Olivia's Blog

In 2021, Arkansas passed the first of many laws banning gender-affirming care for trans youth. Following this 2021 law, an onslaught of anti-trans bills has appeared. In fact, 37 of 50 states have introduced some form of anti-trans bills since this time. Most bewildering about the Arkansas law is that it was vetoed in its bill form by the Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson, just for this decision to be overridden by a majority vote and implemented. This legislative voting dynamic speaks to increased anti-trans rhetoric in the late 2010s. This event is so salient because it started a trend: anti-trans bills built from anti-trans sentiment. Despite the fact that I picked the first anti-trans law in recent years as the most significant event in recent LGBTQ history, the ramifications of this law exist far beyond its passing in 2021, as many bills echoing the same sentiments of the 2021 law have been proposed and passed since. I should mention, however, that the LGBTQ experience has splin...

 Despite heated discussions around gender, gender identity, and gender expression, there is no consensus on what gender is. Some mistakenly believe gender is determined chromosomally or reflected in external genitalia. For clarity, when discussing my gender, I define gender as the socially constructed binary of man and woman. However, recent societal changes mark the acceptance of a third gender for people who don’t fit into the categories of man or woman. I should note, however, that the formation of gender is entirely abstract. Thus, there are an infinite number of genders. In my eighteen years of life, I’ve always been aware of my gender. My shoulder-length hair, wide hips, figure-hugging clothing, valley girl accent, cardigans, tote bags, and long nails have made the world aware, too. These physical attributes allow people to identify me: there goes that girl, and more recently, there goes that woman. They treat me accordingly. I’m frequently greeted with a smile and treated li...