Transgender Montana lawmaker barred from speaking this session

Montana state Rep. Zooey Zephyr standing, seen through the bars of a fence

By AMY BETH HANSON, SAM METZ and MATTHEW BROWN

Associated Press

April 26, 2023 Updated 7:49 PM PT

HELENA, Mont. — Montana Republicans barred transgender Rep. Zooey Zephyr from the House floor on Wednesday, wielding decorum rules after she rebuked colleagues for supporting a ban on gender-affirming care for children and then protested efforts to silence her.

The action against the freshman lawmaker caps a weeklong standoff between Montana House Democrats and Republicans after Zephyr told colleagues last week they would “see the blood on [their] hands” over their votes to ban gender-affirming medical care for children.

Zephyr will still be able to vote remotely under the terms of her punishment.

In a defiant speech Wednesday before her colleagues voted to bar her from the floor, Zephyr addressed House Speaker Matt Regier directly and said she was taking a stand for the LGBTQ+ community, her constituents in Missoula and “democracy itself.”

She accused Regier of taking away the voices of her 11,000 constituents and attempting to drive “a nail in the coffin of democracy” by silencing her.

“If you use decorum to silence people who hold you accountable, then all you’re doing is using decorum as a tool of oppression,” Zephyr said.

Regier had previously said he would not allow Zephyr to speak until she apologized for her previous comments, which she refused to do.

For the last week, Zephyr has been forbidden from speaking on the House floor.

A protest against Zephyr’s silencing disrupted Monday’s House session. Authorities arrested seven people in a confrontation that Republicans claim Zephyr encouraged.

Regier canceled Tuesday’s floor session without explanation.

The first-term Democrat received notice from House leaders Tuesday night of the plan to consider disciplinary action against her, according to a letter she posted on social media.

“I’ve also been told I’ll get a chance to speak,” Zephyr tweeted. “I will do as I have always done — rise on behalf of my constituents, in defense of my community and for democracy itself.”

The move to discipline Zephyr is the latest development in a standoff over whether Montana Republicans will let the lawmaker from Missoula speak. Since her remarks last week, conservative Republicans have repeatedly misgendered Zephyr, using incorrect pronouns to describe her.

Much like events in the Tennessee Statehouse weeks ago — where state Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, two Black Democrats, were expelled after participating in a gun control protest that interrupted proceedings — Zephyr’s punishment has ignited a firestorm of debate about governance and who has a voice in democracy in politically polarizing times.

Zephyr told the Associated Press after the vote that Republican leaders were likely aware that a similar sequence of events could be triggered, had they expelled her outright.

“My community and the Democratic Party in Missoula would send me back here in a heartbeat because I represent them and I represent their values by standing up for democracy,” she said.

Missoula County Democratic Party Chair Andy Nelson said Zephyr’s constituents and supporters were disheartened to see her disciplined.

“What it comes down to is the silencing of not just Rep. Zephyr, but the 11,000 people she serves,” he said after the decision.

“Republicans are doubling down on their agenda of running roughshod over Montanans’ rights — to free expression, to peaceful protest, to equal justice under the law,” House Minority Leader Kim Abbott (D-Helena) said of the plan to discipline Zephyr.

Zephyr’s remarks last week and the Republican response set off a chain of events that led to the rally outside the Capitol on Monday. Protesters later packed the House gallery and chanted, “Let her speak,” bringing the chamber’s proceedings to a halt. The scene galvanized her supporters as well as those who say her actions constitute an unacceptable attack on civil discourse.

No such protest was allowed to happen on Wednesday. Republican leaders said in the letter to Zephyr that the gallery would be closed “to maintain decorum and ensure safety.”

Regier called the disruptions a “dark day for Montana.”

“Currently, all representatives are free to participate in House debates while following the House rules,” the speaker told reporters Tuesday. “The choice to not follow the House rules is one that Rep. Zephyr has made. The only person silencing Rep. Zephyr is Rep. Zephyr. The Montana House will not be bullied.”

Regier and other Republicans said her remark was far outside the boundaries of appropriate civil discourse and demanded she apologize before participating in legislative discussions.

“There needs to be some consequences for what he has been doing,” said Rep. Joe Read, who has frequently used incorrect pronouns when referring to Zephyr.

He claimed Zephyr gave a signal to her supporters just before Monday’s session was disrupted. He declined to say what that signal was, other than a “strange movement.”

“When she gave the signal for protesters to go into action, I would say that’s when decorum was incredibly broken,” Read said.

The events have showcased the growing power of the Montana Freedom Caucus, a group of more than 20 right-wing lawmakers including Read that has spearheaded the charge to discipline Zephyr. The caucus repeated its demands and rhetoric Monday, saying in a statement that Zephyr had hoisted a microphone toward the gallery’s protesters, which amounted to “encouraging an insurrection.”

Although several protesters resisted law enforcement officers trying to arrest them on Monday, Abbott pushed back at characterizing the activity as violent. She acknowledged it was disruptive, but called the demonstration peaceful. She said public protests were a predictable response to a lawmaker with more than 10,000 constituents not being allowed to speak, and questioned bringing in officers in riot gear to handle the chanting protesters.

“It was chanting, but it absolutely was not violent,” the minority leader said. “Sometimes extreme measures have a response like this.”

There were no reports of damage to the building, and lawmakers were not threatened.

Zephyr said the seven arrested were “defending democracy.” In an earlier speech, she said the sequence of events that followed her remarks illustrated how they had struck a chord with those in power.

“They picked me in this moment because I said a thing that got through their shield for a second,” she told a crowd of supporters gathered on the Capitol steps near a banner that read, “Democracy dies here.”

She has said she does not intend to apologize and argued that her “blood on your hands” remark accurately reflected the stakes of such bans for transgender kids.

Metz reported from Salt Lake City and Brown from Billings, Mont.