The slew of bills is spread across 35 states, 27 of which have legislatures controlled by Republicans. The 162 bills that were introduced through July of this year tally just above the 151 considered for all of 2021, and more than double the 76 considered in 2020.
Although many of the bills didn’t get far in the legislative process, 2022 also already marks a record-breaking year for the number of measures that went into effect: 21 anti-LGBTQ bills have been enacted into law during the 2022 legislative session, according to the ACLU.
In pushing the bills, Republicans have raised concerns about fairness in women’s athletics and called for greater parental oversight over what students learn and discuss at school. They’ve also said that children shouldn’t make major decisions about their health at a young age, arguing bans on gender-affirming health care are necessary to prevent such action.
The influx of bills has alarmed both families of LGBTQ youth and advocacy groups, some of which have begun to fight such legislation in court, arguing the measures violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, among other provisions.
“This is by far the worst year. And every year is worse than the previous years,” Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU, told CNN. “It’s definitely the most extreme anti-trans legislative session that I’ve ever been a part of.”
Here’s what these bills target, and which states have introduced — and passed — anti-LGBTQ policies.
Participation in same-gender youth sports
Republican state lawmakers have in recent years focused on the participation of trans youth in school sports, claiming that transgender women and girls have physical advantages over cisgender women and girls in sports, though a 2017 report in the journal Sports Medicine that reviewed several related studies found “no direct or consistent research” on any such advantage.
Though some of the bans apply just to primary and secondary schools while others are intended to reach students at colleges, or both, they all seek to do the same thing: prohibit trans women and girls from competing on sports teams that are consistent with their gender identity. Many of the measures use the same language or titles, such as “Fairness in Women’s Sports.”
In issuing the vetoes, the governors stressed that the legislation sought to address a non-issue in their states.
The NCAA has come out in opposition to bans on trans women competing on teams that match their gender identity, saying in April 2021 that it’s closely monitoring them to make sure NCAA championships can be held “in ways that are welcoming and respectful of all participants.”
School and curriculum restrictions
This year has also seen a record number of bills designed to restrict what teachers and educators can say about LGBTQ-related topics in the classroom. In all of 2021, 16 bills were introduced across statehouses that aimed to restrict how schools could approach topics about LGBTQ issues in the classroom.
So far this year, that number jumped to more than 40 bills across 18 states.
Republicans have argued that the measures provide parents with greater oversight over what kinds of topics are discussed at school and that LGBTQ-related topics should be left for families to discuss at home. When Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 1557 earlier this year — which opponents have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law — he said it recognizes that “parents have a fundamental role in the education, health care and well-being of their children.”
But Democrats and LGBTQ advocates say the bills are discriminatory. The first lawsuit against Florida’s law was filed in March, with the challengers describing the measure as an “unlawful attempt to stigmatize, silence and erase LGBTQ people in Florida’s public schools.”
While sex is a category that refers broadly to physiology, a person’s gender is an innate sense of identity. The factors that go into determining the sex listed on a birth certificate may include anatomy, genetics and hormones, and there is broad natural variation in each of these categories. For this reason, critics have said the language of “biological sex,” as used in bills like the Tennessee one, is overly simplistic and misleading.
Bans on gender-affirming care
Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that a person transitioning from their assigned gender — the one the person was designated at birth — to their affirmed gender — the gender by which they identify.
But conservative lawmakers have argued that decisions around such care should be made after an individual becomes an adult. Many of the bills introduced this year pertaining to the issue criminalize pediatricians who provide this care.
When Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, signed his state’s ban, he said in a statement that his decision was based on his concerns about the seriousness of such health care. “The reason is simple, and common sense — this is a decision that will dramatically affect the rest of an individual’s life, including the ability of that individual to become a biological parent later in life,” the governor said.
Paxton’s order has been mired in lawsuits since it was signed in February, but the state Supreme Court recently ruled that the child abuse investigations can continue.
Madara emphasized that “improved body satisfaction” is linked to “dramatic reductions in suicide attempts, as well as decreased rates of depression and anxiety.”
Already, the bans are being used as campaign tools in the upcoming midterm elections, underscoring how some Republicans are leaning into the issue to gin up support among their base.
Single-sex facility restriction, ID restrictions and religious exemptions
Religious exemption bills in South Carolina and Indiana, meanwhile, would have allowed adoption and foster care agencies to refuse to provide services to members of the LGBTQ community based on a person’s religious beliefs.
What’s next for the laws?
Strangio told CNN that the party’s focus on trans people is a “base-mobilizing tool” that is being steadily tested in the run up to the 2024 general election. “What we are seeing are, you know, sort of the trial balloon testing grounds from 2021 being refined and escalated in 2022 in the lead up to the midterms and then, of course, in the lead up to the 2024 presidential election,” he said.
“Litigation is the next step. There are already cases filed in Alabama, for example, challenging the medical care ban there. And there are additional cases that are also being filed across the country,” said Cathryn Oakley, state legislative director and senior counsel for the Human Rights Campaign, one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ rights groups.
Advocates’ legal efforts may soon get a boost from the Biden administration, which last month proposed extending the protections guaranteed under Title IX, the landmark 1972 federal law that prohibits sex discrimination at federally funded schools, to transgender students. In its announcement, the administration said the 50-year-old law should also protect students against “discrimination based on sexual orientation” and “discrimination based on gender identity.”
“This is a much-needed step in the right direction,” Paul D. Castillo, an attorney with Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ legal advocacy group, said in a statement following the announcement. “These new rules will provide a stronger, clearer measure of recourse and better ensure that victims of unlawful discrimination can avail themselves of the longstanding protections under Title IX.”
