With the reversal in June 2022 of Roe v. Wade in the United States – which made access to abortion a federal right – it is clear that the debate on reproductive rights has crossed borders to import directly into Canada and Europe. Now, it is the rights of queer people who are threatened with the proliferation of anti-LGBTQIA bills in the US Supreme Court. The risk of seeing these same trends reinforce in the rest of the world is alarming.
“Land of the Free”, “Land of the Free”. Words Washington has assumed almost messianically since the days of Manifest Destiny. Words that resonate with the idea of the “American dream” and the promise of a democratic society, respectful of human rights. Yet these same rights have never been challenged as much as they are today and, like the butterfly effect, American political life continues to influence international trends.
In recent years, America’s political polarization between Democrats and Republicans has dramatically increased and become pernicious for democracy. The loss of confidence in the institutions has led to the multiplication of anti-democratic decisions proposed by certain elected representatives of the Grand Old Party, calling into question decades of progress in this area.
Washington’s questioning of this right has already revived waves of anti-abortion (voluntary termination of pregnancy) demonstrations all over the world, particularly in Canada and France, while the latter is about to enshrine the right to abortion in its constitution. Although without negative impact on these laws where abortion is accepted, this trend risks serving as an example for countries with more restrictive policies to reinforce them, or even legitimize them.
More recently, it is the rights of LGBTQIA people, and more particularly of trans people, who in turn threaten to be violated. There are already nearly 361 anti-LGBTQIA bills filed by lawmakers in the US Supreme Court since the start of 2023, surpassing the total for 2022. Several of them have already been passed by some states Americans. Seven have already banned access to gender affirmation care for minors. The state of Oklahoma has proposed a law banning this same care for adults. Tennessee has banned drag performances. Other bills aiming in particular to prohibit the teaching of questions of gender identity and sexual orientation in schools, to use public toilets for trans people or to obtain a valid identity document to her gender identity are now likely to make their way to the Supreme Court.
Even if not accepted, these bills criminalize the very existence of LGBTQIA people. These laws were enacted when Brihanna Ghey, 16, was stabbed over her trans identity in England, where Kelly, Daniel, Raymond, Derrick and Ashley lost their lives in a shooting at a queer nightclub in Colorado Springs and where Lucas, a 13-year-old French schoolboy harassed at school because of his homosexuality, ended his life. The legislators of these laws somehow carry the blood of these victims on their hands.
Similar to the reversal of Roe v. Wade and his potential influences against reproductive rights, the rise of anti-LGBTQIA laws in a country as influential as the United States is dangerously fueling this historic wave of human rights backlash. The “land of the free” then seems to have more in common with the panoply of authoritarian regimes it openly condemns. One thing is certain, the America “of the free” is no longer legitimate to bear that name.
