(OPINION) Dylan Mulvaney, the popular trans activist, and influencer who received a shocking amount of hate after taking a sponsorship deal with beer brand Bud Light in early April, once said misgendering people should be illegal.
Now, a new bill passed by the Michigan state House last month—now with the state Senate—could do just that. It would become a felony for people to intimidate or harass someone by deliberately misgendering them and using pronouns that are not the ones chosen by the person.
According to Newsweek, The new measure, House Bill 4474, is included in a package of legislation that would replace Michigan’s existing Ethnic Intimidation Act. It would expand the existing law to cover sex, sexual orientation, age, gender identity or expression, and physical or mental disability.
Religion, ethnicity and race were already included in the previous legislation and will still be covered under the new law. The bill would make it a hate crime to cause someone to “feel terrorized, frightened, or threatened” with words—including by deliberately misgendering them.
Michigan has recently been pushing reforms and new measures that would expand the protection of LGBTQ+ rights in the state. This goes against a nationwide trend that has seen other states moving to limit rights for transgender youths.
Last week, Michigan banned conversion therapy for minors in the state, condemning and making illegal the controversial practice that claims to “cure” LGBTQ+ people of their sexual orientation and gender identity. LGBTQ+ activists have long denounced the practice as extremely harmful for the community.
Mulvaney, whose popularity on social media grew thanks to her viral TikTok series “365 Days of Girlhood”, which documented her transition journey, has become a constant target of right-wing and conservative attacks since she started posting videos.
The anti-trans hate she’s been the target of only got worse once she started taking partnership deals with brands such as Nike and Bud Light.
In a resurfaced video shared by the New York Post, a fed-up Mulvaney once complained about journalists purposefully misgendering her and using he/him pronouns to refer to her, calling her a man. “I feel like that should be illegal,” Mulvaney said in the video. “I don’t know. That’s just bad journalism.”
HB 4474 was passed by the Democrat-controlled Michigan House of Representatives in a 59 to 50 vote on June 20, and it now moves to the state Senate, which has a 20 to 18 Democratic majority. If passed, HB 4474 would need to be signed into law by Governor Gretchen Whitmer, also a Democrat.
The law would make Michigan the first state to make it illegal to harass or intimidate someone by purposefully misgendering them. Under the bill, offenders would be guilty “of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 5 years, or by a fine of not more than $10,000.”
Democratic Rep. Noah Arbit helped lead the legislative package containing the controversial measure. He said that the new law will help bring Michigan from a “national laggard to a national leader” in addressing hate crimes.
