Democratic state Rep. Zooey Zephyr is still a member of the Montana legislature, but she’s not allowed to speak on the floor, and she can’t even set foot inside the legislative chamber. It’s worth understanding why. NBC News reported late yesterday:

Montana House Republicans voted Wednesday to censure Rep. Zooey Zephyr, a Democrat and Montana’s first transgender state legislator. The vote came roughly a week after Zephyr told lawmakers they would have blood on their hands if they supported a measure to restrict gender-affirming care for minors and two days after she was accused of inciting protesters in the chamber. The House voted 68-32 along party lines to censure Zephyr.

For the remainder of the legislative session in Montana, Zephyr will be able to cast votes — but she’ll have to do so remotely. (There was some reporting today that she was working from a bench in state capitol hallway this morning.)

The latest dispute between Zephyr and the Republican majority began in earnest last week, when state GOP leaders brought to the floor a measure to restrict transition-related care for minors. The Montana Democrat, reflecting on the number of trans teens who’ve taken their own lives, declared, “This body should be ashamed. … If you vote yes on this bill and yes on these amendments, I hope the next time there’s an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands.”

To be sure, the state lawmaker’s rhetoric was provocative, but it was intended as such: Zephyr was taking a deeply personal stand in support of the lives of transgender Montanans, championing a community under attack.

In the process, she apparently hurt her Republican colleagues’ feelings.

If GOP lawmakers responded to Zephyr by denouncing her and her rhetoric, that would’ve made sense. If they rallied behind her upcoming challenger in the next election, that would’ve been entirely understandable. Alternatively, they might’ve even considered her concerns on their merits.

But in the name of “decorum,” the Republican majority went in a more radical direction, misgendering her ahead of yesterday’s vote, and ultimately blocking the Democratic lawmaker from the chamber floor.

If this sounds at all familiar, it’s probably because GOP state lawmakers in Tennessee recently thought it’d be a good idea to hold expulsion votes against three of their Democratic colleagues, ultimately kicking out two Black legislators who also dared to put aside “decorum” rules to plead with state House Republicans to address gun violence.

In other words, in some red states, in the name of “decorum,” Republicans are finding it easier to silence political opponents than deal with the substance of their arguments.

Or as Zephyr told her colleagues before she was no longer allowed to speak, “If you use decorum to silence people who hold you accountable, then all you are doing is using decorum as a tool for oppression.”