Culture War, Redux

For a few years, the battles over L.G.B.T. rights seemed to be fading from the American political scene.

The Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, and most Americans supported the decision. During the past few national campaigns, most Republican politicians — including Donald Trump, who called himself a friend of the gay community — largely ignored L.G.B.T. issues. One of Trump’s Supreme Court appointees, Neil Gorsuch, even wrote the opinion in a 2020 case that protected gay and transgender workers from job discrimination.

But the brief political truce on L.G.B.T. rights appears to be over. In more than a dozen states, Republicans have recently passed laws restricting those rights. In the Senate, Republicans used Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearing to call attention to some of the same issues that the new laws cover, even though Jackson’s judicial record had virtually no connection to them. (The Senate confirmed her yesterday.)

What explains the change? Today’s newsletter offers two explanations and also provides an overview of recent L.G.B.T.-related laws across the country.

A new boldness

After Barack Obama won re-election in 2012, the conventional wisdom on both the right and the left was that the Republican Party needed to moderate its approach to social issues to win over younger voters in a diversifying country.

Trump’s 2016 campaign rejected this advice. He instead moved left on economic issues, like trade and Social Security. On some hot-button cultural issues, like crime and immigration, he moved farther right. On others, he showed relatively little interest — but promised cultural and religious conservatives that he would defer to them once he was in the White House.

“Trump’s view was, ‘Give them what they want,’” said our colleague Jeremy Peters, who writes about this history in “Insurgency,” his recent book. “He understood that if he did that, most of all by filling the federal judiciary with conservatives, they would continue to be the cornerstone of his base.” As president, Trump also went back on his pro-L.G.B.T. rhetoric and restricted transgender rights.

The new conservative aggressiveness is the first factor that helps explain the recent flurry of laws restricting L.G.B.T. rights. The second factor is the political opportunity that some Republicans now see: They recognize that public opinion on gender identity and transgender rights is more conservative than it is on same-sex marriage.

Some of these issues of gender identity are also unavoidably vexing, involving conflicts between one person’s rights and another’s. For example, should transgender girls always be allowed play girls’ sports — even if male puberty gave them physical strength that provides a competitive advantage? (Some feminists and female athletes say no, and some transgender women are torn.) When should schools start to teach children about gender identity? Should schools be required to tell parents if a child switches gender identity at school?

On several of these questions, Republicans see an opportunity to cast Democrats as out of touch. “The right is using trans identity among kids as the wedge,” says our colleague Emily Bazelon, who writes about legal issues.

Bazelon points out that this political strategy relies partly on lies that seem intended to stoke fear and hatred. In Florida, for example, some Republicans have falsely suggested that schools’ lessons about sexuality are really an attempt to “groom” students.

Our summary of the recent laws follows.

‘Don’t say gay’

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill last week that bans instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity from kindergarten through third grade. The bill also contains vague wording that opponents worry could lead to broader restrictions, effectively trying to erase L.G.B.T. Americans from school lessons.

One example: The law’s preamble calls for “prohibiting classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity.” That phrase has led to opponents’ nickname for the law: “Don’t Say Gay.”

Alabama lawmakers are considering a similar law.

Gender-affirming care

Three states — Arkansas, Arizona, and Texas — have enacted policies limiting gender-affirming treatments (which can involve surgery, hormones, speech therapy and other steps) for children.

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has required teachers and other adults to report parents they suspect are providing such care to their children. Abbott has also ordered state officials to investigate parents for child abuse in these cases, although a judge has blocked the order for now.

The Alabama Legislature passed a similar bill yesterday. If the governor signs it, the law would threaten doctors and nurses with up to 10 years in prison.

The American Medical Association has described these measures as “a dangerous intrusion into the practice of medicine.” Azeen Ghorayshi explained some of the difficult choices that families and doctors face in a recent Times article.

Girls’ sports

In the past three years, governors in 13 states — including Arizona, Iowa, Montana and West Virginia — have enacted laws that restrict transgender women and girls from playing female sports in public schools. In several states, though, governors — both Republicans and Democrats — have vetoed such laws.

One was Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, who said that the law unfairly targeted a tiny number of transgender children “looking to find a sense of connection and community” through sports. Most could compete without causing any unfairness to other athletes, he added. For the rare cases with legitimate questions about safety or fairness, Cox favored creating a commission to make decisions.

The Utah Legislature overrode his veto last month and enacted the law. After the original bill passed the State Senate, Cox appeared on television and spoke directly to transgender children. “Look, we care about you,” he said. “We love you. It’s going to be OK.”

Programming note: I will be away until Tuesday, April 19, and my colleagues will be writing The Morning while I’m gone. — David Leonhardt

• Three Republicans joined Democrats in confirming Jackson. She is the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court.

• Jackson’s presence will transform the court in some ways, Adam Liptak writes, but she will have limited power to alter the court’s dynamic.

• The moment resonated with Black women in law: “We have a sense of ‘this is a part of me,’ and I’m so proud,” a Michigan lawyer said.

• The White House will hold a ceremony for Jackson today, though she will not be sworn in for months.

War in Ukraine

• Western nations escalated the economic pressure on Russia. The E.U. approved a ban on Russian coal, and Congress voted to strip Russia’s trading privileges with the U.S.

• Russia attacked a train station used by thousands of people trying to flee eastern Ukraine, a Ukrainian official said.

• Russians discussed killings of civilians in radio traffic intercepted by Germany, officials said.

• Pregnant women in Ukraine are being shuttled in and out of bomb shelters, delivering prematurely or having babies in basements.

• For more: Fiona Hill returned to “The Ezra Klein Show” with an update on the war.

Politics

• The New York attorney general asked a judge to hold Trump in contempt for not turning over documents in an investigation into his business.

• Speaker Nancy Pelosi tested positive for the coronavirus.

• The F.B.I. arrested two men it said had posed as federal officers and duped Secret Service agents.

• Here’s what’s in New York State’s $220 billion budget agreement, including billions in child care funding, a green light for three casinos and more.

Other Big Stories

• Medicare will cover the Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm only for clinical trials, limiting the reach of a treatment with uncertain benefits and serious risks.

• A Palestinian gunman killed two people in Tel Aviv yesterday. After a manhunt, the police fatally shot him.

• Marine le Pen, a far-right presidential candidate who has tried to revamp her image, is threatening to upend the French elections.

• Hundreds of thousands of people in Puerto Rico are without power.

• Paleontologists believe they have found shards of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

Opinions

Russia’s invasion is more evidence that globalization is over, David Brooks says.

Lydia Polgreen, Gimlet’s managing director, is rejoining The Times, now as an Opinion columnist.

MORNING READS

ARTS AND IDEAS

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