transgender adults as well. The rest of the bills tend to target drag and ban things like drag in public drag in libraries, etc. Some bills target trans people in schools, so they prevent people from using bathrooms with their gender identity, or prevent their pronouns from being used in school settings. Other bills target sports. We have seen healthcare bills that target our rights to access care. And so all of these collectively represent an extreme curtailing of rights that the trans community has, you know, sought to maintain in the last few years.

Amy Scott 

And Erin, one of the most restrictive bands we’ve seen is actually scheduled to take effect this Thursday, in Missouri, which, as you mentioned, would not only restrict gender affirming care for young people, but make it nearly impossible for adults to receive this care. What’s happening in Missouri?

Erin Reed 

Yes, so Attorney General Andrew Bailey in Missouri released a directive stating that it is under his authority that he can restrict gender affirming care for everybody in the state. And so essentially, he released a long set of guidelines that should be followed when providing gender affirming care. And collectively, these guidelines are very reminiscent of trap laws. So these were targeted restrictions on abortion providers that were used to, for instance, close down the majority of abortion clinics in many states. So these these provisions essentially would ban gender affirming care for most transgender adults. I’ll give you a really good example. One provision states that in order to get gender affirming care, you have to cure depression and anxiety. So you have to cure these things. And then another provision states that in order to get gender affirming care, your gender dysphoria must be severe. Severe gender dysphoria will cause depression and anxiety but you cannot start gender affirming care until you’ve cured the depression anxiety. It creates a massive catch 22 that bans most people from gender affirming care in the state of Missouri.

Kimberly Adams 

Headed home to my home state of Missouri tomorrow, and I can’t help but notice you mentioned, you know, the trap laws and abortion. But there seem to be a lot of parallels with the way that this legislation is showing up around the country and the way that anti abortion legislation really started coming in waves. Is that a real thing?

Erin Reed 

It’s absolutely a real thing for many reasons. You know, last year, keeping with Missouri, we saw Missouri propose a law that would ban going out of state to obtain abortions. The very next week in Idaho, they proposed a law that was that would ban going out to states for for gender affirming care. We’ve seen an increasing willingness to use these kinds of tactics. But further than that, the same organizations are the ones that are pushing it. So you know, we see the Alliance Defending Freedom, the American principles project, that Heritage Foundation, we know that they have had a hand in writing these laws, and the enforcement mechanisms that they’re using are the same, you know, they’re turning to things like like targeting healthcare clinics by onerous restrictions, they’re using things like banning any government money from going indirectly or directly to clinics or hospital systems that provide the care. So overall, they are trying to eliminate it entirely.

Amy Scott 

This is a great opportunity, I think, to educate some of our listeners about what we mean when we talk about gender affirming care. I think there’s a lot of misinformation about there and just a lack of understanding. So particularly when we’re talking about young people, could you explain what that care entails?

Erin Reed 

Of course, so for young people, gender affirming care is mainly changing clothing, haircut, pronouns, name. As you get older, as you get to age 12 or so you can then start puberty blockers, which are fully reversible, and they’re just a pause, they allow people more time to speak to their therapists, to their clinicians, their doctors, and, and eventually, they can then start hormone therapy, which allows them to fully medically transition. I want to stress that, from all of the parents that I speak to and I speak to many parents who have gone through the gender affirming care process for their trans youth. This process is long, it has long waitlist, it is intentional, and there are large care teams involved with therapists, psychologists, doctors, endocrinologist, etc.

Amy Scott 

No one is making these decisions lightly.

Erin Reed 

No, no, of course not. And, you know, I know that one of the sort of messages that we’ve seen come out of some of the right wing forces in these legislatures are that these therapies are being used willy nilly, and that people are just walking in and walking out with hormones or surgery. And it’s just, it’s not the case on the ground. You now, all of the people that I’ve spoken to, and all of the people that have been active in this for a long time know that, especially for trans youth, it can take an extremely long time to go forward with this. And that’s why the majority of trans youth do not have access to gender affirming care.

Kimberly Adams 

Well, and there’s also polling, talking about how often people end up regretting that decision, right.

Erin Reed 

Yeah, so you know, we’ve we’ve seen really good studies in the last few years, show that 97.5% of people who transition under the age of 18, will maintain their gender identity up to five years later. And the ones that the ones that do not the ones that de-transition, we know from other research, that the reason why people de-transition the vast majority of times is because they’re facing family rejection, they’re facing trouble with jobs, they’re facing trouble with their communities. You know, being trans right now, in the American public, is extremely hard. It’s very difficult. And there are a lot of things, a lot of stressors that trans people have to go through around bathrooms, about laws that target our care and our identities.

Amy Scott 

So speaking of research, there’s also been polling, including a recent Marist Poll that showed that the majority of Americans are opposed to legislation that restrict the rights of transgender people. So I’m wondering where this push is coming from, and why now? I mean, it really we’ve seen it ramp up intensely over the last three or four years.

Erin Reed 

Yeah, you’re very correct. And yes, the majority of the American public does oppose legislation, criminalizing gender affirming care. We’ve seen a few polls that show this. But from the talks that I’ve had with Republican legislators, I know that they are more afraid of their right flank on this issue. And they’re more afraid of being primaried on this issue, because we have a sustained fear campaign led by mega influencers in the Republican Party, people like Matt Walsh, Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk, who have pushed for these bans and who have pushed essentially primary Republicans who dare to go against them. Now, in terms of where this comes from, and why we see this this in recent times, you know, I do want to say that this is an undercurrent that has existed in American society for for decades now. We go all the way back to the pre Stonewall era. And, you know, 50, 60, 70 years ago, we had drug laws, we had laws that target people for presenting as their gender identity different from what was expected. And every now and then we see a resurgence and pushing back against LGBTQ people and in trying to restrict rights. We saw it in the 90s. We saw it in the early 2000s, where 32 constitutional amendments were passed targeting gay marriage. And I think that we are seeing that again now, with a sustained fear campaign around the trans community.

Kimberly Adams 

That fear that you’re talking about comes from a bunch of different places like yes, these these voices that you’re talking about. But you also have people with really deeply held religious beliefs and people who are concerned that a young person who’s questioning themselves may get pushed into one gender identity that might not be what they were born with, because of the narratives around this. That it wouldn’t happen naturally on its own. How do you respond to people with those concerns?

Erin Reed 

You know, transgender people have always been here we look back in history. And we see major transgender figures throughout throughout American history. And as far as you know, worrying that people are gonna get pushed and that people are people have these various concerns about the transition, etc. I will grant that this is a complex topic. And whenever it comes to complicated medical decisions, I truly believe that it is parents, doctors and their children and their care teams that should be the ones making these decisions. Care should be individualized and graned to everybody. And people should have the rights to direct the their own care and the care of their kids.

Amy Scott 

So let’s pivot to talking about the economic consequences that Kimberly mentioned up top. I’ve been doing some reporting on families in Texas who have transgender children who they support, and many people have left the state, those who could afford to do so. Obviously, many people can’t. And even if you do move, it comes with a lot of economic costs, potentially starting a new job finding access to health care, just the cost of moving. As these bills, as more of them pass. I mean, is there a way to estimate the economic cost of all of that mobility?

Erin Reed 

Absolutely. There, there are tremendous economic costs to these bills. And they range from indeed people having to leave the states. And we have seen several people leave states like Indiana, Texas, and Florida, and fleeing to states that will protect their care. Now, we also know though, that there are states that have essentially started allocating larger parts of their budget, just to defend all of the anti-trans laws. We’ve seen again, 500 of them propose there, all of these are going to need to be defended in court. And Montana just passed a bill just a couple of weeks ago that allocated to the governor an additional $3 million just to defend the anti-trans laws because they anticipate many court cases that, you know, could go all the way to the Supreme Court eventually. And so we see all of these laws being passed, we see budgets being allocated, we see people being forced to leave, we see pride parades shutting down which are huge sources of revenue for places like Treasure Coast in Florida, where they just shut down their pride parade over an anti drag law that was passed there. And then lastly, you know, I’ve seen mayors and chambers of commerce testify at several of these hearings that I’ve watched. And all of them, you know, you seem to say unanimously that these bills will lead to a loss of talent, and will lead, will leave the state less competitive for major events, conferences, new companies moving in.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, the company aspect is interesting, because around issues like abortion, or even when Florida’s don’t say gay bill was passed and enacted. You know, You yamously had so much attention on Disney for what they did and didn’t do. And on a lot of these cultural touchstone issues and rights issues, recently you’ve had so much pressure on companies to take a stand. And if you look at something like the Black Lives Matter movement, a lot of the companies did take a stand. Less so on the abortion issue, and it seems even less so on a lot of this anti-trans legislation. Are you seeing that too?

Erin Reed 

Yes, I am. But I also am saying I also am seeing that as these laws start to kick in and as they become more prevalent, I’ll give you a really good example in Florida. There is a bathroom bill that very well might pass there that will ban trans people from bathrooms, and companies will have to wrestle with what to do with their transgender employees there. Are they going to force their trans employees to use the wrong bathroom in Florida? You know, these these issues are going to become more front facing, I believe in the very near future. But I’ll also add that, you know, I’ve watched what Ron DeSantis, Governor DeSantis has done in Florida to target Disney and I’ve also seen several states start to propose bills that make it so that companies that have any contracts with the state cannot boycott the state over anti trans policies.

Amy Scott 

And we’ve seen what happens to a company like Budweiser or Anheuser Busch when Bud Light partnered with a transgender influencer. I mean, companies are increasingly paying a price for taking a stand it seems

Erin Reed 

Indeed and you know, the idea that a single beer cans sent to a transgender influencer would lead to bomb threats on on Bud Light factories and warehouses and such. That just goes to show the the way in which the temperature has escalated and in which trans people have been targeted by extremist forces in these states. And a lot of the far right politicians are egging it on right now.

Amy Scott 

Just to finish the conversation, maybe on a more positive note, talk about what gives you hope right now. I mean, for example, the state of Minnesota recently has passed a law making it a refuge state for people seeking transgender care. What do you see as the counter movement, and do you see it growing?

Erin Reed 

Of course. So I am seeing lots of hope I’m seeing several states pass refuge laws that allow trans people to flee to their borders. I’m seeing a lot of support among the youth. And actually, what gives me hope, is the way that Generation Z is turning out and is how active they are. And awesome, they are on this. I was actually recently sent a message from somebody in Louisiana. I grew up in very rural Louisiana, I was bullied. It was impossible for me to transition in the 1990s. And I remember what it was like living there. And I recently got a message from a transgender girl that messaged me and said, “Hey, Erin, I’m trans I go to the school” that is 20 minutes from where I grew up. “And I just wanted to say that I was nominated to the homecoming court.” And to hear that somebody was… a trans girl, a 17 year old trans girl was not only accepted by her community, but celebrate it and like driven around the football stadium sitting in the back of her car with her dad, as they do for homecoming court. That that is what gives me hope, because I know the way that society is changing.

Amy Scott 

All right, Erin Reed is an independent journalist and a transgender rights activist. Thank you so much for joining us, we really appreciate it.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah thank you.

Erin Reed 

Thank you so much for having me on.

Kimberly Adams 

You know, the other economic implication that always comes up with this and also when you’re talking about, you know, racism, and things like that, is the last time and productivity when you have to spend so much of your time and energy defending your right to exist or to exist without, you know, being harassed, that you might have otherwise turned into, you know, economic productivity.

Amy Scott 

Absolutely. And I have found myself wondering, if if all the money that’s being spent to, you know, target the rights of a very small percentage of our population, if that was spent on something like poverty or solving the climate crisis, you know, what, what else could we accomplish?

Kimberly Adams 

The fear is so real, though. I know, when I go back to Missouri, a lot of the people, you know, around whom I grew up, they are deeply concerned about these things. And believe a lot of the misinformation about this and see it as a religious issue, or see it as a issue being forced upon them, as opposed to a rights issue. And I wonder, you know, how we bridge those gaps in even our conversation about these topics. Because we’re having two different national conversations about this.

Amy Scott 

Right. Yeah, I think it’s really hard to bridge that gap. But, you know, religion has been used to cover a lot of atrocities.

Kimberly Adams 

For sure, for sure. The one of the things that’s been really interesting about the Tucker Carlson thing is all of the… with with him being the… him mutually deciding with Fox to to leave, is all of the ways that people are talking about his influence on the American right, and how his rhetoric sort of shaped what people feel comfortable saying out loud, that they didn’t used to feel comfortable saying and Trump playing a big role in that as well. It’s a…

Amy Scott 

Well, I do think education goes a long way. If you can get these conversations out of the Statehouse where there’s a lot of rhetoric and, you know, venom and look at the information, the studies that have been done, really understand what’s going on and what we’re talking about. And even, you know, talk to transgender people, talk to to the parents of transgender youth. I think a lot of that can be bridged, if you understand that people aren’t experimenting on kids.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, yeah, for sure they’re not. Some organizations have put together maps and tools to keep track of all the legislation across the country. We’re going to link to a few of those in the show notes. So you can have a look at exactly what these bills and laws in many cases are doing. And as always, if you have thoughts or questions, particularly I’d be interested to hear folks thoughts about bridging those gaps in conversation. Our number is 508-827-6278, also known as 508-UB-SMART. You could also email us at makemesmart@marketplace.org. And we’ll be right back.

Kimberly Adams 

Okay, we are back and it is time for the news fix. Amy, why don’t you go ahead?

Amy Scott 

All right, I’d be happy to. So some interesting news in the housing market today. One of the big indicators we follow is the S&P CoreLogic Case Shiller home price index, which is a mouthful, and that’s why we typically shorten it to the Case Shiller Index. So it shows that home prices rose in February just 0.2% seasonally adjusted. But that’s a big deal, because it’s the first monthly increase in prices nationally in eight months. Because as we know, higher interest rates really slowed down the market, bringing those price declines that we’ve been seeing, especially in some of the most expensive markets. And the increase in interest rates just made home buying that much more unaffordable for a lot of people. This data I should say is looking backward. We’re talking about February, which is gosh seems like a long time ago. But mortgage rates came down in February from their recent highs. So that brought back some buyers, pushed up average prices. Though we are still seeing some real regional differences with prices falling in large parts of the West, and rising in the Sunbelt places like Miami, Tampa, and Atlanta. And one thing that has been keeping prices high is the low supply of existing homes for sale which has been increasing demand for new homes. And we saw that today in the news, new home sales figures. Those sales rose last month to the highest level in a year. And recently, the chief economist of the National Association of Homebuilders, Rob Dietz, said that new construction makes up a third of housing inventory right now, which is usually around 10%. So it just shows we need more houses, and a lot of them now are coming from the new construction side. not people you think selling their existing homes.

Kimberly Adams 

You know, I think about the chip shortage that we had. And we were so short on chips, we were so short on chips, and now there’s like a glut of chips because everybody ramped up production to compensate. And now you see, you know, people, companies like 3M laying people off, and, you know, the supply chain, kind of flooded with with chips. I wonder, do you see something like this happening in housing? Are you at all worried that like there’s been such a shortage for such a long time and now there’s all this building happening? Are we going to end up with a glut when all is said and done? Or is this shortage so bad?

Amy Scott 

No. Well, not anytime soon. I mean, estimates of how many houses were short in this economy just because of new household formation and you know, people even buying second homes. I mean, it’s a mix… between a million and some estimates, say like 3 million houses. And I think right now we’re at a pace of around a million new buildings a year but then a lot of buildings kind of go out of service, you know, they they outlive their usefulness. So I think it’s going to take a long time before we see a glut, but we have in the past. I mean, that’s really one of the things that that led to the housing crisis and the financial crisis of the previous decade. So… wait, no, gosh, almost two decades ago. 2008.

Kimberly Adams 

Oh no don’t say. Ouch Amy. Ouch.

Amy Scott 

So anyway, I think we’re a ways off from a glut. So what you got?

Kimberly Adams 

Okay. Well, speaking of trying to predict the future, you know, we are still all grappling with just the cosmic economic shift that is Chat GPT, and these generative AI tools. And we’re now starting to get research on what having these tools is actually doing to the workplace. So there’s a story in Axios, about a Fortune500 company that uses generative AI, and researchers at Stanford and MIT looked at what it did to productivity. And they found that it increased productivity. But it increased productivity the most among lowest skilled people in this particular job. They were customer service agents. Experienced customer service agents only saw a slight lift. So as Gizmodo put it, in the headline “office, overachievers won’t be happy about ChatGPT.” So basically, people who are still trying to figure out how to work on a particular task or do a job, get a lot of benefit from it. But people who already know how to do it aren’t seeing as much of a benefit but a little bit. And I was inspired to look into this today, because this morning, I was listening to NPR and there was this story about… live storytellers at a planetarium in Los Angeles, the Griffith Observatory. And they, they’ve unionized, they’re planning to, you know, do a union, and they’re working on securing their ability to still tell these stories live and not be replaced by recordings and not be replaced by AI. And you’re seeing a lot of creative industries, really looking at this technology and trying to do what they can to preserve their jobs in the face of this technology that can do a version of it, even if not do it as well. And the Writers Guild in its union negotiation contracts is working on that for TV shows and things like that. And it reminded me of some of the narrative… Well, it actively didn’t remind me of some of the narratives around the loss of factory jobs that you saw in like the 90s, and the early 2000s, where lots of people got the message, you know, “well, these jobs are the jobs of the past and, you know, you kind of just gotta let go, technology has replaced these jobs move into the future.” And people sort of holding on to the old coal jobs, or the mining jobs or jobs that were were replaced by technology. And it’s almost like when it was blue collar workers, there was definitely a narrative that folks needed to catch up with the times, you know, upskill retrain, and white collar workers recently had been told learn to code. Well, a lot of these mass tech layoffs are coming for software engineers, and their jobs are being replaced by technology. And now you have people in the creative fields who are having their jobs replaced by technology. And I wonder if we’re going to have the same kind of discussion about who needs to just adapt to the new reality versus whose jobs need to be preserved? And at what cost to the economy? Because if you’re talking about factory workers losing their jobs because a machine can do the job more quickly and more efficiently, if that’s something that our capitalist economy should support does that also not count for someone like you and I, you know, if AI starts to be able to do our job better. Does that just mean that we need to adapt? And I’ll be very fascinated as this keeps happening, to listen to the way that people talk about this transition. And do white collar workers at risk of losing their jobs to technology, get a different treatment than all these blue collar workers who have lost their jobs to technology? You know, learn to code, get a new degree and go back to school for things like that. Anyway. Yeah. And what kinds of supports are going to be around to help people transition across types of work? Blue Collar, white collar, yeah. I don’t want to adapt. I mean, I doubt that people who were losing jobs in, you know, industry and all these other things, wanted to give up the jobs that they spent years and decades learning and getting good at. And then, you know, technology took the job away, and they had to adjust. And I think a lot more of us are going to have to make that same adjustment, and hopefully, get more grace than was given to a lot of other folks in these transitions. Anyway, that is it for the news fix. Let’s move on to the mailbag.

Mailbag 

Hi Kai and Kimberly. This is Godfrey from San Francisco. Jessie from Charleston, South Carolina. And I have a follow up question. It has me thinking and feeling a lot of things.

Kimberly Adams 

Okay, last week, one of my news fixes was about how Americans are volunteering less the Associated Press did a big investigation into this. And we got this voice memo.

Jody 

Hi, make me smart. This is Jody Pritchard in Minneapolis. I was both sad and excited to hear the report on volunteering. Volunteering has had a huge impact on my life, including in 1986, when I volunteered at a battered women’s shelter, as it was called that. This led me down the path of earning a social work degree in 1993. So I’m celebrating 30 years of my career. It’s been intense at times. But overall, I’m really glad that that volunteer experience led me down this path. And so I encourage people to seek out volunteer opportunities because you never know where they’ll lead you.

Kimberly Adams 

Want a great story.

Amy Scott 

That’s really nice. Yeah, yeah. Okay, let’s hear one more. This one is for cat lovers. And it came in after the discussion on cat curfews.

Megan 

Hi, this is Megan from Vancouver, Washington phoning with a tip about walking your cat. A couple of years ago, we adopted our neighbor’s cat named Norman, who was seven years old. He wasn’t used to going for walks, but we wanted to give him some kitty enrichment time. So we bought him a harness. We eventually learned that there are certain times of day that he wants to go for a walk and times when he definitely does not. For example, right before feeding time, he’s not interested. But after he’s been fed, he likes to go have a sniff.

Amy Scott 

Do you take your cat for walks Kimberly?

Kimberly Adams 

He had a meltdown. Like I it did not go well. And he just sort of curled up into a little ball and would not. And gave me the most pathetic look. And then when I put him back inside, he just glared at me for hours. And the cat I had before him, tried to take him for a walk and he screamed at the top of his lungs to where people like were looking. And I was like I’m not abusing this cat. But it was enough to get me to not do it anymore

Amy Scott 

So catwalks, not for everyone.

Kimberly Adams 

Not for every cat. Before we go, we’re gonna leave you with this week’s answer to the make me smart question, which is what is something you thought you knew, but later found out you were wrong about?

Yanely 

I’m Yanely Espinal and I’m the host of marketplace’s brand new podcast financially inclined. So what is something that I thought I knew, but later I found out that I was wrong about? Okay, I would have to say that I used to think that retirement was being 65 years old and you know, just stopping your career and your nine to five job because now you reach an age where you can just start collecting a pension and Social Security benefits. But I recently learned that that’s not true. Retirement could be at any age as long as you have reached a certain dollar amount in your investment accounts. So if you invest aggressively throughout your career, like early on, you could potentially retire way before your 65th birthday, as long as you have enough money to keep pulling out a small percentage every year to pay for your monthly expenses. So I stand corrected. Retirement is not an age it’s dollar amount.

Kimberly Adams 

Pensions. Ha! Pensions. Not not for many of us. Yeah no, that’s really interesting to hear about you know, some of these tech people especially like retiring in their 30s and 40s and must be nice. Must be nice. Anyway, we want to know your answer to the make me smart question. Leave us a voice message with your answer to said question. Our number is 508-827-6278 also known as 508-UB-SMART.

Amy Scott 

Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter. Our intern is Antonio Barreras. Today’s program was engineered by Juan Carlos Torrado with mixing by Brian Allison.

Kimberly Adams 

Ben Tolliday and Daniel Ramirez composed our theme music. Our senior producer is Marissa Cabrera. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts. Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital and On-Demand. And Marketplace’s Vice President and General Manager is Neal Scarbrough.

Amy Scott 

Nice with time to spare