By Lexie Elowen
As I enter the final few weeks of my fellowship with Americans United, I find myself reflecting on the crisis of transphobia we have seen across this nation. As a trans woman watching us enter a hotly contested political climate for the November 2026 midterm elections, it is clear that the national landscape is shifting. Michigan teaches us an important lesson and serves as a model of how it leads to unchecked hate when we do not have strong church-state separation.
Transgender equality is a church-state separation issue
When people hear “church-state separation,” they often think about school prayer, religious displays on public property, or government funding of religion. Those issues matter. But today, another clear example of why church-state separation is essential is the fight for transgender equality. Across Michigan and the country, transgender people like myself have become political targets. Instead of focusing on lowering costs, strengthening public education, expanding access to health care, or addressing the issues that affect every family, some elected officials continue to single out transgender people for political gain.
At Americans United, we believe that every person has the right to live according to their own beliefs without the government imposing someone else’s religion on them. The First Amendment protects every American’s freedom of religion, which includes freedom from government-imposed religion. That protection belongs equally to Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, atheists, humanists, and people of every faith and belief and people with no religious beliefs.
It also protects transgender people.
Many of today’s attacks on transgender rights are rooted in one particular religious understanding of sex and gender. People are absolutely free to hold those beliefs, teach them in their churches, and live according to them in their personal lives. What they are not free to do is use the power of government to force those beliefs onto everyone else. That is precisely why church-state separation exists.
Our government should never decide theological questions. It should never privilege one interpretation of religion over another. Yet many of the laws targeting transgender people do exactly that, embedding one set of religious beliefs about gender into public policy while disregarding the many faith traditions that affirm transgender people and the millions of Americans whose beliefs differ. For instance, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) cited the Bible to justify a proposed trans sports ban last year.
Anti-trans attacks in Michigan
Michigan has not been immune to this trend. In the fall of 2025, Michigan State House Rep. Joseph Fox of Fremont, who introduced House Bill 4024, which would ban transgender students from using school bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity, has explicitly cited his Christian faith and the Bible as influences behind his efforts to restrict transgender rights. In discussing the legislation, Fox said his faith provided guidance for the bill and later described the proposal on the House floor as “creation-rooted” legislation.
Earlier this year, House Resolution 40 called on the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) to align its policies with President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting transgender girls’ participation in school sports. AU’s Rachel Laser has called out Trump’s gender-related executive orders as unscientific attempts to impose a Christian Nationalist view of gender on government policies.
Equality Michigan Action Network criticized the resolution, noting that the MHSAA already has policies governing athletic participation and that there were no transgender girls competing under waivers during the winter and spring sports seasons. Furthermore, state athletic records underscore how rare this is: Since the 2013-14 school year, only 10 transgender girls in Michigan have received waivers to compete in girls high school sports. That number equates to a mere 0.005% of the roughly 200,000 students who participate in Michigan school sports each year, according to the MHSAA. Rather than addressing a documented problem, the resolution fueled a culture war targeting an already vulnerable group of students.
The legislative push escalated further when the Michigan House passed anti-trans sports legislation, including House Bill 4066, which seeks to mandate strict sex-based restrictions on school sports teams and open schools up to legal challenges. Rather than delivering meaningful relief on the economic and health issues facing Michigan families, lawmakers chose once again to weaponize state power against transgender children.
Anti-trans rhetoric, policies cause real harm
This surge in political targeting is not taking place in a vacuum. It carries a devastating, measurable human cost. The American Psychological Association (APA) has issued clear warnings about this legislative trend, highlighting that state-sponsored measures restricting health care and sports participation directly produce severe psychological harm. The scientific evidence is unequivocal:
- Escalating suicide risk: A major 2024 study by suicide-preventions organization The Trevor Project found a direct correlation showing that passing state-level anti-transgender laws caused up to a 72% increase in suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary youth.
- Widespread psychological harm: A 2024 national survey revealed that 90% of LGBTQ+ young people reported their well-being was negatively impacted by anti-LGBTQ+ political rhetoric and legislation, with 53% stating it harmed them “a lot.” A landmark study also demonstrated that the national visibility of these political debates harms all transgender individuals, elevating suicide risk even for those living in states with supportive policies (Dhanani & Totton, 2023).
- Forced displacement: Nearly half (45%) of transgender and nonbinary youth reported that they or their families have considered moving to another state to escape hostile political environments. Research confirms that parents are relocating their entire households out of fear for their trans children’s safety.
- Acute clinical toll: According to findings by The Williams Institute, over 113,900 transgender youth now reside in states with enacted bans on gender-affirming health care. Mental health providers have reported alarming spikes in emergency hospitalizations for transgender youth experiencing severe depression and suicidality when state legislation abruptly cuts off access to medical care.
Attacks on trans people part of Christian Nationalist playbook
Whether through legislation or inflammatory rhetoric, transgender Michiganders are increasingly treated as political symbols instead of people deserving equal dignity and equal protection under the law.
This pattern should concern everyone who values religious liberty. Too often, these efforts are championed by voices influenced by white Christian Nationalism, an ideology that seeks to merge a narrow interpretation of Christianity with government power and define who belongs in American society. White Christian Nationalism is not Christianity. Millions of Christians reject it, and countless religious communities proudly affirm transgender people.
The danger of white Christian Nationalism is not that it is religious. The danger is that it seeks to use the government to enforce one particular religious worldview. That directly contradicts the promise of the First Amendment. Religious freedom does not mean the government should adopt one group’s theology as public policy. It means every person is free to practice their faith, or no faith at all, without the state privileging one religious belief over another.
We continue to see this conflict play out in our courts. In one of the most closely watched Supreme Court decisions involving transgender student-athletes, Justice Brett Kavanaugh criticized his colleagues for what he described as an “assumed monopoly” on understanding how restrictions affect transgender students in a landmark decision by the court in which it upheld state laws restricting girls’ and women’s sports teams to “biological females.”
Regardless of where one stands on the court’s reasoning, the decision reflects a broader reality: Debates over transgender rights are increasingly becoming debates over whose values government should enforce. That question goes to the heart of church-state separation. Should government adopt one religious understanding of gender as law, or should it protect the freedom of every person to live according to their own beliefs while ensuring equal treatment under the Constitution?
Americans United has always stood for the latter. The government should not decide whose religious beliefs are correct. It should not elevate one theological interpretation over another. And it should not single out transgender people because some religious traditions object to their identities.
Michigan lawmakers, and leaders across our nation, must reject politics built on scapegoating and division. It is time to end the legislative theater targeting transgender youth.
When lawmakers use the weight of the government to enforce one religious dogma about gender, they do not just threaten transgender lives. They fracture the constitutional bedrock that protects every American’s freedom of conscience. Defending transgender rights and defending church-state separation are the exact same fight. The moment we permit the state to decide whose faith dictates the law, no one’s liberty is secure. True religious freedom demands that we safeguard the dignity of all people without exception. The U.S. Constitution belongs to every single one of us, and it is long past time our leaders honored its most enduring promise: “We the People.”
Lexie Elowen is a member of Americans United’s Youth Organizing Fellowship program. The views expressed here are her own and do not necessarily represent the views of Americans United.
