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State Rep. Zooey Zephyr stood on the Montana House floor, holding her microphone in the air. Protesters’ chants echoed as they demanded she be allowed to speak. Police officers, some carrying batons, removed her supporters. Seven people were arrested.
Monday’s protest came after days in which Zephyr has been prevented from speaking on the House floor after she denounced Republicans for supporting anti-transgender legislation. She is the latest state lawmaker to be silenced after taking a stand for LGBTQ+ and transgender rights.
Two other Democratic state lawmakers have been threatened with censure this year: one for her condemnation of anti-transgender legislation, and another for their response to activists protesting anti-trans bills. One of them, a nonbinary lawmaker, has also been prevented from speaking on their chamber floor. Meanwhile, two Republican lawmakers — one an out gay man — have been formally censured by their party this year for supporting same-sex marriage.
Heightened pressure on lawmakers voicing support for LGBTQ+ rights comes as legislation aimed at restricting the rights of LGBTQ+ people has reached a fervor. It also comes alongside the expulsion of two Black lawmakers from their seats in Tennessee over their protest against gun violence. The Tennessee lawmakers have since returned to the legislature.
The expulsions in Tennessee and the increased targeting of LGBTQ+ state lawmakers are part of the same agenda, Zephyr told The 19th on Monday morning, before the protests and arrests.
“When marginalized groups rise up to explain the harm that these pieces of legislation do — you look at myself and Rep. [Mauree] Turner in Oklahoma, you look at young Black men in Tennessee — when people are rising up and calling out the damage that these Republican policies do, they are looking to silence those voices altogether,” she said.
Montana Republicans explicitly misgendered Zephyr in their written calls for her censure after her response to a bill banning gender-affirming care for trans youth. While she hasn’t been formally censured through an official public reprimand by the state body, she is being prevented from speaking on the chamber floor on a day-to-day basis. She plans to return to the chamber daily to attempt to respond to legislation, although so far, the speaker has denied her.
“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 last Wednesday during debate. Majority Leader Sue Vinton interjected, saying that her caucus would “not be shamed by anyone in this chamber.”
Zephyr continued: “Then the only thing I will say is 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,” she said.
The bill that Zephyr was responding to has been sent to the governor’s desk. The ACLU and Lambda Legal have pledged to sue if it is signed into law.
Zephyr, the first trans person ever elected to Montana’s state legislature, told The 19th that when she references blood on lawmakers’ hands, she has specific stories in mind.
“I hear the stories of the impact these bills have. I have lost friends to suicide this year,” she said. A parent in Montana told Zephyr that her trans teenager attempted suicide while watching a hearing on anti-trans bill in the state. When her mother found her, the hearing was paused. Zephyr also knows of trans youth who have fled the state.
“Whenever I hear about the real and terribly painful impacts that these bills have, I feel called to stand up and speak out in defense of the community. That’s my community,” she said.
On Monday, the conservative Montana Freedom Caucus accused Zephyr of “encouraging an insurrection” by remaining at her desk while lawmakers were told to clear the House gallery, as protesters chanted for her to be able to speak. The group is pushing for “immediate disciplinary action” against Zephyr. At a press conference on Tuesday, House Speaker Matt Regier said that Republicans are not silencing Zephyr — arguing that she is silencing herself by not following the rules.
Language like that — accusing Zephyr of fueling an insurrection — is a common tactic to justify the act of silencing, said Kelly Dittmar, associate professor of political science at Rutgers University and director of research at the Center for American Women and Politics.
Zephyr’s silencing must be considered in a greater framework of identity-based violence against politicians, especially women, Dittmar said. Zephyr is best able to represent the lived experiences of trans people in a democratic debate about bills that affect trans peoples’ lives, she said.
“To literally silence the person who can do that silences the community. And that, to me, is evidence of that sort of violence, not only against the individual, but a cultural violence,” Dittmar said. “You’ve silenced the already very minimal representation that is in this supposedly democratic space.”
Outside the state legislature after Monday’s protests, Zephyr said that her supporters were representing a return of democracy.
“What you heard today is people standing for democracy, people standing to let their voices be heard in that floor,” she told reporters.
In Oklahoma last month, State Rep. Mauree Turner, the first out nonbinary state legislator in U.S. history, was censured by the Oklahoma House of Representatives after they offered a protester the use of an office in the aftermath of an arrest. The bill that sparked the protests had aimed to ban gender-affirming care for adults and minors in the state.
Turner told the 19th that being penalized by state leadership is the latest example of being ostracized as the only nonbinary member of the Oklahoma state legislature — and as a Black, Muslim lawmaker who has continually received death threats.
In Nebraska, State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh — who ground Nebraska’s legislative body to a halt over the state’s proposed anti-trans bills — was threatened with censure during her filibuster after comparing attempts to bar gender-affirming care to genocide.
“These bills are stepping stones in the eradication of trans Nebraskans,” Cavanaugh said on the statehouse floor. “And voting for them is voting for a stepping stone in genocide. If you are uncomfortable with that, then you should reflect on that.” A motion brought by another member to censure Cavanaugh in response to her comment was ultimately not taken up.
Elsewhere in the country, Republican lawmakers have been punished for breaking with the party line to support for same-sex marriage — an issue that 71 percent of Americans support.
In March, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales was censured by the Republican Party of Texas for violating the party’s principles. One reason for his censure given by the party: Gonzales’ repeated support for the Respect for Marriage Act, which offers limited protections to LGBTQ+ couples if the Supreme Court overturns federal protections for marriage equality. Gonzales was also admonished by the party for supporting a bipartisan gun safety bill.
The only other time that the Texas Republican Party has censured one of its members was in 2018, according to the Texas Tribune.
Also in March, an out gay Republican lawmaker in Missouri faced a censure vote for trying to define marriage as between two individuals instead of between a man and woman.
“The Jackson County GOP censure and the Missouri Republican Party platform represent a small minority of leadership who conflict with our U.S. Constitution,” State Rep. Chris Sander told The Kansas City Star in late March. “The committee members do not like gay Republicans.”
Censure threats against lawmakers who take a stand against anti-trans bills are another part of a broader agenda to remove transgender people from public life, Zephyr said.
“The people pushing these anti-trans bills — there is not a stopping point for them. They are looking to increasingly create limitations around trans people until they remove us from public life entirely,” she said. Anti-trans attacks are escalating, she said, and the rhetoric focused on trans youth does not match the actual policies coming from states like Missouri.
“I think it’s a fair thing to call it what it is, the beginnings of a trans genocide,” she said.
This story was originally published by The 19th