As Acceptance and Support for LGBTQ+ Individuals Grows, So Does Harassment and Threats

Friday, October 20th, 2023 -- 11:01 AM

(Natalie Eilbert and Jeff Bollier, Green Bay Press-Gazette) Wisconsin's LGBTQ+ residents in recent years have faced a wave of harassment, threats and legislation that aims to erode support and growing acceptance.

According to Natalie Eilbert and Jeff Bollier with the Green Bay Press-Gazette, in 2023 alone, about 650 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced across the country; at least 574 are specifically anti-trans.

Such bills seek to block transgender people from access to basic healthcare, education, legal recognition or the right to publicly exist. And on Oct. 12, the Wisconsin Assembly passed three bills that would ban gender-affirming care for minors and bar transgender girls and women from competing on high school and college women's sports teams.

The Senate on Tuesday voted to pass the bill barring medical procedures for minors, while the other two bills have yet to go to the full Senate for a vote. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vowed he would veto all three of the bills if they reached his desk.

But the current deluge of anti-LGBTQ+ activity across Wisconsin doesn't stop at the state Capitol. It also includes book bans, the diminishment of affirming spaces, court-sanctioned rights to deadname and misgender youth, pride event protests and social media-fueled pressure campaigns.

They target LGBTQ+ people, sponsors, safe spaces and support networks. These efforts can have devastating effects, but are not new. Wisconsin's LGBTQ+ people have, since the 1880s, endured a cycle where new rights, growing acceptance and public popularity are inevitably met with a loud, demeaning, often-violent backlash.

Sometimes the issues and foci changed over the last 150 years, but the pattern has not, said Michail Takach, a Wisconsin LGBTQ+ historian, author and co-host of the “Be Seen” podcast, which documents Wisconsin's LGBTQ+ history.

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