Sam-Levi Sizemore spent the first year of high school being called the wrong name.
Sizemore, a transmasculine genderqueer person who uses he/they pronouns interchangeably, came out to his parents three weeks before the start of ninth grade. There had been slip-ups before, like when some friends’ dad called them his new chosen name, “Sam,” in a text conversation with his mom. Still, the Sizemores were taken aback when their teenager told them he wasn’t a girl.
Since their parents were slow to get on board, the high school was, too. Sizemore’s paperwork kept their deadname that first year, so their teachers called them that. Many realized the change only when “Sam Sizemore” was printed in the yearbook.
He started testosterone injections their first year of college at UNC-Chapel Hill through the university’s campus health services. His voice deepened, and they had more body hair. Soon, people started assuming he was a man instead of a woman. Sizemore says it made his existence safer.
“Medical transition isn’t for everyone, not every trans person wants to medically transition, and there are a lot of examples of trans people who haven’t,” they say.
“But medical transition makes being trans so much safer, because I can choose when I want to tell people I’m trans.”
Sizemore is 19 years old. If a new bill in the General Assembly passes, it wouldn’t be legal for him to continue hormone therapy.
On April 5, three Republican senators filed the “Youth Health Protection Act” under the guise of “protecting minors.” The bill’s primary sponsor, Sen. Ralph Hise from Spruce Pine, did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.
The N.C. Family Policy Council—the state’s chapter of Family Research Council (which is a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group)—issued a statement in support of the legislation, calling it “an essential measure to protect the health, safety, and welfare of adolescents, teens, and young adults,” and citing a common statistic from a debunked 2013 study that suggests the majority of trans kids ultimately identify as cisgender.
In reality, the bill effectively criminalizes being trans under the age of 21. It has provisions banning people from medical procedures including hormone blockers, hormone replacement therapy, and mastectomies. It has a provision allowing parents to withhold treatment for their child, even if the “child” is 20 years old. It has a provision requiring teachers and government employees to tell parents or guardians if their child “demonstrates a desire to be treated in a manner incongruent with the minor’s sex:” a vague provision that could target the length of a young person’s hair, the clothes they wear, or the hobbies they pursue.
This isn’t the only transphobic bill on the docket. The group also filed the “Health Care Heroes Conscience Protection Act,” which would allow medical practitioners to deny healthcare based on their own personal beliefs. The bill keeps these medical professionals from being fired or reprimanded for withholding care from trans people.
There’s also House Bill 358, a bill that would bar trans women and girls from playing on women’s sports teams.
All of these bills were filed around the fifth anniversary of H.B. 2, North Carolina’s infamous “Bathroom Bill” that restricted trans people’s access to public spaces, and appear in the wake of a series of bills filed to protect LGBTQ residents in the state from discrimination.
For years, a provision in H.B. 2’s pseudo-repeal kept LGBTQ-related laws off the books. That changed in December 2020—now, six municipalities have added protections for trans people in their communities. The discriminatory bills are also part of a larger coordinated movement in states across the country targeting trans people—similar bills have been filed in more than 25 states.
“It seems reactionary, on the surface, to the bills that we introduced earlier, but we feel that it’s really reflective of this coordinated national attack by a very small group of people and organizations who work with legislators and introduce these bills,” says Allison Scott, the director of impact and innovation at the Campaign for Southern Equality. She notes that bills filed across the country use similar language and have been filed close together.
“I know I will be much better off in cis society once I’ve had top surgery.”
Getting gender-affirming medical care is already difficult in North Carolina. Sizemore didn’t go through therapy before getting on testosterone (he didn’t have access), but still had to consult with a doctor for months to “prove” his transness. He says he’s heard of some people downplaying their neurodivergence to get access to hormones. Others have to exaggerate their dysphoria to convince cisgender doctors that their lives would be better after medical transition.
If this bill gained traction, Sizemore would have to stock up on testosterone, or risk the health complications that come with getting off it. They’re also saving up for top surgery, a double mastectomy that would give them a more masculine chest. If the bill passed, they’d have to get their surgery before the October start date, which would likely mean having to take time off from school for recovery.
“As much as I would love to be comfortable in my body, and not need to go on hormones or pursue top surgery, in reality, I’m uncomfortable,” he says. “I do love my body, and it’s taken me a long time to be able to say that fully, but a part of it is that I know I will be much better off in cis society once I’ve had top surgery.”
It can be easy for cis people to write off these bills as “non-issues,” since Gov. Cooper is likely to veto them. But doing so ignores the harm that comes from these bills in the first place. Scott says that when these bills are filed, there is a noticeable spike in calls to trans support lines, especially ones focused on trans youth suicide prevention.
“When they are in these early places—discovering who they are, coming out, or whatever that looks like for them—to introduce these kinds of bills at the same time adds a state-sponsored pressure to them and their lives,” Scott says. “It gives them a message that there may be a point where they can’t talk to anyone.”
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