By Jonathan Lewis
WASHINGTON, DC – The ACLU reported late last week it is monitoring more than 100 anti-LGBTQ legislative measures in state houses in nearly half of all U.S. states.
“Politicians across the country already introduced 124 total bills restricting LGBTQ people, targeting their freedom of expression, the safety of transgender students, and access to health care for gender dysphoria,” wrote the ACLU.
The ACLU said it has created a new digital dashboard (ACLU digital dashboard for anti-LGBTQ bills) to monitor the status of anti-LGBTQ bills. The digital dashboard is frequently updated and has additional resources for learning about the LGBTQ community.
The tracker shows that 24 states have at least one anti-LGBTQ bill in the U.S., with Missouri, Texas and South Carolina leading the way.
“These bills represented a coordinated effort to deny transgender people our freedom, our safety, and our dignity,” said Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project.
Strangio added, “Across the country, trans people and our families are gearing up to fight back and prevent every one of these bills from becoming law. The history of LGBTQ people in the U.S. shows we are hardly strangers to having our health care politicized or our safety threatened by misinformed and misguided politicians.
“Even in the face of such an unprecedented effort to deny our existence, we are only more determined to build the future we all deserve.”
The ACLU sorted the bills into several categories, with lawmakers targeting healthcare access for transgender people, LGBTQ rights in schools and educational settings, freedom of speech and expression for LGBTQ people, the ability to update gender information on IDs and records, civil rights laws, public accommodations, and other LGBTQ rights.
Strangio pledged to step up the fight against the bills, noting, “Across the country, trans people and our families are gearing up to fight back and prevent every one of these bills from becoming law.”
The ACLU said it will not sit back and allow the LGBTQ community to disappear from existence, despite politicians’ attempts.
In 2022, the ACLU said it tracked a “record-breaking 278 bills targeting LGBTQ people, largely focused on transgender youth. Twenty became law, including 17 aimed at restricting the rights of transgender student-athletes.”
