Now we’ve heard of everything. The GOP continues to attack transgender health care and now has an idea to restrict any kind of gender-affirming anything even more. Haircuts.
A bill before the Arkansas General Assembly—which has not been passed—would outlaw and criminalize any social transitioning including “clothing, pronouns, hairstyle, and name.” As far as we can tell, this is the first time hairstyle has been explicitly included in the wave of over 2,400 anti-trans bills introduced in state legislatures since 2021.
The number of anti-trans bills has increased every year since then, but only 1 in 10 of those bills became law. Many of those laws focus not only on outlawing physical transitions for minors like hormone therapy or surgery (as Trump’s January executive order directed), but some also target social transition by banning teachers from using the name and pronouns a student asks to be used.
This is a dangerous precedent also used in anti-drag bills against adults, restricting the clothing a trans (or cisgender) person can wear in public. If a person can be arrested under almost any pretense under a very broad and vague umbrella. This could potentially include anything signaling gender expression, like carrying a purse, wearing eyeliner, and having painted nails. Sporting a short haircut as someone assigned female at birth could already be included in this, but now it’s been laid out as something for enforcers to look for.
HB1668—An Act to Create the Vulnerable Youth Protection Act to Authorize a Civil Action for Social Transitioning and Castration, Sterilization, or Mutilation of A Minor and for Other Purposes—was filed on March 4 and would ban physical or social transitions for youth. The language defines social transitioning as “any act by which a minor adopts or espouses a gender identity that differs from the minor’s biological sex as determined by the sex organs, chromosomes, and endogenous profiles of the minor, including without limitation changes in clothing, pronouns, hairstyle, and name.” Note the “without limitation.”
Alarmingly, the bill also includes the creation of civil liability for anyone who “knowingly causes or contributes to” the social or physical transition of a minor, meaning the parents could sue a hairdresser, doctor, or any supportive person. It specifies they would receive damages of at least $10,000 and also at least 10 million dollars for any irreversible surgery. This is part of the terrifying trend of “bounty laws,” creating legal consequences for transitions.
Even if it doesn’t pass, bills like this instill fear across a community and has already done harm by normalizing these types of bills.
“HB1668 fosters a climate of fear, where doctors, teachers, and even parents risk financial ruin simply for supporting transgender youth,” the ACLU of Arkansas said in a statement. “It is a blatant overreach of government power, attempting to control private decisions and to circumvent our constitutional rights, including free speech, religious exercise, due process and equal protection.
“We urge lawmakers to reject this dangerous and discriminatory bill and instead focus on policies that truly support Arkansas youth.”