One Is Too Many

When we were working to pass the gender inclusive non-discrimination law we were asked how many trans people are there in the state and when we told them around 0.5 percent their answer was “why do we need a law to protect so few people?”

When heard the same thing when we tried to pass the bill banning conversion therapy for minors, it isn’t a big problem here in Connecticut so why do we need a law?

What the administration's shifting arguments against transgender military service reveal
The Hill
By Diane Mazur, Opinion Contributor
December 24, 2018

There’s a new twist in the Trump administration’s effort to stop transgender Americans from serving in the military. In a Dec. 10 hearing before the D.C. Court of Appeals, a Justice Department lawyer highlighted information about the number of transgender troops serving—about 9,000, based on survey answers from active-duty members.

One would think this an odd way to open the argument, because it shows the significant contribution transgender Americans are making in our defense, despite efforts to demean their service. A lot of people serving in uniform will be affected by whether federal courts let the ban take effect.
[…]
The Trump administration’s new tack was to argue that this relatively low number to date meant that the ban wasn’t even a ban, and so courts should allow the new policy crafted by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to go into effect. The government argued that Mattis had actually eased Trump’s tweeted ban, and so the injunctions protecting trans troops were no longer justified.

It wasn’t really a ban, so went the argument, because the Trump/Mattis plan said that people who identify as transgender can serve provided they don’t have gender dysphoria (the medical term for divergence between birth sex and gender identity) and they agree to serve for the duration in birth sex. The government’s pitch was, in essence, “Look at the thousands of transgender troops who are happy serving in birth gender. They won’t mind if new policy prohibits gender transition.” (One of the other judges on the panel reasonably noted that it seemed a contradiction in terms to state that transgender people were not impacted by a ban on gender transition.)
[…]
But in the end, what difference does it make what percentage of people who identify as transgender wind up transitioning gender? Whether 0 percent or 100 percnet [sic] transition gender, the following three facts remain the same.

We said the same thing that the numbers don’t matter.

That even one is too many.