Anti-trans Watch: Policies in MO, OK, TX, VA move forward. Positive movement in OH.

This week saw some of the worst anti-trans bills ever in Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia. Ohio defeated one of its terrible bills!

Every week, we track all of the transgender policies that move across the United States together. The goal of this is to keep all of you, activists and informed readers, abreast of possible new laws that can be fought early. If you live in some of these states, contact your local representative or your LGBTQ+ center near you an explain how these policies would hurt you.

Last year over 250 anti-trans bills, amendments, and policies were proposed. Only around 10% of them made it through to become laws. It is possible to beat most of these bills - there are very good arguments against restrictions on transgender people from both a Republican and a Democratic framework. The decisions around transgender people should be between doctors, families, their providers, and their care team. The government has no place stepping in and telling families what kind of treatment they can get, provided it sits within medically acceptable standards of care.

A summary of the policies:

This week we saw movement in some new states for this legislative cycle. Missouri bills have started to come in and so far, we start off with three anti-trans sports bills. One of them is particularly heinous as it would require transgender people to “sign biological sex affidavits.” This is terrible for multiple reasons, such as the creation of a paper trail of transgender people in the state as well as forcible outing of all trans people who keep their transitions private. We also saw movement in Virginia, which released its first medical detransition ban bill - last year, Virginia had only released anti-trans sports bills.

Two states, Texas and Oklahoma, released some of the worst anti-trans bills I have ever seen. Oklahoma’s bill would ban gender affirming care for some trans adults (those under 21 years old). This is the first time we have seen an expansion into trans adult bans and I write about it extensively here. Likewise, we saw a resolution get introduced in Texas calling for an end to ALL gender affirming care. Texas also introduced another anti-trans medical transition bill as well as a large school board in the Dallas area is considering banning trans youth from bathrooms. We are seeing an increase in escalation in the states that I have previously identified as highest risk.

List of Anti-trans Policies:

MO HB170: Would ban transgender people from sports as well as require students to sign “biological sex affidavits” which would forcibly out transgender students and keep a paper trail record of them.

MO HB183: Would ban transgender people from sports.

MO HB337: Would ban transgender people from sports.

OK HB1011: Would ban medical transition for trans youth and trans adults up to the age of 21 years old. This bill would also prevent referrals from therapists for gender affirming care, make it a felony, and even possibly define hair removal as banned gender affirming care.

VA HB1399: This bill would ban transgender people in Virginia from sports and could make birth certificates subject to being challenged.

VA SB791: This bill would medically detransition all trans teens in the state of Virginia and force them through the wrong puberty.

Dallas CS(Local): This is a bathroom ban in one of the Dallas area’s largest school district that would ban transgender youth from restrooms.

Texas SCR3: This resolution is one of the harshest anti-trans resolutions I have ever seen - it calls for an end to ALL gender affirming care and calls for the censure of all represnetatives who support it.

Texas SB250: This bill would forcibly medically detransition trans youth and end liability protection for doctors within the state.

List of Positive Pro-trans Movement:

Ohio HB454: This bill would have detransitioned all trans youth in Ohio. It was fought tooth and nail by activists over half a dozen hearings. Jeopardy champion Amy Schneider flew out to testify against this bill. It finally died this week!