One would think that a bill with nearly half of the State Assembly and Senate signed on as sponsors or co-sponsors would have made a quick and decisive path through the legislature and then to the Governor’s desk.

Assembly Bill A4656 has 39 of the 80 Assembly members‘ names on it and its identical Senate bill, S3491, has 19 of 40 Senators.

It has languished for 18 months and hasn’t been brought for a vote yet after being introduced in June of 2024.

The bill’s synopsis says that it “Secures protections for patients and providers accessing and providing legally protected health care activities; establishes right of residents to legally protected health care services, which are restricted in other states.”

The bill specifically mentions access to abortion, in vitro fertilization (IVF), and gender affirming care, protecting those providing or seeking such care from violent attacks and giving them legal protections from federal entities and other states where conservative legislators have outlawed and restricted access and protections.

At the federal level, protections for gender affirming care have been under attack thanks to Project 2025 and Donald Trump’s fear-mongering and vilification of trans people, specifically, and all LGBTQ+ people generally. Nonsensical diatribes accusing Democrats of wanting “transgender for all” and stories claiming women’s rights are under attack by trans women have created more fear and division for no reason other than conservatives trying to demonize trans people.

It has become so dangerous to just be trans in America that many people who are trans have essentially returned to the closet. Kids face bullying and harassment, leading to huge increases in suicide attempts among trans and nonbinary youth, according to The Trevor Project.

Reproductive rights are being restricted in states around the country ever since Roe V. Wade was overturned in 2022, with some states restricting access and others attempting to create legally questionable laws that would punish providers even outside of their state. Some of the states with abortion bans have provisions that would punish healthcare providers from other states for rendering care to residents of states where bans exist, and even punish tele-health providers.

New Jersey has a chance to stand up for those people looking for healthcare by simply passing this bill as it stands.

This isn’t some big, progressive bill expanding access or providing funding or making big steps forward.

It isn’t something bold or brave.

This is a bill that would do the bare minimum to protect a small segment of our population’s access to medical care that is approved and sanctioned by every major medical association.

Care that is under attack by federal Departments of Health and Justice, not for scientific or medical reasons, but for ideological ones.

One mother of a trans son told The Trentonian recently that she fears that she would have to leave New Jersey if the state can’t protect her son’s access to medical care. She asked to remain anonymous to the public out of fear for her son’s safety.

Living in South Jersey, she said she once had more access to care for her son, but since providers have been under attack by federal regulations and laws, many gender care clinics have shut down or stopped offering care for minors.

“I’ve worked hard with medical professionals,” she said, to determine the right care for her son.

“He is who he says he is. He’s a happy kid. If you take [access to medical care] away and force him to detransition, I can’t risk that for my child.”

She said the CHOP Gender Clinic, where he goe,s was subpoenaed by the US DOJ, demanding not just medical, but also personally identifying information about all patients receiving any gender-affirming care. CHOP challenged and won, but they still have to turn over medical information without names and social security numbers.

“I don’t understand why NJ, that claims to be LGBTQ-friendly, is letting these attacks continue and these rights erode and is not speaking up forcefully at all.”

“Why are his life and his rights not worth defending?”

Another mother of a trans daughter told The Trentonian that her daughter is not currently getting medical care, so the bill wouldn’t benefit her immediately, but the erosion of rights is frightening for her daughter’s future and for everyone’s.

“It’s not about just our kid, it’s about all the kids, and the trans adults,” the mother, only identified here by her nickname, Cat.

She said it was frightening, “just the notion that [conservative activists] could decide that there are individuals in our society that are not valuable enough, to say that they should not have access to appropriate care.”

Cat has done advocacy work formany different marginalized groups, but said that her daughter being Black and trans, “lives at the most dangerous intersection in this country.”

Watching her daughter stand up for herself and for others is inspirational, Cat said.

“You shouldn’t have to be so brave and exceptional, you should just get to be a kid,” Cat said. “These are the kids who are standing up for everyone else.”

“My daughter is just so affirming to others, and she deserves to be affirmed. She’s hurt no one and is always so kind.”

Now the NJ Legislature has a chance to stand up for her and for thousands of other trans kids and adults. And stand up for thousands of women who need reproductive care.

With a bill that doesn’t move the cause forward, but prevents the cause from moving backwards.

This doesn’t feel like a fight that should be fought, but a foregone conclusion in a supposedly progressive state like New Jersey.

The urgency for the legislatire to get this done in its upcoming lame-duck session exists and the need is immediate because protections end when Gov. Phil Murphy leaves office. He issued an executive order in 2023 protecting access that expires as soon as his term is done.

New Jersey should remain a safe haven for medical care. While we would advocate to expand rights and access, that’s not the fight right now.

The fight is to maintain existing protections, because taking away rights puts us all down a dangerous path where tomorrow’s attacks from outside of New Jersey will be to take away more.