Trans Kentuckians ‘let joy dwell alongside' pain amid new anti-trans laws, rhetoric

People gathered by the Big Four Bridge last week for a Trans Day of Visibility rally. Event organizers placed fake tombstones to represent a funeral for bigotry and oppressive systems. (Morgan Watkins/LPM News)
Two new state laws targeting transgender Kentuckians are taking effect this year, building on a pattern the Kentucky legislature has established over the past few years of proposing and sometimes enacting laws that target LGBTQ+ Kentuckians.
The Republican supermajority's actions are part of a nationwide trend of conservative politicians promoting anti-trans messaging and approving policies that restrict trans people's access to gender-affirming health care and limit their ability to participate in public life.
'I know what it means to be denied public accommodations, to have doors shut in my face simply for existing as my true self,' Carma Bell Marshall, a Black trans woman from Louisville, said last week at a local event held on the internationally recognized Trans Day of Visibility. 'Our worth is not defined by policies that try to erase us.'
The GOP's anti-trans push was supercharged by President Donald Trump's return in January. One of his first executive orders aimed to delegitimize trans people by stripping the concept of gender identity from federal policy and requiring all people to use their assigned sex at birth on government identification like U.S. passports.
LGBTQ+ people, allies, advocacy groups and researchers on extremism have expressed concerns that the increase in anti-trans rhetoric, particularly in right-wing circles, is likely a contributing factor to increased harassment and violence toward trans and other gender-nonconforming individuals.
Some Republican politicians aren't disavowing the idea of such violence. Kentucky Rep. Bill Wesley of Ravenna — who made headlines for confronting Marshall last month outside a public bathroom — indicated, in an interview with the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, that he understands why someone might resort to violence against a trans woman who uses a women's restroom.
'I don't know of anyone being violent with any trans person here. I've never been with anybody that has been violent. But I could see why somebody would be violent towards somebody that claims to be a woman and they're actually a man,' Wesley told KyCIR this week, using language that disregards trans people's identities. 'Well, you're invading their wife's privacy.'
Speaking on his decision to confront Marshall, he said: 'People (are) sick of this stuff. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of dealing with them. The society here, our state — the majority of the state — is sick of dealing with this nonsense.'
Marshall spoke to KyCIR last week about the confrontation, new anti-trans laws and how they connect to the threat of violence and other harms trans people face in their daily lives.
'There are many people in our community we have lost and buried due to violence that is spurred by rhetoric like this reverend (Wesley) was spewing, who simply doesn't know. I'm sure that he hasn't had any interactions with a trans individual before,' Marshall said.
'If he would like to sit down and have a conversation amicably — one that isn't, you know, fueled in hate, anger and frustration — I'm more than happy to sit down and have a conversation with him, because I believe in forgiveness.'
She and other trans Kentuckians say they are pulling together, at a scary time for their communities, to support each other, while also hoping to spark more public support from allies.
In Kentucky, Republican lawmakers have offered various reasons for advancing anti-trans legislation, from their personal beliefs about gender and their support for parental rights, free speech and religious liberty.
They also say they disagree with the medical and psychology professions' consensus that gender-affirming care is evidence-based and medically necessary for some trans patients.
'There are people that have made a determination that smoking was good for you, and they thought it was medically necessary, but come to find out, it was not,' Republican Sen. Mike Wilson of Bowling Green said while promoting one of the anti-trans laws the legislature passed in March. 'So a lot of times, things that are determined by the medical association or a psychiatric association are not really medically necessary.'
Wilson sponsored Senate Bill 2, which will end government-paid, gender-affirming hormone therapy for trans people in Kentucky prisons and jails. A state agency has said it affects 67 incarcerated trans people currently receiving hormone treatments.
The other law the legislature's GOP supermajority approved this year is House Bill 495, which:
Will end Medicaid coverage of gender-affirming medical care for trans adults.
Immediately reversed a directive by Gov. Andy Beshear that forbade government spending on a dangerous, scientifically discredited practice called 'conversion therapy,' which tries to change LGBTQ+ people's sexual orientation or gender identity.
As lawmakers voted for HB 495 in March, a couple Republicans expressed doubt that Medicaid is actually paying for anyone's hormone therapy in Kentucky.
Marshall told KyCIR the government health insurer has been paying for her hormone therapy. That access, she says, has given her 'an opportunity to live as my authentic self.'
Major medical and psychological associations agree gender-affirming health care is evidence-based, can be life-saving and should be accessible. But now, Republican legislators are ending her ability to affordably access professionally recommended treatment through Medicaid.
'There was a time in my life when it was real dark. I didn't see the other side of the tunnel. Now, where I'm at in my transition, I can see that light,' she said. 'Now I look in the mirror and I'm like, 'That's me.' And to be able to do that is such a gift. And they are slowly taking that away from us,' she said of the Republican-run Kentucky legislature.
'They took it away from kids. They took it away from incarcerated trans and gender-diverse people. And now they're taking it away from adults who have jumped through hoops and hurdles to even get to this position,' Marshall said, explaining that she saw a gender therapist consistently before she got a recommendation to receive hormone therapy.
'So it's world-shifting when you have access, and it's world-destroying when you lose that access,' she told KyCIR.
As Republican legislators greenlit their two new anti-trans laws last month, Marshall went to the Kentucky Capitol for a 'Trans Joy Party' in support of trans people and their rights. The event itself, she said, was 'fabulous.'
But something else happened, too: She was confronted by Wesley, the GOP representative from Ravenna, for the bathroom she used — leading to social media and news coverage.
'I go to the restroom to fix my eyelashes and throw on some lipstick. Got that taken care of. But on my way out, all of a sudden, I am surrounded by Capitol police officers and a very irate representative — who I refer to as 'mis-representative.' Because they misrepresented themselves, they misrepresented the facts, they misrepresented the law, and they misrepresented me,' she said.
Wesley was standing outside the women's restroom, accompanied by state police, when he confronted Marshall and made it clear he didn't want her using that bathroom.
Wesley said he was walking past when someone asked him to do something about Marshall's presence in the women's restroom.
'And I said, 'I'll deal with that mess right now,'' he told KyCIR.
Wesley said his actions are about 'the protection of our women's privacy and their God-given rights.'
'I'm going to be my brother's keeper,' he said. 'When the daddies are not around, or when … the wives are with their kids and their husbands are not around, yeah, I'm going to be a voice for them men and them grandfathers.'
In social media posts and interviews, Wesley has misgendered Marshall, disregarded the validity of trans people's identities and used a sexually charged slur to refer to trans women who use women's bathrooms.
'There's a lot of confusion on this end, and I'm not going to buy into it. I ain't going to drink the Kool-Aid,' Wesley told KyCIR this week. 'I'm going to protect our children, and I'm going to stand up for our women's rights to their privacy in their bathrooms and locker rooms.'
Evidence does not support claims that letting trans people use bathrooms that match their gender identity endangers other people.
Research, including a recent report by UCLA's Williams Institute, shows it's not uncommon for trans people to face verbal harassment and physical assault when they use public bathrooms, and data suggest the risk is higher if laws restrict which facilities they can use.
'It's absolutely ridiculous,' Marshall said of Wesley's confronting her at the Capitol. 'I harmed no one. He doesn't have dominion over that bathroom.'
Kentucky passed a law in 2023 that restricts which bathrooms trans students can use in public schools.
Wesley has said he intends to propose further anti-trans bathroom restrictions next year and indicated to KyCIR that he would support arresting trans women who use women's bathrooms.
'Our whole culture should not change because there's a bunch of confused people out there,' he said. 'No, I'm not going to deal with it. I'm going to fight against it every step of the way.'
Wesley's confrontation with Marshall, and the Kentucky legislature's passage of two new anti-trans laws, are happening at a time when anti-trans messaging and legislation are increasingly prevalent in U.S. culture, particularly in right-wing political circles.
Jaz Brown works for the Kentucky Health Justice Network and said, at last week's Trans Day of Visibility event in Louisville, that legislators are causing real harm by passing bills like HB 495 and SB 2.
'I often see the fear in the eyes of parents who just want their kids to survive when they should be thriving,' Brown said. 'I console those who are considering putting off their transition due to genuine safety concerns — due to the concerns of being a victim of a hate crime — as transphobic rhetoric continues to be on the rise.'
UCLA's Williams Institute recently analyzed federal survey data and found LGBT individuals are five times likelier than other people to be victimized by violent crime, and nine times likelier to be targeted by a violent hate crime.
Overall, Black LGBT people were victimized at the highest rates, and research shows Black trans women are at higher risk of being murdered in the U.S.
KyCIR asked Wesley about his perspective on concerns that anti-trans rhetoric, such as public comments he made after confronting Marshall, has the potential to spur violent attacks on trans people.
Wesley said he 'could see why' someone would act violently toward a trans woman for using a women's bathroom.
'I'm not saying that I'm aggressive towards them, but I'm going to say this: I better not catch a man in my little girl's bathroom,' Wesley said. 'I'm just saying that. And I'm being blunt.'
Last week, about 50 people gathered by the Big Four Bridge for a 'Celebration of Trans Life.'
Event organizers set up fake tombstones to represent a funeral for bigotry and various forms of oppression. Painted phrases on them read: 'Here lies' sexism, colonialism and ignorance.
Alexander Griggs, a Fairness Campaign staffer who is Marshall's partner and helps her lead the local Transgender Wellness Coalition, spoke about how gender-expansive people grew up with societal beliefs that argue 'we shouldn't be here.'
'And I want to stand here today to tell each and every gender-expansive person that you do matter. That we are standing up here today because you matter. We are speaking out through our anger because you matter,' he said.
Griggs went on to say: 'We are not asking you today, as we stand visible on the Trans Day of Visibility, to dismiss or ignore your pain. We are asking you to let joy dwell alongside it. And my call to action … is to embody the mission and vision of the Trans Wellness Coalition: To be a soft place to land for somebody else, to be a supportive hand to hold for somebody else and to be a safe place for somebody else to grow.'
Other people at the event offered similar sentiments. They spoke about how nerve-wracking it can be to show up publicly as a trans person right now, about how state laws are harming trans kids and adults, and how they're doing what they can to support people during a fearful time.
Marshall told KyCIR it's important for allies of trans and gender-diverse communities to recognize 'your voice and action is needed now.'
'Silence is complicity. We are actively being erased,' she said. 'You have to find a way to get engaged, whether that's going and speaking with your representatives face-to-face in Frankfort, whether that's calling and leaving a message, whether that's sending an email, whether that's meeting us at some of our rallies and events. Find ways to stand in that gap with us because we need your strength.'
She also echoed a common sentiment about Republican politicians' pursuit of anti-trans policies, especially since Trump regained office: Trans people and their rights aren't, and won't be, the only ones targeted.
'And I'm afraid that as they keep whittling away at things, this is like the old adage: 'What's the best way to pluck a chicken? One feather at a time.' And we're just the first feather on that chicken,' she said. 'So don't be the next feather. Stand with us right now so you don't have to worry about your feather getting plucked.'
This story discusses anti-transgender rhetoric and policies, as well as violence against LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. For trans peer support, contact Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860 or translifeline.org. The Kentucky Health Justice Network also offers an online list of local supportive resources.
This story is republished from Louisville Public Media.

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