ACLU says states saw record number of anti-LGBTQ bills in 2023

The pace of anti-LGBTQ legislation quickened exponentially in 2023, climbing upwards of 60 percent over last year as Republican state lawmakers filed hundreds of measures meant to restrict talk of gender and sexuality in schools, access to gender-affirming health care and more.

At least 510 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced this year in more than 40 states, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and 84 were passed into law. State lawmakers in 2022 filed around 315 such bills, and 29 became law.

The majority of anti-LGBTQ legislation filed in 2023 targeted teachers and students, according to the ACLU, with more than 230 bills seeking to restrict classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, require parents to be notified when their child asks to use a different name or pronoun at school and bar transgender students from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

Of the 34 education-related anti-LGBTQ bills that became law this year, 14 have been challenged in court.

Another 137 bills filed in 2023 targeted access to gender-affirming health care, according to the ACLU, with 26 becoming law.

While most measures sought to ban access to treatments including puberty blockers, surgeries and doses of testosterone or estrogen for transgender minors, several early iterations of bills introduced in South Carolina, Virginia and Oklahoma aimed to restrict access to treatment for people as old as 21.

In Florida, a bill signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in May severely limits how transgender adults, in addition to minors, are able to access care that is considered medically necessary by every major medical organization.

Most gender-affirming health care bans face lawsuits from affected families, medical professionals and LGBTQ civil rights groups, although court rulings have been mixed. Two Idaho families with transgender children scored a preliminary legal victory this week in their case against the state’s ban, which was set to take effect in January.

Similar laws passed this year in Indiana, Montana and Florida have been temporarily blocked by court orders as cases against them proceed. In June, a federal judge struck down Arkansas’s first-in-the-nation ban, ruling it unconstitutional. The state is appealing that decision.

Courts in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Texas and Georgia, however, have allowed bans on gender-affirming health care to remain in effect.

More than a third of transgender children and adolescents in the U.S. live in a state that has banned gender-affirming health care, according to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group.

At the height of this year’s legislative session, more than half of all transgender youth were living in a state where a gender-affirming care ban had been proposed, according to the group.

Additional anti-LGBTQ legislation filed in 2023 sought to restrict certain drag performances and prevent transgender people from using public restrooms or locker rooms consistent with their gender identity.

Measures limiting “adult” performances became law in four states this year: Tennessee, Montana, Texas and Florida. Those laws are all currently unenforceable, however, due to federal court orders.

Seven states in 2023 adopted laws meant to bar transgender people from using facilities that match their gender identity. In Florida, it is a criminal offense for a transgender person to use a public restroom that is consistent with their gender identity.

At least six states this year enacted laws that define “sex” throughout state code as male or female based on a person’s presumed reproductive anatomy or other physical characteristics at birth. 

They “effectively allow discrimination against transgender people” by refusing to legally recognize their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, and threaten the ability of transgender people to use restrooms or obtain accurate identity documents.