The Power of a Westerly Wind
“My light is on and I am ready to speak.”
On April 28, 2023, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed SB 99, also called the “Youth Health Protection Act,” into law despite hours of testimony from healthcare providers and parents, opposition from state and national advocacy organizations, and a public plea from his own adult nonbinary son, David.
The bill banned gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth by prohibiting the use of puberty blockers, hormonal therapies, and certain surgeries to treat patients diagnosed with gender dysphoria. It also banned “any individual or entity that receives state funds” from “promot[ing] or advocat[ing]” for such medical treatments. Gender-affirming healthcare bans are in direct conflict with recommended best practices established by all major national medical and psychological organizations.
During a floor debate held ten days prior to the bill signing, Democratic House Representative Zooey Zephyr told House Republicans:
“If you are denying gender-affirming care and forcing a trans child to go through [natal] puberty, that is tantamount to torture, and this body should be ashamed…If you vote yes on this bill and yes on these amendments, I hope the next time there's an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands.”
Several other politicians from across the nation have used near-identical rhetoric without consequence in recent years to criticize their colleagues on a variety of topics ranging from cash bail reform to gun laws.
In Montana, the remark provoked outrage from House Republicans who called it “belittling,” “hateful,” and “an affront to civil discourse.” The Montana Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative Montana lawmakers, posted an open letter on Twitter that deliberately misgendered Rep. Zephyr while demanding that she be formally censured “for trying to shame the Montana legislative body by using inappropriate and uncalled-for language during a floor debate.” House Democratic Minority Leader Kim Abbott said in a statement, “I find it incredibly ironic that these legislators are making demands of others that they refuse to abide by themselves.”
Republican House Speaker Matt Regier spent the rest of the week denying Rep. Zephyr’s requests to speak on bills that would insert binary definitions of “male” and “female” into the state’s Code and restrict K-12 students’ ability to change the names and pronouns they use at school. He claimed his decision to block Rep. Zephyr from speaking was necessary to “maintain decorum.”
On the morning of April 24, hundreds of Rep. Zephyr’s supporters rallied on the Capitol steps to protest against the proposed bills and demand that she be allowed to participate in floor debate. The Montana Federation of Public Employees delivered a petition with more than 3,200 signatures demanding that Rep. Zephyr be allowed to speak on behalf of her constituents. She addressed the crowd from the Capitol steps:
“I was sent here to speak on behalf of my constituents and to speak on behalf of my community. It’s the promise I made when I got elected, and it’s a promise that I will continue to keep every single day… [T]hose in power aren’t content with just passing these hateful, harmful bills. What they are demanding is silence. We will not be complicit in our eradication.”
Hours later, when Speaker Regier again refused to recognize Rep. Zephyr, protestors interrupted proceedings for nearly half an hour with shouts of “Let her speak!” and “Who’s House? Our House!” Police in riot gear cleared the gallery and arrested seven people on charges of criminal trespass, all of whom were later released without bail. There were no reports of any injuries, threats to lawmakers, or property damage. During the commotion, Rep. Zephyr stood silently at her seat with her microphone raised above her head, even as House leaders cut the sound on the livestream feed.
Speaker Regier, Speaker pro tempore Rhonda Knudsen and House Majority Leader Sue Vinton issued a statement calling the floor protest “a riot by far-left agitators” who “endangered legislators and staff.” The Montana Freedom Caucus issued another open letter calling the protestors “violent,” accusing Rep. Zephyr of “encouraging an insurrection,” and demanding immediate disciplinary action against her. In a statement on behalf of House Democrats, Minority Leader Abbott described the protests as “an incredible statement in support of the trans, nonbinary, and Two Spirit community — and against the Republican agenda that would strip our neighbors of their basic rights, dignity, and humanity.”
On April 25, Speaker Regier cancelled the day’s floor session without explanation. Rep. Zephyr received written notice that the House would hear motions the next day on whether her conduct had violated House decorum rules, and if so, how she would be punished. The notification letter said the House galleries would be closed to the public “to maintain decorum and ensure safety,” but Rep. Zephyr would be allowed to speak.
She did not use her time to apologize. Instead, Rep. Zephyr defended her comments as an accurate description of the stakes of gender-affirming healthcare bans for trans youth. She addressed Speaker Regier directly, telling him that by silencing her, he was taking away the voices of her 11,000 constituents. She then told her colleagues, “If you use decorum to silence people who hold you accountable, then all you’re doing is using decorum as a tool of oppression.”
Minority Leader Abbott again defended Rep. Zephyr on the House floor. She pointed out during her comments that despite only having a few business days left in the legislative session:
“We don’t have a state budget. We don’t have a plan for housing. We don’t have a plan for childcare. We don’t have a plan for permanent property tax relief. We don’t have a plan for mental health. We don’t have a plan for provider rates. And today we’re on this floor debating this motion… I agree that you absolutely can do this — by rule, by the Constitution, by Mason’s [Manual of Legislative Procedure]. But just because you can do it does not mean that’s the right choice.”
In a 68-32 vote along Party lines, the Montana House of Representatives officially censured Rep. Zephyr on April 26, 2023 for violating decorum rules by “actively participat[ing] in disrupting the lawful activities” of the state legislature. She was barred from the House floor, anteroom, and gallery for the remainder of the session. Her key card to access Capitol entrances and bathrooms was also deactivated.
Who’s Afraid of Zooey Zephyr?
When some folks look at Zooey Zephyr, they don’t see a 36-year-old Billings native with dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Business Administration and Creative Writing. They don’t see the progressive Democratic voice of 11,000 Montanans who won her seat by a landslide over her Republican challenger in 2023 with 79.3% of the vote. They definitely don’t see a proud, confident, bisexual transgender woman in a stable, happy same-sex marriage, or a loving stepparent. Some don’t even want to see her as a human being.
As much as her opponents and detractors try to claim that Zooey Zephyr is not a “real” woman, they sure do treat her like one. They’re hellbent on silencing and diminishing her so she’ll sit down, shut up, and keep her powdered nose out of the Good Old Boys Club’s business and her manicured hands far away from the levers of state government. But beneath all their degrading rhetoric lies fear about what her presence in the Montana Legislature actually represents. To them, Zooey Zephyr is the very embodiment of a threat — not to the decorum of the Chamber, the alleged sanctity of the women’s restroom, or the safety of anyone’s children, but to the repressive Republican stranglehold on both state political power and the public narrative about transgender people, womanhood, parental rights, and whose bodies deserve autonomy over their own personal medical decisions.
As is so often the case with bullies, they channel their fear into mockery and petty cruelty.
On the first day of her exile, Rep. Zephyr attempted to work and vote remotely from a public bench in the hallway outside the House chambers. Speaker Regier told her she could not sit there, allegedly out of concern about the hallway being blocked. When she insisted on staying, one of the House security officers threatened to remove the bench. A conversation between Speaker Regier and Minority Leader Abbott temporarily resolved the matter and the makeshift “Seat 31” was allowed to remain.
Meanwhile, Republican leadership announced that none of the House Committees on which Rep. Zephyr served would meet again during the remainder of the current legislative session. Their pending bills and studies were either sent directly to the House floor for hearings or re-assigned at random to whichever other active committees still had space on their calendars, regardless of topic or scope. House Judiciary Committee Clerk Jamie Van Valkenburg quit her job in protest. She joined Rep. Zephyr’s staff the following day, and told reporters, “My new role entails a lot of making sure this bench doesn’t move.”
The bench stayed put, but come the following Monday, Rep. Zephyr herself had to relocate to the corner of the nearby public snack bar. As she explained in a tweet:
“Some folks showed up early this morning and sat on the public benches near the entrance to the House, so Seat 31 has moved. I'm up and ready to work. Plus, I hear stand desks are all the rage these days.”
Among the bench-sitters were Beth Hinebauch, Jolene Regier, and Pro-Life Montana Chair Sharon Nason. Hinebauch is the wife of Montana Freedom Caucus member Sen. Steve Hinebauch. Regier is the wife of Montana Senator Keith Regier and the mother of both Speaker Matt Regier and House Judiciary Committee Chair Amy Regier.
Seat 31 was back to its original home-away-from-home on Tuesday, May 2, thanks to the “Blue Bench Brigade” of supporters that arrived even earlier than the Menopausal Mean Girls to save her a spot on the bench outside the legislative chambers. That was the day’s only good news. Later that morning, District Court Judge Mike Menahan rejected the ACLU’s emergency motion to overturn Rep. Zephyr’s censure, stating that such a request would be a violation of the separation of powers between the legislative and judicial branches. By nightfall, both Rep. Zephyr and her partner, journalist Erin Reed, had been targeted with SWATting attempts.
“I came back a second time because I love my state.”
The only way for Rep. Zephyr to speak on the House floor again would be to win re-election in November 2024. So, that’s exactly what she did, by an even larger margin than in her first House election. Newly redrawn legislative districts also helped Montana Democrats pick up 10 House seats, two Senate seats, and considerably more negotiating power against a lingering Republican majority in both chambers.
The start of the 2025 House session brought a fresh slate of anti-trans bills to the Montana legislature, eleven of which have become law as of the date of this writing. HB 121, a “bathroom bill” that would apply to transgender people of all ages in all facilities that receive public funding, is currently blocked by a preliminary injunction. Twelve other such bills died in committee, but two were defeated on the House floor after powerful speeches by Rep. Zephyr and Montana’s first and only nonbinary House member, Rep. SJ Howell (they/them).
House Bill 675 would have effectively banned public drag performances and Pride parades in Montana by labeling them “hypersexualized shows" and allowing private citizens to sue any person who knowingly promoted, conducted, or participated in them. Co-sponsor Rep. Caleb Hinkle said the drag performance ban bill was necessary “because transgenderism is a fetish based on crossdressing.” No longer silenced by censure, Rep. Zephyr took the floor in response:
"… And I am here to stand before the body and say that my life is not a fetish. My existence is not a fetish. I was proud within a month ago to have my son up in the gallery here. Many of you on the other side met him. When I go to walk him to school, that’s not a lascivious display. That is not a fetish. That is my family. This is what these bills are trying to come after, not obscene shows somehow getting in front of children; we have the Miller test for that, we have laws for that. This is a way to target the trans community, and that is my opinion, and in the speaker’s own words.”
This time around, Rep. Zephyr received support not only within her own party, but also from across the partisan aisle. Republican Representative Sherry Essman recognized Rep. Zephyr’s kindred status as a parent doing her best to raise a child in the way she saw fit. Rep. Essman criticized the hypocrisy of legislators who claim to support “parental rights,” while at the same time promoting bills that dictate what kind of public performances a parent can allow their own children to see. She called such bills a waste of time and energy, and told her colleagues, “We should be working on property tax relief and not doing this sort of business on the floor of this house and having to even talk about this.” The bill was defeated by a vote of 55-45, with 13 Republicans opposed.
Rep. Howell then spoke against HB 754, which would have allowed the state to immediately remove any child “transitioning gender with the support of a parent or guardian” from their homes and place them into emergency protective custody. They pointed out that because “transitioning gender” was not specifically defined in the bill, a strict reading could include engaging in any behavior that defied conventional gender norms, such as a change in names, clothing, or hairstyle. They asked lawmakers to consider the consequences of separating children from stable, loving families, and the responsibility the state bears to weigh the true necessity of such a traumatizing decision.
The combined momentum from those speeches convinced 29 Republicans to join House Democrats in voting down the bill by a margin of 71-27. Rep. Zephyr wrote on her Bluesky account, “These kind[s] of votes are born out of trans representation in government. Rep. Howell & I have built solid relationships with Republicans and those relationships change hearts, minds, and (eventually) votes. It is painful, grueling work. But it makes a difference.”
Two years after Rep. Zephyr was censured and ostracized for speaking against SB 99, Missoula District Court Judge Jason Marks ruled on May 13, 2025 that the bill violates the Montana Constitution’s rights to privacy, equal protection, and free speech for transgender youth and their healthcare providers. The decision came five months after the Montana Supreme Court upheld the District court’s preliminary injunction against the bill.
In a statement, Governor Gianforte said he was “deeply disappointed” by the court’s decision and reiterated his support for laws that prohibit “children who struggle with gender identity” from accessing what he insists are “experimental procedures.” In October 2024, Gianforte’s office filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of oral arguments in United States v. Skrmetti, a case that will determine whether Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. SCOTUS is expected to issue their decision in Skrmetti sometime this June.
Some folks might be tempted to look at the level of nonstop nastiness that Rep. Zephyr has faced, even from her own colleagues, and think to themselves: “Why make yourself an even bigger target by running for public office, especially twice?” Others might look at the rapid escalation of state- and national-level attacks against transgender people, and think: “What’s the point in fighting a battle you’re going to lose at least half of the time?” The point, as Zooey Zephyr sees it, is that the best way “to fight for social and economic justice is to get into the room where the laws are being written.”
Even when yours is only one voice and one vote, that’s no less than what anyone else has. Your duty is to use that voice and vote at every opportunity to persuade the reachable, mobilize the actionable, and thwart the intractable. Even when you alone can’t stop injustice or cruelty from happening, you can still make sure those decisions don’t happen in the dark, and that the people fighting against them do not lose hope. When your opponents not only expect your complicity with the legislation and policies they use to dehumanize you, but also demand your silence while they’re doing it, there is power in speaking inconvenient truths in forums where those words cannot be unheard.
© Misty Gedlinske, All Rights Reserved
Contact: blog@queeringthediscourse.com