Overview:
Over the past four years, attacks on hard-won LGBTQ rights have increased across the United States. From medical care, to education, to identity documents, there are few areas that have been untouched by legislative bans on constitutionally protected activity, especially for the transgender community. More than half of the states now ban healthcare and sports participation for transgender youth. The scale of these attacks has ensured that only some of the bans get challenged in court and an even smaller number get overturned. Our team worked to track these laws (with the information provided by the Movement Advancement Project (MAP)) along with any legal challenges.
Landscape of Anti-LGBTQ Bans and Challenges:
Below is a breakdown of the different categories of anti-LGBTQ legislation, the number of states that have adopted these laws, and the number of challenges that have been filed against them. Each category includes links to MAP’s topic pagewith more detailed legislative information by state.
Medical Bans:
Bans on medical care target transgender youth by blocking care that is backed by years of rigorous research and endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and other leading health authorities. We also track bans on state insurance coverage for transgender healthcare.
- Total States: 26 (Youth Medical Bans); 7 (Insurance Coverage Bans)
- Total Challenges: 17 (Youth Medical Bans); 2 (Insurance Coverage Bans)
Sports Bans:
Bans on transgender youth participating in school sports, most frequently in K-12 schools but sometimes including college athletics. These laws mean that transgender girls, for example, would not be allowed to participate in sports with other girls.
- Total States: 26
- Total Challenges: 8
Bathroom and Facility Bans:
Laws prohibiting transgender people from using bathrooms and facilities—such as locker rooms, shower rooms, changing rooms, and other sex-segregated spaces—according to their gender identity. All apply to K-12 school settings, and some even apply to other government buildings and spaces (e.g., city hall, courthouses, state legislative buildings, and more).Many individual school districts have also required this, but NCLR is currently tracking only state-wide laws.
- Total States: 13
- Total Challenges: 4
Don’t Say Gay/Trans (DSG/T):
While “Don’t Say Gay” laws have been around for decades in the form of state laws requiring schools to teach negative perspectives on LGBT people, more recent laws take the approach of explicitly censoring teachers and staff from discussing LGBTQ people or issues at all.
- Total States: 12
- Total Challenges: 4
Forced Outing Bills:
Several states have now required all of their public-school teachers and staff to disclose to a student’s parents if they choose to go by a different name or pronouns. This creates an unsafe space for transgenderyouth to be themselves at school for fear of being outed. Many individual school districts have also required this, but NCLR is currently only tracking state-wide laws.
- Total States: 13
- Total Challenges: 0
Identity Documents:
Many existing state laws create surgery requirements for transgender youth and adults to change the gender marker on their birth certificates and driver’s licenses even if they can’t or choose not to undergo surgical procedures. Additionally, a handful of states have made it impossible for anyone to change the gender marker on identity documents regardless of any “proof” of gender change.
- Total States: 19 (Birth Certificates); 13 (Driver’s Licenses)
- Total Challenges: 5 (Birth Certificates); 2 (Driver’s Licenses)
Drag Bans:
Laws designed to restrict drag performances.
- Total States: 6
- Total Challenges: 4
Pronoun Bans:
Some school districts and states have used “Don’t Say Gay/Trans” legislation to prevent teachers, faculty, and/or students from sharing and recognizing their pronouns if different from their sex-assigned at birth. For example, Florida teachers can’t ask students their pronouns, can’t be required to use students’ or other teachers’ pronouns if they don’t align with their sex assigned at birth, and may not share the pronouns they use for themselves with students if they do not correspond to the teacher’s sex-assigned at birth. MAP does not currently track these laws.
- Total States: 9 [there is a challenge to one of these, in FL]
- Total Challenges: 1
What do the numbers mean?
Most of the laws we track have not been challenged. The primary reason for this is a lack of capacity amongst LGBTQ organizations, and the movement in general, to take on the costs of litigation due to the staggering and growing number of bans nationwide. In some states where the population of transgender youth is exceedingly small, lawyers may also have a difficult time finding plaintiffs willing and able to fight laws in their state.
With limited resources, many organizations (NCLR included) must be strategic in prioritizing which of these bans to challenge. Medical bans, for example, are a strategic priority because these bans prevent transgender youth from accessing essential care and treatment of gender dysphoria, which can cause severe anxiety, depression and other serious and even life-threatening harms.
Anti-LGBTQ activists have been effective by replicating laws from one state to proliferate throughout the rest. Many rely on the same flawed language and research to copy and paste unconstitutional justifications into as many bills as possible. Each meaningful challenge in court is creating the caselaw and precedent required to fight these bans in every state.
Organizations like NCLR and our movement partners need more attention, resources, and support. In addition to our litigation work, NCLR is part of a broad coalition working together to defeat these laws targeting LGBTQ people and their families, including transgender youth. It is more important than ever to continue fighting for essential medical care and core civil and human rights for LGBTQ people throughout the country. We have no choice but to win.
