Behavior Analysts Organizing Around Anti-DEI and Anti-Trans Legislation 2025
This is an invitation for you to organize against anti-DEI and anti-trans legislation at the individual, group, and state level, including but not limited to legislation which threatens the licenses and/or livelihoods of helping professionals who provide DEI based support and education, gender affirming services, and/or who protect the confidentiality of their transgender and/or gender nonconforming patients or learners.
This year Anti-Trans Legislation continues to be introduced in the United States in the form of 381 bills and counting across 41 states.
Before you start moving toward action, take a pause to consider Behavior Analytic Saviorism: Gingles and Preudhomme (2020) note that behavior analysts may feel compelled to promote a “skill set, education, and science as the means to save an individual or address problems that impact marginalized groups without addressing or revealing competency in systemic barriers and policies rooted in racialized oppression.”
This is after the concept of White Saviorism, and Beautiful Humans notes that behavior analysis can embody and has revealed a White Savior Industrial Complex (Gingles and Preudhomme, 2020). They note that “Before we can ‘Save The World’ we must: Understand how privilege can reinforce saviorism, Identify the function of your private thoughts and confront racist biases, read the work of individuals directly impacted, Take diversity, equity and inclusion training courses, Consult practitioners who have experience in this area, Learn about the hierarchy and intersectionality of racial oppression, Listen to marginalized voices,” (Gingles & Preudhomme, 2020).
What does that have to do with you here and now? You do not have all the answers. There are orgs in your state or local area who are already doing this work and have been doing this work. Look for them, and look to align your behavior with their activism. Additionally, it is easy to find DEI orgs and/or transgender people or orgs who look like you or act like you, and it is possible to enact racism, ableism, classism, and nationalism while also trying to engage in transgender affirmation.
Try to find orgs run by folks experiencing intersections of marginalization to notice their calls for action. In what ways can you show up and support the asks they are making both within and outside of legislative action?
Need an intro or a refresher on how a bill becomes a law at the state level? Check out this resource from Freedom for All Americans.
Need a refresher on how state legislature works in general? Check out this wiki.
You can contact your state representatives to speak out against a bill.
Use Resistbot to compose a letter to your State Reps and Governor.
Find your State Legislators. Call your State Representatives asking them to vote against a bill, or your Governor asking them to refuse to sign the bill into law. Nervous to call? Typically you will not speak directly to your rep but to someone on their staff. Their job is not to make a judgment call, but to note whether you are for or against a bill. You can share a lot of information or you can keep it concise, but it is important to remember to state your NAME, CITY, STATE and whether you are FOR/AGAINST the BILL [INSERT BILL NUMBER].
You might say something as simple as “Hi, my name is [Your Name], and I am a constituent of [Your City, Your State]. I am calling to urge [Representative] to vote [For/ Against] Bill [Name/Number of Bill].”
That’s it! Your call will likely be registered as a tally mark on a sheet, so it is less about the content and more about showing up and being counted.
Consider how you might use your networks, including your state organization, to advocate for change. Consider how you might organize individuals around you to act in alignment with calls to action named by the most marginalized and most impacted in the trans organizing communities in your state or region. Consider how you might organize and empower those around you to also organize and empower their networks to act in alignment with calls to action named by the most marginalized and most impacted in the trans organizing communities in your state or region.
Call on the BACB to take a position in alignment with the AMA and APA. Ask specifically that the BACB clarifies its commitment to maintain ethical standards, and address how they will be responsive to potential criminalization of affirmation behaviors which are in alignment with the Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts, science, and with scientific best practice.
Call on your state ABA organization to maintain a position statement (see TexABA as an example) standing in alignment with the Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts, science, and with scientific best practice. Ask your state how it is using its legal advocacy power it fundraises for to advocate for policy that is in alignment with the Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts, science, and with scientific best practice.
Call on your state organization to use their lobbyist political power to advocate for human rights in your state.
To the board of the BACB:
I am writing to ask that you take a stand in alignment with the AMA and APA against anti-trans legislation, and anti-DEI legislation, and to reaffirm your commitment to the core principles of the Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts (ECBA; BACB, 2020) and it’s commitment to anti-discrimination and anti-harassment (ECBA 1.07, 1.08, and 1.09). I am also requesting that the BACB provide formal clarification and guidance on protections for consumers, analysts, and technicians if an when there is a conflict between the ethics code and the law regarding affirmation, anti-discrimination, and anti-harassment. I am requesting that the BACB directly and proactively clarify how they will be responsive to potential criminalization of affirmation behaviors which are in alignment with the Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts, science, and with scientific best practice.
To the board of local state chapters:
I am writing to ask that you take a stand against anti-trans legislation, and anti-DEI legislation, and to reaffirm your commitment to the core principles of the Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts (ECBA; BACB, 2020) and it’s commitment to anti-discrimination and anti-harassment (ECBA 1.07, 1.08, and 1.09). I am also requesting that the board provide formal clarification and guidance on protections for consumers, analysts, and technicians if and when there is a conflict between the ethics code and the law regarding affirmation, anti-discrimination, and anti-harassment. I am requesting that the board directly and proactively clarify how they will be responsive at the state level to potential criminalization of affirmation behaviors which are in alignment with the Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts, science, and with scientific best practice.