Abortion rights are trans men’s and non-binary people’s rights

This piece was written for The OutCrowd, Syracuse University’s only student-run LGBTQIA+ publication, and published in collaboration with The Daily Orange. Read The OutCrowd’s fall 2021 issue here.

For over 50 years, reproductive rights have been labeled as women’s rights in the United States. Since Roe v. Wade, the right to privacy has shaped the process and infrastructure for abortion rights and assisted millions of Americans with making one of the most difficult choices they could ever make. However, these liberties are slowly being uprooted across the country with the Republican Party hellbent on the repeal of a constitutional right.

States like Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Indiana have either passed or are planning to pass restrictive bills that cut down on Americans’ right to choose, making it virtually impossible to receive an abortion in those states. With the debate of reproductive health back on the Supreme Court docket, it’s necessary to illuminate the severity of the issue and to show that this will affect every single person with a uterus, not just women.

Our society has acknowledged the rights of transgender and non-binary people, but hasn’t accepted them as actual people. They are constantly discounted, undercut and treated as lesser than their cisgender counterparts (see, for example, the results of GLSEN’s 2015 National School Climate Survey). One way this can be seen as exclusion is within the conversation of abortion itself.

The vast majority of trans men and non-binary people have something in common with cis women: the ability to reproduce and carry a child to term. These people are by no means women, as they have either come out as male or don’t fit within the binary gender construct. However, they still need safe and humane reproductive rights, just as women do. The conversations we hold for abortion are erasing, excluding these groups of people and diminishing their legitimacy.

“By using women-specific gendered language around reproductive health care, we reinforce and perpetuate systems of harm and exclusion that affect trans men and nonbinary people every day,” writes a group of Boston University faculty members in an opinion piece published on BU Today.

Governor Greg Abbott of Texas recently passed SB8 (Senate Bill 8), the most restrictive abortion ban currently in the U.S. This law makes it illegal to receive an abortion after six weeks, a time frame within which most people don’t realize they are pregnant. The fight against this bill has been labeled as a “fight for women,” but using the word “women” disregards the other lives affected by the bill, perhaps to an even greater extent.

Trans and non-binary communities are also subject to this six-week rule, but likely have a reduced chance of receiving care (for example, data shows that among cisgender women 7% of abortion attempts are done without clinical supervision. The same number for trans people is 19%).

“Anyone who is poorer in Texas is now going to find it harder to have an abortion, harder to get out of state to have an abortion and they’re going to be more likely to have to deal with the ramifications of that,” said Cassing Hammond, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, to the site Northwestern Now. “It means more self-sourced abortions, more later abortions for those who can make it to safety (procedures which put individuals at greater risk) and in the long-run in Texas, exacerbate maternal mortality.”

The LGBTQIA+ community is prone to suffering from poverty — in the southern states, one in every four LGBT people live in poverty, according to Forbes — and the price for abortions is usually unviable. With this new restriction, queer folk will be put at an even larger disadvantage, as it makes abortions more expensive and more exclusive.

There are also severe mental health consequences that a forced pregnancy can have on trans and non-binary people due often to gender dysphoria. Body and identity insecurity runs deep within these communities and restrictive laws serve as catalysts for these painful thoughts that harm millions of Americans across the country.

Abortion rights aren’t just for women and the language we use to express this narrative must change, regardless of an individual’s opinion on reproductive rights. If we continue to refuse trans and non-binary people the legitimacy they deserve in this issue, it will cascade down further, stripping queer, trans, and gender non conforming people of their rights and liberties.

These roadblocks can be found in every facet of daily life. There are body examinations for any trans child looking to join a sport. We have seen a strong push to ban gender inclusive restrooms in public areas. Conservatism has found a new enemy within pronouns. Every day, there is a new aspect in our world that has become more transphobic, and this all has to do with how American culture views trans and non-binary people. It’s unfortunate that large chunks of this country see trans and non-binary people as illegitimate because the more we exclude them from resources like health care, the more we feed into the process of ravishing these millions of lives.

Every single person with a uterus in this country should have access to safe and affordable abortions. But, as we label this fight solely for women, we refuse to see the bigger picture and how pressing this matter is for those put at the largest disadvantage.