Montana Republicans misgender trans lawmaker in letter calling for civility

“If you vote yes on this bill, I hope the next time there’s an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands,” Zephyr said.

Ultimately, the GOP-sponsored bill — dubbed the Youth Health Protection Act — passed over the objections of Democrats. That same day, the Montana Freedom Caucus, a bloc of some 21 right-wing state legislators, said Zephyr’s comments amounted to “hateful rhetoric” and demanded her censure in a letter that called for a “commitment to civil discourse” while misgendering Zephyr.

“When I saw the letter come in, I was proud of what I stood up and said,” Zephyr told The Washington Post. “Because I stood up defending my community from what has been just a slew of cruel and harmful policies targeted towards the trans community. That’s what I was elected to do.”

It’s unclear whether lawmakers will censure Zephyr, a move that isn’t common in the Montana Legislature. Censure is a formal reprimand that goes into the public record. A spokesperson for the state’s House Republicans didn’t respond to an email. No motions for Zephyr’s censure were made Wednesday.

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The move to censure Zephyr comes less than two weeks after the Tennessee House unseated two Black Democratic lawmakers who had protested gun violence following a mass killing in a Nashville school. Last month, the Texas Republican Party censured U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Tex.) for breaking with the party by voting in favor of a bipartisan gun-control package and supporting same-sex marriage legislation.

The three incidents point to a Republican-led “norm erosion” in state legislatures, said Jake Grumbach, an associate professor of political science at the University of Washington.

“The continued erosion of norms in state legislatures around legislative procedure, civil rights and liberties, and democracy itself have contributed to the weakening of American political institutions in recent years,” Grumbach said.

The Montana Freedom Caucus launched this year as one of the latest legislative blocs established by the State Freedom Caucus Network, an extension of the House Freedom Caucus — one of the most well-known and hard-line Republican ideological factions, whose members include U.S. Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Chip Roy of Texas, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Paul A. Gosar of Arizona.

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Darin Gaub, the Montana director for the State Freedom Caucus Network, and state Sen. Theresa Manzella (R), chair of the Montana Freedom Caucus, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment, including questions about the caucus misgendering Zephyr. But on Twitter, Greg Price, communications director for the State Freedom Caucus Network, characterized critics as “pronoun freaks.”

For Zephyr, being misgendered came as no surprise, she said.

“They will happily misgender me. They will happily utilize big government to take away the rights of trans people in the state. And then, in the same breath, they asked for civility when what they actually want is silence as they take away our rights,” she added.

This year, over 400 anti-trans bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the country — surpassing the number from the past four years combined, according to a Post tracker. They range from restrictions in school athletics to banning drag shows to prohibiting gender-affirming care — a treatment the American Academy of Pediatrics has called “medically necessary and appropriate” for some minors.

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On the Montana House floor on Tuesday, Zephyr said, lawmakers discussed four anti-trans bills. The last of them, SB 99, proposed banning minors’ access to gender-affirming care. The state’s House and Senate had both passed the bill, but Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte’s requested amendments — which deemed the term gender-affirming care “Orwellian Newspeak” and asked lawmakers to “strengthen” the bill — sparked another vote.

It was during the debate that Zephyr rose to express her outrage, warning that the treatment “is accepted by every major medical association” and that forcing trans children to delay gender-affirming care until they’re adults is “tantamount to torture.”

“This body should be ashamed,” Zephyr said, prompting House Majority Leader Sue Vinton (R) to stand and say, “We will not be shamed by anyone in this chamber.”

Zephyr responded by remarking about “blood on your hands” — the comment the Montana Freedom Caucus decried as “inappropriate and uncalled-for language” in its letter later that day.

“This is far from the first bill hurting trans people that they’ve passed, and at some point, you have to lay it out plainly,” Zephyr said. “That’s what I did. I stood up in defense of the trans community and made sure that if they were going to pass the bill, that they knew exactly what they were responsible for.”

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On Thursday, legislators will convene to debate another bill — one to apply a binary definition of sex to the state code.

“It effectively writes trans, nonbinary and intersex people out of existence in Montana’s code,” Zephyr said. “But we’ve been around before Montana was a state, and we will be around long after these harmful bills have been defeated.”

“Despite the legislation you bring, you cannot stop trans people from existing, and you cannot stop us from living lives with joy. And that’s what gives me hope,” she added.