So, our three weeks in the “transgender refuge state” just ended. “The transgender refugee state” is what some Americans have been calling Minnesota since 2023, after the state passed a law that protected gender-affirming health care for youth. At that time, LGBTQ advocacy organizations asked Gov. Tim Walz to safeguard their rights as other U.S. states were imposing restrictions on access to care.
In the last two years, states like Florida, Texas and some of Minnesota’s neighbors, including Iowa, South Dakota and North Dakota, have banned transgender people under 18 from accessing treatments like hormone therapy. Now, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide if these laws are constitutional.
While these states were adopting more conservative laws, Minnesota went in the opposite direction. First, the city of Minneapolis adopted a law to safeguard the rights of transgender people and the state of Minnesota followed suit.
“One thing that is really core for Walz is protecting access to care,” says Kat Rohn, executive director of OutFront Minnesota, an organization that advocates for LGBTQIA+ rights. “For him, it is a fundamental value that people should be able to make choices about their health care. And when it comes to trans youth, the people who should be making those choices are the families, the doctors, and the youth together.”
‘Most voters aren’t deciding based on gender-affirming care or transgender youth’, says Kat Rohn
According to OutFront data, since 2023, at least 250 families from different states have moved to Minnesota so some of their members can access gender-affirming health care.
“And we believe that is probably an undercount by about four times,” Rohn says. “So, we think there are probably about 1,000 households that have moved in total to the state of Minnesota.”
The protection of transgender rights defended by Walz has, however, been used against the governor by conservatives who support presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to the executive director of OutFront Minnesota. Even so, Rohn believes that this is not going to affect the election outcome.
“Most voters aren’t deciding based on gender-affirming care or transgender youth,” Rohn explains. “Most voters care about the economy, the price of food or safety and security generally. They don’t really think about transgender issues.”
One of the reasons that led Democrat Kamala Harris to choose Walz as her vice-presidential candidate was the fact that he is from a rural area and could help attract voters from swing rural states, like Wisconsin. However, Star Tribune newspaper columnist John Rash, who has covered Walz’s career for more than 15 years, says Walz might not be as effective in that regard.
“I don’t think he will attract as many as Kamala had hoped because, in part of his governance, he has generally chosen more liberal policies,” Rash says. “So his critics have been able to portray him as a much more urban liberal candidate than one that represents the more rural and conservative areas of Minnesota and of the country.”
Dan Hofrenning, a political science professor at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, has a different view. In his opinion, despite his progressive policies, Walz is a politician with a rural background who knows how to connect with rural voters.
“He wears plaid flannel shirts, and even when Barack Obama gave a speech at the Democratic Convention, he mentioned that,” Hofrenning says. “Obama was saying he’s the real deal.”
Hofrenning, however, notes that it will be very difficult to know if Walz can influence the election outcome.
“The conventional wisdom probably says the vice-presidential candidate does not have a great impact,” Hofrenning says. “But of course, it’s simply hard to prove that. You will never be able to say what percentage Harris would get if she had picked a different VP.”
