An Argus Leader review of the last 10 legislative sessions shows 36 of those 42 bills were focused on attempting to bar LGBTQ+ people from adopting children, from playing on the sports teams that match their gender, from seeking gender-affirming care at a young age, and more.
The bills have accounted for nearly a decade of dangerous anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric in South Dakota, seen everywhere from the Legislature to the local level, members of the LGBTQ+ community said.
A decade of hate.
“At the core since I’ve been here, that animus toward LGBTQ+ and Two Spirit people has always been present in the legislative landscape in South Dakota,” said Libby Skarin, campaigns director for the ACLU of South Dakota, North Dakota and Wyoming, crediting South Dakota with being one of the earliest states to start pushing anti-trans legislation.
Opponents of these bills have said in legislative hearings, and in interviews with the Argus Leader, the bills are causing people in the LGBTQ+ and Two Spirit community to leave the state, increasing rhetoric that harms the community, affecting access to basic things like healthcare, and driving up negative mental health outcomes.
Nearly one-third of LGBTQ+ young people in the U.S. said their mental health was poor most of the time or always due to anti-LGBTQ+ policies and bills, according to The Trevor Project’s 2023 national survey.
Some of these bills have come from a multi-state campaign led by legislators and lobbyists across the U.S. and have placed South Dakota on par with several other states that have similar policies detrimental to the LGBTQ+ community.
One of the bills from that campaign — 2023’s House Bill 1080 — culminated that decade of marginalization this month after it went into effect July 1, ending transgender youths’ ability to seek medical care that best affirms their gender and forcing trans youth to stop their medical transition until they’re 18.
The bill passed this year after similar efforts failed in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
“We’re really proud as South Dakotans to be self-determinant and have self-control over our lives,” said Rep. Kameron Nelson (D-Sioux Falls), the first openly gay man elected to the South Dakota Legislature. “We don’t like when people tell us what to do, especially the government. So, it’s a moment of irony when folks climb to the mountaintop and scream freedom and liberty, but in the same breath, take human rights away from people.” . . .
Read the article and follow the series at the Argus Leader.
I'm concerned about the consequences of the legislation on friends and neighbors' family.
And glad the Minnesota border isn't far away.
Graph: From the Sioux Falls Argus Leader article, A decade of hate: How South Dakota's anti-LGBTQ+ bills have grown in the last 10 years.
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