The tax-funded PBS NewsHour on Wednesday night was the latest outlet to leap upon the cause of Montana legislator and transgender Democrat Zooey Zephyr, barred from the House chamber for violating rules of decorum during a debate on a bill that would ban so-called “gender-affirming care” for gender-dysmorphic minors wishing to surgically or chemically “transition.”
The vote came after a nasty speech by Zephyr, a biological male, accusing colleagues who oppose such care: “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 also claimed failing to provide such care was “tantamount to torture.” But those inflammatory quotes, delivered on the Montana House floor, didn’t make PBS’s hagiography.
Nawaz hosted Zephyr (who for a legislator representing 11,000 constituents certainly gets their share of publicity) and the resulting conversation was more therapy session than journalism: "You know, when you spoke in your defense before the vote today, you said that you felt you were being asked to be -- quote -- 'complicit in the eradication of your community.' What did you mean by that?"
Zephyr went extreme:
So we have seen over a dozen anti-trans bills in my state and an escalation of those bills across America this year, over 400 pieces of legislation introduced. These are bills that ban our art forms. They ban our literature. They ban our histories, and they ban our health care. And the compiling of these pieces of legislation work to remove LGBTQ people from public life and make it harder for us to exist as ourselves and in our communities.
Nawaz revealed how passionately she and her PBS colleagues work in defense of transgender ideology, marshalling dubious activist-provided statistics and extreme assumptions as plain truth:
You know, we looked up some statistics. This is something you have spoken about before, the link between some of the political rhetoric and real-world violence in particular. According to The Trevor Project, more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth in 2022 considered suicide. That's 55 percent. And nearly one in five, 19 percent, attempted suicide. In Montana alone, as you well know, 55 percent of LGBTQ youth considered suicide; 13 percent attempted that. I'm curious, when you share these statistics, how do they resonate with your colleagues in the House?
Zephyr used the question to forward her own unsubstantiated anecdotes:
….We even heard from a family whose trans teenager attempted suicide while watching one of the hearings. And you bring this forward and try to talk to the real harm and deaths that these bills can lead to.
Nawaz and her producers really hit the books in defense of Zephyr and against the Republican House members who sanctioned “her”:
Representative Zephyr, we have struggled to find any other recent censure efforts in the Montana House. There was one 1975 effort we were able to dig up, thanks to the work of my colleague Matt Loffman and the Montana Historical Society. This was when some Republican legislators attempted to place false ads in newspapers. That censure vote actually failed. What does it say to you that Republicans today were willing to take this step when it came to you?
Predictably, Zephyr brought up the “Tennessee Three,” sanctioned for bringing a bullhorn onto the floor of the Tennessee legislature, and falsely claimed legislatures were trying to ban trans people from sports.
This transgender propaganda piece was provided in part by Cunard, a “proud supporter of public television.”
A transcript is below, click “Expand” to read:
PBS NewsHour
4/26/23
7:42 pm (ET)
Amna Nawaz: Republicans in the Montana House of Representatives voted today to block Democrat Zooey Zephyr from entering the House chamber for the rest of the session, but she will still be allowed to vote on legislation remotely. The party-line vote kept a week long saga that began as Zephyr, the first transgender member of the state legislature, spoke out against a series of anti-trans bills being debated and continued earlier this week when her supporters chanted from the gallery after the Republican speaker prevented Zephyr from participating in debate. Today, Republicans said that Zephyr violated rules of decorum.
State Rep. David Bedey (R-MT): The representative of House District 100 failed to do her duty, where she — she actively participated in disrupting the lawful activities of this legislature. Such behavior must have consequences if we are to keep our processes in place, the processes that serve all Montanans.
Amna Nawaz: Missoula Representative Zooey Zephyr joins me now. Representative Zephyr, welcome back to the "NewsHour." And thank you for joining us.
Let's just begin with your reaction to that vote, to the restrictions placed on you. What does this mean for how you can do your job?
State Rep. Zooey Zephyr (D-MT): Well, when the speaker of the House refused to recognize me, he was preventing me from representing the 11,000 Montanans who elected me to speak on bills on their behalf. And this vote is a doubling down of that. Every bill we see in this House, from housing bills to the budget, will not have the voice of 11,000 Montanans participating in that process.
Amna Nawaz: You know, when you spoke in your defense before the vote today, you said that you felt you were being asked to be — quote — "complicit in the eradication of your community." What did you mean by that?
State Rep. Zooey Zephyr: So we have seen over a dozen anti-trans bills in my state and an escalation of those bills across America this year, over 400 pieces of legislation introduced. These are bills that ban our art forms. They ban our literature. They ban our histories, and they ban our health care. And these — the compiling of these pieces of legislation work to remove LGBTQ people from public life and make it harder for us to exist as ourselves and in our communities.
Amna Nawaz: You know, we looked up some statistics. This is something you have spoken about before, the link between some of the political rhetoric and real-world violence in particular. According to The Trevor Project, more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth in 2022 considered suicide. That's 55 percent. And nearly one in five, 19 percent, attempted suicide. In Montana alone, as you well know, 55 percent of LGBTQ youth considered suicide; 13 percent attempted that. I'm curious. When you share these statistics, how do they resonate with your colleagues in the House?
State Rep. Zooey Zephyr: We know statistics, as true as they are, often don't pierce the veil. People don't tend to believe them when you talk to them about this, which is why I also bring in real stories from Montanans and people around the country. I have lost friends to suicide this year. I have had friends attacked on the side of the road. We even heard from a family whose trans teenager attempted suicide while watching one of the hearings. And you bring this forward and try to talk to the real harm and deaths that these bills can lead to it.
Amna Nawaz: Representative Zephyr, we have struggled to find any other recent censure efforts in the Montana House. There was one 1975 effort we were able to dig up, thanks to the work of my colleague Matt Loffman and the Montana Historical Society. This was when some Republican legislators attempted to place false ads in newspapers. That censure vote actually failed. What does it say to you that Republicans today were willing to take this step when it came to you?
State Rep. Zooey Zephyr: I think what it really looks like is, we have seen an unequal application of decorum in the House. And what happens is, when marginalized communities are standing up, and whether that's me speaking here, whether that's folks in Tennessee, talking about gun violence and the impact on their communities, when marginalized communities speak up about the real harm bills bring, we're in an era right now where legislatures led by far right Republicans are saying, it's not enough to get these bills passed, but you must be silent and there must be repercussions for holding them accountable.
Amna Nawaz: Do you feel like you have allies in the Statehouse working with you on this? Have other Democrats, your fellow Democrats, reached out to you?
State Rep. Zooey Zephyr: Yes, I have been talking with my fellow Democrats about the importance of standing up on these issues, how do I talk about them on the floor and, going forward, how can we best work for my community, my constituents, now that my voice has been silenced in the House and do the work for the people of Montana?
Amna Nawaz: We should mention too, in recent years, we have seen a dramatic uptick in anti-trans bills in Republican legislatures across America. When you look at the numbers, a Washington Post analysis shows more than 400 anti-trans bills already this year. That is more than double the number last year, more than were introduced over the previous four years combined. When you look at that, Representative Zephyr, what does that say to you?
State Rep. Zooey Zephyr: Well, it's important to note that this is in contrast with the joy that comes from a trans person getting to live fully as ourselves, the joy we get to — we get to have when we exist in our communities as who we truly are. It is concerning, and the escalation is concerning. We saw this begin — begin with targeting sports bans of trans people. And, very quickly, they use similar rhetoric to go after health care bans and book bans and obscenity. And we're seeing in Missouri full adult care bans. We're seeing, in Florida, bans that actually allow for people to remove children, trans children, from their parents or children from their parents if their parent happens to be trans. It's very concerning. And our community needs help.
