Anti-Trans Omnibus Bill Passes Georgia Senate, Skirting State Deadlines

An anti-trans "omnibus" bill, dubbed a "Frankenbill" by detractors, has passed in Georgia, with another one pending.

Public Domain, Georgia Senators Open In Prayer

Today, Georgia's Senate passed House Bill 1104, an "omnibus" bill designed to consolidate several anti-transgender policies into a single piece of legislation. Additionally, the Senate will debate House Bill 1170 later this evening, which proposes adding puberty blockers to a ban on gender-affirming care already passed by the state. Both bills were attached to entirely unrelated legislation as a strategy to circumvent rules that mandate bills pass at least one chamber by a specific deadline, effectively rendering that deadline meaningless for anti-trans legislation. This weekend, it was announced that both bills would appear on the Senate calendar, and at 4 PM on Tuesday, House Bill 1104 passed on a party-line 33-21 vote. The Georgia Legislature is set to adjourn sine die on Thursday.

This year, more than 14 anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced in Georgia. Some of these proposed measures would have forcibly outed transgender youth in the state. Others would ban transgender students from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity. The hearings for these bills were met with significant opposition and led to tense encounters. In one notable hearing, only supporters of a bill were permitted to testify, despite a room full of opponents. Another moment that garnered attention involved a Republican senator in Georgia who approached a girl to vow to protect her with a bathroom ban, only to run away upon discovering she was transgender. The bills did not advance past their respective chambers before "crossover day," the deadline by which a bill must be passed by at least one chamber or be considered dead.

However, now, the language from those failed bills were added onto entirely unrelated bills in a bid to get around those rules. House Bill 1104 originally was a bill about showing mental health videos to high school athletes in the state. After being amended, that bill would now:

• Ban transgender students from sports of their gender identity.

• Ban transgender students from bathrooms of their gender identity, though the scope and enforcement is unclear.

• Allow parents to be notified of every book a student checks out.

• Bar sex education before 6th grade and make all sex-ed entirely opt-in.

• Expands obscenity laws in schools which have been used to ban books.

Similarly, House bill 1170 was a bill originally about opioid overdose protections. That bill has been amended to now bar puberty blockers for transgender youth. Georgia had previously banned gender affirming care for transgender youth, but that ban did not originally include puberty blockers.

The reaction to the attempt to skirt the rules was swift. Isabelle Philip from the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition stated, “Yesterday, HB 1104, a bill to support the mental health of athletes was overwritten to ban trans youth from playing on their school’s sports team and from using the correct bathroom, endangering some of our most vulnerable young Georgians, alongside a slew of other anti-LGBTQ+ restrictions. No substantial notice was given for public comment, which was stacked with far-right extremists, a tactic to exclude us from deliberation that directly impacts us."

Georgia Equality stated, “Extremists in the State Senate are trying to pass unpopular legislation through anti-democratic means... the majority of Georgians oppose discriminatory anti-LGBTQ policies, & tactics like these are a shameful attempt to silence that majority.”

Then, on Tuesday, House Bill 1104 came up for debate. Democrats delivered scathing criticism, while no Republican stood to speak in favor of the bill except for the bill’s sponsor. Democratic Senator Elena Parent rebuked Republicans for requiring sex education classes to have extensive notices filed before they would be allowed to occur, pointing out that the legislature itself rushed the bill through while skirting public notice and state-required deadlines:

“It is not particularly material to the policy, but it is extraordinarily galling nonetheless and indicative of the hubris that exists within this building, that this legislation requires two public hearings to be put on by the school board… they then have to publicly notice it at least two weeks before they adopt a sex ed curriculum… then they on lines 135-138 have to have the curricula be available and accessible for public comment for at least 45 days before approval of any sex education curricula. Well… this bill popped up in committee with no notice, no 45 days, no opportunity for review, no opportunity for public input, and it wasn’t even online by the time we were voting on it. It is outrageous that we are busy mandating these things for school boards across the state while behaving in the complete opposite way.”

Senator Josh McLaurin called the provisions weak and called out Republican claims of anti-trans poll numbers, stating, “what polls even worse than a perceived lack of fairness in these polls is being a bully.” Polls repeatedly show that most people support equality protections, would be motivated to vote against legislators who make anti-trans politics a major part of their platform, and consistently rank trans issues as one of the lowest priority issues they care about.

Despite no Republican speaking in favor of the bill, HB1104 passed on a party-line 33-21 vote:

Final vote on HB1104 in the Senate.

Georgia may be set to diverge from the trend observed in other states this year, where there has been a retreat from anti-trans legislation. For example, several bills were defeated in Florida targeting LGBTQ+ people, including several specifically targeting transgender individuals. In West Virginia, dozens of proposed anti-LGBTQ+ bills met a similar fate. At the national level, during budget negotiations, Democrats were able to eliminate 50 anti-trans provisions. Other Southern states, including Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, appear to be advancing severe anti-trans legislation.

House Bill 1170 is still slated for a vote in the Senate. Should it pass, both it and HB1104 will go to the House for final concurrence, whereupon they will need the Governor’s signature for final passage into law.