Montana trans lawmaker banned from house floor after telling colleagues they have blood on hands

Transgender lawmaker Zooey Zephyr who was barred from the Montana House floor after Republican lawmakers voted to silence her for rest of 2023 session has stated in a tweet how she was ‘standing up for democracy itself.’

Zephyr was banned after she told her Republican colleagues they would have ‘blood on their hands’ if they ban sex change surgery for kids – which led to her being silenced in sessions earlier this week.

Her ban was passed by a 68-32 vote along party lines barring her from the floor, anteroom and gallery for the rest of the legislative session this year which is set to adjourn on May 5. 

The dispute brought Zephyr a national stage from which to advocate for transgender issues. Though she’s seized the moment and drawn support from the left, her elevated profile could work to the GOP´s advantage as Republicans try to paint Democrats as extremists heading into 2024, said University of Montana political analyst Robert Saldin. U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, a moderate Democrat and farmer, will be up for reelection in a race considered pivotal for control of the Senate.

‘This is what the Freedom Caucus folks wanted,’ said Saldin. ‘Now Zephyr is the second most well-known Democrat in Montana. To the extent that she’s the face of the party in Montana, that’s great for the Freedom Caucus.’

Zephyr’s punishment appears unprecedented in Montana. It comes after the state’s political landscape careened sharply Republican over the past 15 years, giving the GOP a two-thirds supermajority in the statehouse. 

During her disciplinary vote she said in a defiant speech: ‘I rose up in defense of my community that day, speaking to harms that these bills bring that I have firsthand experience knowing about.

‘I have had friends who have taken their lives because of these bills. I have fielded calls from families in Montana, including one family whose trans teenager attempted to take her life while watching a hearing on one of the anti-trans bills.

‘When the speaker asks me to apologize … on behalf of decorum, what he’s really asking me to do is be silent when my community is facing bills that get us killed.

‘He is asking me to be complicit in this legislature’s eradication of our community, and I refuse to do so, and I will always refuse to do so.’ 

Zephyr, a first-term representative from Missoula, declared that denying gender-affirming care to youngsters who feel at odds with their birth sex was ‘tantamount to torture’ and that a ban would lead to more suicides. 

Zephyr addressed House Speaker Matt Regier directly and said she was taking a stand for the LGBTQ+ community, her constituents in Missoula and ‘democracy itself.’ 

She accused him of taking away the voices of her 11,000 constituents and attempting to drive ‘a nail in the coffin of democracy’ by silencing her. 

Zephyr said that she was not being hyperbolic when she said ‘there is blood on your hands.’ 

‘So you say what is on your heart, which is this bill is going to kill people, and if you vote for it, you are complicit in that,’ she said. 

The House Speaker had previously said he would not allow her to speak until she apologized, which Zephyr refused to do. 

Republican House leaders initially reacted to Zephyr’s floor statements by turning off her microphone. 

The level of acrimony escalated on Monday of this week when Zephyr led a protest by her supporters chanting ‘Let her speak!’ from the visitors gallery, ending in the arrest of seven demonstrators. 

Last Monday, Zephyr and her supporters interrupted proceedings for nearly half an hour in protest of Republican lawmakers denying her requests to speak on a proposal that would restrict when children can change the names and pronouns they use in school and require parental consent.

The transgender lawmaker hoisted her microphone into the air as several people rallied inside the capital, leading to seven arrests for criminal trespass. They were going to be booked and released, police said.

Zephyr, a first-term Democrat from Missoula, hasn’t spoken on the Statehouse floor since last Tuesday when she told Republican colleagues they would have ‘blood on their hands’ if they banned gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth.

The disruption on Monday drew the ire of Republican leaders, who described it as a ‘riot’ and an ‘insurrection.’

Leaders cut the sound on the video feed, and Zephyr remained on the floor holding her microphone as supporters also chanted ‘Whose House? Our House!’ The sergeant-at-arms asked Zephyr to help settle things down – a request he said she rebuffed.

Zephyr was silenced and deliberately misgendered by some Republican lawmakers in response to her charge last week. 

Republican leaders have demanded she apologize and said they won’t let any lawmaker speak whom they don’t trust to uphold decorum – regardless of party or gender. Misgendering is using pronouns that do not match a person’s gender identity.

Months after Zephyr became the first openly transgender woman elected to the Montana legislature, the state joined a long list of legislatures passing new restrictions on transgender children. 

Proposals this year have addressed issues ranging from the health care they can access to the sports teams they can play on to the names they can go by.

Though proceedings have been heated in more than a dozen statehouses, Republican efforts to keep Zephyr from speaking have given such legislative battles newfound attention.

Lawmakers passed the gender-affirming care ban last week, and Gianforte has indicated he will sign it.

Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Montana have said they would file a court challenge against the ban, which is set to take effect on October 1, starting a five-month clock in which Montana youth can try to find a way to work around the ban or to transition off of hormone treatment.

‘This bill is an overly broad blanket ban that takes decisions that should be made by families and physicians and puts them in the hands of politicians,’ the Montana Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics has said.

Jim McConnell, a 69-year-old machinist, was dubious of the idea of someone like Zephyr serving in the statehouse. But he didn´t like the idea of muzzling her.

‘They have a right to speak,’ said Jim McConnell. ‘But in Montana, they’re barking up the wrong tree.’

Experts say intense cultural battles are out of character for Montana politics.

‘This is a conservative, libertarian state, as opposed to a conservative, authoritarian one,’ said Paul Pope, a political scientist at Montana State University in Billings, noting that a far less liberal town´s zoo received an influx of support after conservative activists attacked its drag story hour recently. ‘Even if they have some short-term success here,’ he added of the GOP, ‘long term, this is going to hurt them.’

But for now, many in Missoula are simply stunned.

‘They´ve stripped 11,000 Montanans of their voice,’ said Ignatius Fitzgerald, a University of Montana freshman who grew up in the district. ‘Republicans have left us without a voice and without recourse.’

Even some who disagreed politically with Zephyr said they didn´t think the Legislature should silence her.

‘Even if I don’t agree with her policies, I feel she has the right to speak,’ Addie Glidewell, a 19-year-old journalism student who supports banning gender-affirming care for minors, said of Zephyr. ‘I don’t believe she should be shut down.’

Danny Wainwright, a 56-year-old middle school teacher in Zephyr’s district, said he doesn’t always back aggressive protests or bombastic political rhetoric. But he felt Zephyr’s actions were appropriate.

‘When you´re the minority and Republicans have a supermajority, you´ve got to be heard somehow, that´s your job,’ Wainwright said.