If you are among the 70 percent of Americans who do not know a transgender person: Hi! My name is Leigh Finke, my pronouns are she/her/hers. I’m a parent, I’m a renter, I have a lovely girlfriend, and a strong community here in Minnesota, where I also serve in the House of Representatives.
I was elected in 2022 as the first out transgender state legislator. For the last two years, I have worked with Gov. Tim Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan to successfully pass at least a half-dozen laws protecting the rights of transgender people, and access to healthcare. Many of those bills I authored. I love being trans, I love my community, and I’m honored to have the chance to fight for our future.
The biggest move we made in Minnesota — and the one receiving the most attention — was becoming a trans refuge state. The transgender refuge law protects transgender, non-binary and two-spirit patients and their families who are in the state of Minnesota to receive transgender health care, shielding them from laws in other states that limit or ban access to that care. I think of it as a bubble law. If you’re in the Minnesota bubble for this care, you’re protected by our values: bodily autonomy, access to world-class healthcare, and independent decision-making free of government intrusion.
Like all healthcare, transgender healthcare decisions are complex and individualized. In Minnesota, we treat them as such, and let patients and families decide how best to proceed. The values of the Minnesota trans refuge law are the same as the values of Minnesota at large: compassion and bodily autonomy, freedom, dignity.
Transgender healthcare is healthcare, and trans people are happier and healthier after we transition. There’s no question about this. NCTE surveyed 92,000 trans Americans and 94 percent said they were more satisfied with their lives after transition. Affirming healthcare allows trans people to live the best version of our lives. It’s healthcare that helps us be our best.
The trans refuge law also says that if a transgender minor is in the state of Minnesota to receive healthcare and the parents of that minor disagree about the administration of that care, then Minnesota courts can hear the dispute to determine if transition-related care is in the best interest of the patient.
Contrary to what JD Vance and many other voices on the conservative right are saying Minnesota does not have any legal mechanism to remove a child from the custody of their parents over decisions about transgender healthcare. Nor can the state of Minnesota force any patient to receive transition-related healthcare. There is no mechanism in the state of Minnesota to grant non-parental adults custody over someone else’s child for the purpose of receiving transition-related healthcare. These scenarios of forced transition or loss of child custody are pure fiction.
Such disinformation advanced for political gain is what advocates face every day in our work to protect trans people. These lies spread fear fueled by distrust and lack of familiarity with difference. This kind of hateful rhetoric is constant, toxic and follows a long, tedious history of anti-queer politicking.
Extreme political movements in America have spent a century fighting against LGBTQ people’s rights to live fully authentic and happy lives. The same paranoid lies about who we are, how we live and how we love have traveled from decade to decade, subjecting us to discrimination and rejection, arrest and violence.
In the 1950s we were forced out of the closet and fired from our government jobs. In the 1960s and ‘70s, police officers raided our social spaces, arresting and outing us in local papers. In the 1980s, the federal government laughed at and ignored a growing HIV epidemic that would take the lives of half a million Americans. By the 21st century, same-sex marriage was cast as a dangerous threat to the entire fabric of human civilization. When that false threat collapsed, they turned their attacks to transgender people.
The fact is, we are here, we have always been here, and we just want to live in safety and dignity like everyone else.
I’m proud to have worked with Tim Walz to make Minnesota a beacon of hope for the transgender community. Right-wing panic-inducing rhetoric about queer people and our civil rights has destroyed countless families and cost many, many lives. These kinds of lies must be actively rejected. Trans lives must be regarded as equally deserving of dignity and protection.
Leigh Finke represents Saint Paul in the Minnesota House of Representatives. She was the first out trans person elected to the state legislature, and serves as chair of the Minnesota Queer Legislators’ Caucus.