I’m a transgender citizen of the US living in Israel, and President Donald Trump’s policies on trans people have made me afraid to return to the US to visit my own family. Soon after he became president, Trump signed an executive order stating one’s passport must align with one’s sex as assigned at birth. Those who attempted to change the gender marker on their passport had their applications rejected. Those who had already changed their gender marker and tried to renew their passport had it reverted. The concern for transgender US citizens living outside the country is that if we try to enter the country, we may be detained for using an “incorrect” passport.
Though Israel has yet to see such draconian policies affect the trans people living here, the trans community in Israel is anxious. Israel’s current right-wing government is filled with ministers and members of Knesset who have expressed anti-trans sentiments, and we are concerned that they will take inspiration from the US and choose to attack our basic rights.
The passport order is just one of many anti-trans executive orders that Trump issued, included ones that erased the legal recognition of transgender identity, proclaimed transgender military members “dishonorable,’ and instituted a nationwide ban on gender affirming healthcare for trans people under the age of 19.
Notably, this last executive order included legal adults, and many believe the administration was attempting to set a precedent for banning healthcare for all trans adults and children, rather than attempting to “protect minors” as anti-trans politicians often phrase it.
On the state level, anti-trans laws include “bathroom bills” that make it illegal for a person to enter a bathroom not designated for their sex as assigned at birth. It’s unclear how the state plans to check the sex at birth of the people using a given bathroom. In February, a cisgender woman published a video on Tiktok of her and her ex-girlfriend being harassed by police in a women’s bathroom in Arizona when they were mistaken as trans. Note that the police officers, who carry weapons, were both men and had entered the women’s bathroom to question and potentially detain women who were only there to use the toilet. I would consider that to be more of a threat to the safety of women in the bathroom than a trans woman who had to pee.
The bathroom bills, as they are colloquially called, are part of a more insidious effort. These laws are intended to stop trans people from participating in public life. If you cannot use the bathroom at work, school, or any other facility outside your own home for fear of harassment or even arrest, how would you be able to leave your house for any extended period of time, to go to work, to go to the store, to go to school, or to simply enjoy being outside?
There are also bills intended to classify the clothing trans people wear in public as sexually indecent. Montana House Representative Zooey Zephyr, a trans woman, spoke against a bill of this kind that had made it to the house floor, saying, “When I go to walk [my son] to school, that’s not a lascivious display. That is not a fetish. That is my family.” These are a part of a greater effort to stop the public from seeing trans people, so that we become faceless, nameless monsters in their minds. With these bills, our leaving the house would constitute a crime.
The trans community in Israel faces its own problems in various areas including employment, healthcare, and harassment and violence. According to a 2022 report by Ma’avarim, an Israeli nonprofit serving the transgender community, 1 in 4 Israeli employers reported being unwilling to hire a trans employee. Given that fact, it’s no surprise than only 25% of trans Israelis are employed in full time jobs, and that only half of those fully employed are earning even minimum wage.
Trans Israelis also face discrimination in health care, with 40% of the community reporting having been refused treatment because of their gender identity. Fear of mistreatment has led 57% to refrain from seeking medical treatment.
Between 2021 and 2022, there was a 53% increase in reports of transphobic hate incidents in Israel, and between the first quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023, there was a 400% increase. These data show that even without the kind of legislation that is happening in the US, trans people in Israel still face incredible difficulty participating in normal, public life. In addition, trans people in Israel have been facing increasing instances of harassment and violence.
I am lucky that I do not currently live in the US and am unaffected by the policies going into effect there. I have friends who are not so lucky. I am also terrified that our government here in Israel is going to look to the US for inspiration. In Israel, most of the trans community’s protections come from the judiciary, rather than from laws. It is no secret that the current government wishes to strip power away from the courts, which would then leave the trans community even more vulnerable to attacks on our humanity like those going on in the US.
The rhetoric around trans people in Israel and abroad is hateful and unfounded. When parents of students at a religious school in Givat Shmuel learned that one of their children’s classmates, an eight year old boy, was transgender, they protested. They were joined by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who said that “there is no place … for this confusion of opinions and views that seriously harm the values, natural health, and identities of students.”
In a similar case, when a seven year old girl in Herzliya came out as transgender, the deputy mayor of the city at the time responded saying “a process like this for a seven year old child is insane.”
When lawmakers and politicians call us confused, insane, sick, or unnatural, it lends legitimacy to those who wish us harm. Everyone from employers who refuse to hire us, to health care staff who refuse to treat us, to people in the street who are willing to spit on us and attack us physically, feel empowered to do so because of these people who purport to represent the citizens of the state of Israel. I do not believe I have done anything to warrant this treatment. I do not believe any of us have. Yet this is the treatment that my community receives because we simply want to live our lives as who we are.
Many of those who hate us for being trans do not know who we are. There are many lies and misunderstandings about the trans community, and all it would take to overcome this would be if more cis people were willing to talk to us and learn about the trans community. Trans Day of Visibility cannot be limited to trans people raising awareness about ourselves. It must also be about cis people coming to listen and learn, to see that we are human beings and deserve to be able to go about our daily business like anyone else.