Breaking: Montana Representative Zooey Zephyr is not being allowed to speak on any bill. The Montana GOP is refusing to formally censure her, and has instead decided to deny her any recognition to speak in an unprecedented and undemocratic action. After the entirety of the Democratic Party stood to demand that she be recognized, the legislature went to a rules committee. Ultimately, they ruled that the speaker can refuse to recognize for any reason, any one. This occurred directly after Montana’s House passed a bill to erase trans people entirely from Montana code.

It is particularly troublesome that the state’s only and first transgender woman representative has been literally erased and silenced following a law that does the same thing to all trans people in the state.