| | | | |  | | By Jesús A. Rodríguez | With help from Jesse Naranjo, Ella Creamer, Rishika Dugyala and Teresa Wiltz
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POLITICO illustration/Photo by Qazi Islam/Mauree Turner For HD88 via AP | What’s good, mi gente! This week, Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska) joins the centrist Dem Blue Dog Coalition, California will not renew a $45 million contract with Walgreens and a DOJ investigation finds that the Louisville Police Department committed a slew of unconstitutional practices against residents. First, we’ll turn to the latest in anti-trans legislation in Oklahoma. On the last day of February, the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed HB 2177, a bill that would outlaw gender-affirming health care for transgender minors. Oklahoma follows in the footsteps of Republican-controlled state governments in places like Utah and Alabama, which have also banned doctors from dispensing hormones that block puberty to minors or from performing surgery as part of their medical transition. The bill also goes one step further than its counterpart in most other states: It would bar insurance companies from covering gender-affirming health care in adults, too. For Democratic state Rep. Mauree Turner, who in 2020 was elected the first nonbinary state lawmaker in the country and represents Oklahoma City, the bill has placed them in the tricky position of advising trans Oklahomans on how to obtain health care — while also figuring out what the future will look like for them, too. | | | | 
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On Tuesday, the Republican leadership also censured Turner, accusing them of “harboring a fugitive” after the spouse of a protester who threw water on a state lawmaker sought shelter in their office. In a statement, Republican House Speaker Charles McCall said Turner had “knowingly, and willfully, impeded a law enforcement investigation.”
The community organizer-turned-legislator maintains that they were offering the individual a place to decompress after their spouse’s arrest. Turner says the censure motion has put a target on their back; they’ve received hate mail laced with racist and homophobic expletives that they shared with The Recast. Still, they remain undaunted in their activism, working with organizations who are planning to bring lawsuits to challenge the measure, which is expected to be enacted into law by the Republican trifecta in the state. They say the measure will take a weighty toll on transgender people’s mental health. “I would be doing the folks of Oklahoma a disservice if I said ‘please stay’ if the state is trying to detransition you or trying to kill you,” Turner said. ◆◆◆ This interview has been edited for length and clarity. THE RECAST: When you first came to office in 2020, many LGBTQ people around the country celebrated the election of the first openly nonbinary state lawmaker. What has it been like to go from that moment to now being in the Legislature as you saw HB 2177 make its way through the legislative process? TURNER: I was able to be elected because the folks of House District 88 understand the importance of the folks closest to the problems also being closest to the solutions. We ran a tactic that was about bringing people back to politics. Our target was folks who hadn’t shown up to elections in years, or some folks who had never shown up to elections. I get messages from Edmond, I get messages from Tulsa, I get messages from rural Oklahoma all the time — trans folks who … feel like their elected officials don’t represent them, and get to find representation here. I didn't want to have to try to fit into some cookie-cutter mold of what it has historically meant to be a politician in Oklahoma. It is hard being the only trans, nonbinary person in the Oklahoma Legislature. | 
State Rep. Mauree Turner holds an ACLU banner at the June 26, 2022, Pride in Oklahoma City. | Courtesy of Rep. Mauree Turner's office | I’ve seen bills like HB 1888, which happened in 2021 and would have banned “gender or sexual diversity training”, HB 1775, which happened in 2021 and restricted teaching about race and gender; all of these pieces of legislation rip away access to bodily autonomy for some Oklahomans, not all Oklahomans; rip away access to adequate and accurate public education about who we are and where we come from. Pieces of legislation like HB 2177 actively deny trans Oklahomans the access to medical care. If you’re 18 and trans, best-practice medical care is no longer an option for you. I also want to stress that best-practice medical care is not just surgery — it is puberty blockers; it is quite literally therapy. The Oklahoma that they are trying to build is an Oklahoma where there is no space for trans folks, [and] I do think that this is something that they have been chewing on for before this session started. THE RECAST: How would this affect you personally as a trans legislator? What have you been hearing from trans Oklahomans about how this would affect them? TURNER: I have quite literally sat on phone calls where folks said, “What does detransitioning look like for me in the next few months if this passes?” and tried to walk people through that with as much grace and to the best of my ability as possible. … Once this goes into effect, insurance also can’t help you to detransition. So you’ll also be forced to detransition completely out of pocket. I was in my late 20s before I was able to buy my first chest binder, before I realized that living authentically as me was best. No matter how much I love House District 88, I couldn’t continue to put myself in a box to say, “Maybe if I just dress right, they’ll care for me, or they’ll let me pass a piece of legislation; maybe if I just don’t ask as many questions, I'll be able to pass a piece of legislation.” | 
Rep. Mauree Turner questions the author of Oklahoma HB 2177 on the House floor, Feb. 28, 2023, in Oklahoma City. | Courtesy of Rep. Mauree Turner's office | But that’s the thing, right? As I’m continuously pushing this narrative … that says an Oklahoman should be able to fully and freely show up as themselves, I realized that I was doing a disservice by not doing that. I remember sitting through Freedom Oklahoma’s name change clinic, I remember researching and talking to my therapist about top surgery — these are decisions that folks sit with for a long time. It's not a decision that is made lightly. It's not a decision that people make on their own. Truthfully it's your decision at the end of the day, but you have to have therapists sign off on these things. There's so many hoops that you already have to jump through. This is affecting me in the same way that it is affecting other Oklahomans. I’m in the same boat and I am navigating this system. We’re also doing a great deal of community organizing to get folks to surgery, to see if they can extend their testosterone or their hormone replacement therapy, to help folks find housing in other states, because I would be doing the folks of Oklahoma a disservice if I said “please stay” if the state is trying to detransition you or trying to kill you. My job is to take care of the folks who are here and to help the folks who need to leave figure out the best way to do that. THE RECAST: How does your background inform the work you do and your theory of change? TURNER: I was born and raised in community organizing. I have always been Black. I'm born and raised with a Christian and Muslim background. And I was able to come out to my mom in the second grade. So I've always known these intricate parts of my identity, whether or not I actually had the words to express that.
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Trans rights activists protest outside the House chamber at the Oklahoma state Capitol before the State of the State address, Feb. 6, 2023, in Oklahoma City. | Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo | And when I came out to my mom, she told me a couple of things: that she loved me anyway and would continue to love me just the same, and that I was going to have a powerful voice, so always use it and to always make sure that I was helping others use theirs. And I think those are the foundations of why I do what I do. I'm just trying to live fully and freely as myself and I'm trying to make sure that we are creating an Oklahoma where other folks can do the same. THE RECAST: I want to ask you about the censure motion passed by House Republicans, which accused you of “harboring a fugitive” after a protester went into your office following an incident in which that person’s spouse threw water on a legislator. How did the incident transpire in your recollection, and how did you react to this motion? TURNER: You cannot harbor a fugitive if there is no fugitive. They had already arrested someone and taken them off the premises. Their spouse came up to decompress.
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Oklahoma state Rep. Mauree Turner is joined by other members of the state House's Democratic Caucus at a March 7, 2023, press conference about their censure. | Courtesy of Rep. Mauree Turner's office | I absolutely will not apologize to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol for doing the same thing that every other member of the Oklahoma Legislature does, and that is allow people to come into their office. They have at least two members with active felonies and if you have a felony record in Oklahoma, you have to wait at least 15 years after you’ve completely served all of your time to be able to run for office. These are members that they allow to still sit on the floor — Terry O'Donnell and Ryan Martinez — and never once thought about censuring them. They wouldn't dare censure a white man in this body. I haven't done anything illegal. THE RECAST: I understand you’ve been removed from committees. How will you still be able to legislate effectively for your constituents? TURNER: Every bill that makes it through committee goes to the House floor. It's not like I will never see the bills or I'll never be able to ask questions or debate. We will absolutely still be able to do everything that we've been doing, taking them to task, holding them accountable. We will still be able to write policy; we will still be able to push policy.
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| There is no way that the people in this legislature will ever stop me from doing that because they don’t give me the power to do that. The people of House District 88 give me the power to do that. THE RECAST: You’ve said that the censure motion further puts a target on your back. What kinds of messages have you been receiving after the censure? TURNER: I got this email because of the slander and the lies that were told. It’s short, sweet and simple, I’ll just read you the whole thing: [Editor’s note: Turner read aloud from an email sent to their inbox. The sender hurled racist, transphobic, homophobic and Islamophobic insults at Turner and said they should be shunned from society because they were a burden. POLITICO has chosen not to print the insults so as not to elevate hateful rhetoric.] That is the type of rhetoric that Speaker Charles McCall, the highest-ranking official in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, invites to my inbox, invites to my voicemail every time he takes a stand to slander or spread misinformation because that is part of the Republican Party now in the Oklahoma Legislature. They have also started what feels like this divide between the representatives who deserve protection and those who don’t, because my ultimatum was if I didn’t apologize, I would be silenced from committee work. | 
Democratic state Rep. Mauree Turner is pictured on the House floor, Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021, in Oklahoma City. | Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo | THE RECAST: What’s next in your advocacy against HB 2177? I understand there are groups who are preparing lawsuits to stop this law. TURNER: The two modes that we are working through right now is making sure that we are doing mutual aid to get folks the care that they need — whatever is the best care that they decide for themselves and their families. [And] we have organizations like the ACLU, and I believe Lambda Legal, that have made the commitment to file suit against all of these pieces of legislation. THE RECAST: Do you feel like the courts can still be a good way to challenge these laws given that many courts have conservative benches? TURNER: I do. I do think that we’ve got some legal precedents that could really help us out here. And while I am a pessimist there are some times where I also hear [Freedom Oklahoma executive director] Nicole McAfee and [abolitionist organizer and author] Mariame Kaba in my head saying, “Hope is a discipline.” While my default is to be a pessimist, there are so many things that I'm optimistic about when it comes to caring for Oklahomans. I think to be able to continue to show up and do this work every day, you have to be.
|  | THE RECAST: When you were elected, you were the first out nonbinary lawmaker in the entire country, and many more trans people have been elected since then. But the legislative measures and rhetoric against many aspects of trans life have also intensified. How have you come to see the importance of representation, as well as its limits? TURNER: I get to sit at a very unique intersection, being a part of these communities. A good number of Muslims being elected, a good number of trans folks being elected, the number of Black folks being elected. It's nice. To be able to see a shift in all of these identities and specifically trans folks, nonbinary folks getting elected is just humbling and deeply empowering. THE RECAST: But what are the limits of that, when these measures are still being enacted? TURNER: That's the heaviness, to see folks who would never come across the aisle and actually talk to me have those conversations about trans folks in Oklahoma in a way that targets them. It’s just heartbreaking to see. But I will also say serving the people of Oklahoma is the honor of a lifetime, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. ◆◆◆ That’s all for this week. We’re sending you into the long weekend with a few reading, listening and watching recommendations below.
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Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) departs a vote at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 2, 2023. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | Another Santos Imbroglio — A Brazilian man has come forward and accused Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) of masterminding a credit card cloning enterprise based in Central Florida, according to a new filing with federal authorities scooped by Jacqueline Sweet. Sunday viewing is sorted: the Oscars kick off at 8 p.m. on ABC. Indie hit “Everything Everywhere All At Once” leads the pack for nominations. “Our Best Intentions,” by Vibhuti Jain, centers on an immigrant family embroiled in a criminal investigation. The Hulu comedy “UnPrisoned” stars Kerry Washington as a therapist whose father, played by Delroy Lindo, is released from prison after 17 years and moves in with her.
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| Shana Cleveland drops a new record, “Manzanita,” spanning gothic folk and psych-pop and showcasing the artist’s otherworldly vocals in the process. In “Chang Can Dunk,” a 5-foot-8-inch high school student makes a bet that he can dunk on a 10-foot net by homecoming. Maluma’s “La Reina” is a wholesome celebration of womanhood.
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