Missouri Announces 21 Likely Anti-LGBTQ+ Bills On First Day Of Prefilling
Anti-LGBTQ+ bills in Missouri target bathroom access, medical care, drag, classroom discussions, books, and more.
On December 1st, Missouri's legislature commenced a period known as pre-filing, where legislators can start submitting bills to be considered in the 2024 legislative cycle. Often, the first day of pre-filing provides insight into the legislative priorities for the upcoming session, which begins on January 3rd, 2024. For LGBTQ+ individuals and their allies, the first day of pre-filing revealed that the Missouri Republicans’ assault on queer and trans people is nowhere near over. Notably, at least 21 bills specifically targeting LGBTQ+ people, with a particular emphasis on transgender individuals, were filed on the very first day. These bills aim to ban bathroom access, books, medical care, public drag performances, classroom topics, and more.
Individuals proposing these bills are likely recognizable to those who followed Missouri's 2023 legislative session, which targeted transgender people heavily. For instance, Senator Mike Moon has filed several bills in the 2024 session focusing on transgender people. He gained notoriety as the primary sponsor of the state's gender-affirming care ban, leading to many trans youth losing access to their medication. Furthermore, Sen. Moon infamously defended child marriage in a video clip that captured national media attention. Representative Mazie Boyd, who last year proposed one of the most restrictive drag bans in the United States, is also involved. In a hearing last year, she declined to confirm that a daughter painting her father's fingernails would be acceptable when directly questioned about her bill.
This year, Missouri has seen several new bills introduced in a legislative session that promises to be equally contentious around LGBTQ+ people, especially transgender people. One bill, HB1574, would defund libraries that refuse to ban books. Another, HB1405, would force teachers to use the wrong pronouns for trans students who are not out to their parents. HB1543 would charge teachers with a crime for the distribution of what the law defines as “sexually explicit material.” We know from debates over book bans in 2023 that many LGBTQ+ books in red states often get judged as “sexually explicit.”
See this excerpt from HB1574, which would remove funding from libraries that refuse to ban books or ban drag reading hours:
Many more bills focus on LGBTQ+ topics in schools, including a SB1024, a "Don't Say Gay Or Trans" bill. Currently, Missouri is not among the 16 states that impose restrictions on LGBTQ+ discussions in schools. These restrictions are frequently referred to as “Don’t Say Gay” bills and often extend to targeting transgender teachers, potentially leading to their firing for using different pronouns or honorifics in class. This push for anti-trans school policies by Republicans is significant, given their unpopularity in the 2023 school board elections, where over 70% of candidates supported by Moms For Liberty were defeated.
One particularly bad bill is HB1520, which modifies the state’s current gender affirming care ban for trans youth and incarcerated adults passed in 2023. The original bill allowed those who were already getting care to continue to get care, and also set a sunset date for the law to August 28, 2027, ostensibly to wait for “further research” on care to be released. House Bill 1520 removes both of those exceptions, meaning that the gender affirming care ban would become permanent, and those already receiving care due to being grandfathered in would be no longer allowed to continue receiving care.
See this excerpt from HB1520, where those provisions are crossed out:
Missouri has seen the introduction of new bills this year aimed at "online obscenity." Although the full texts of several bills seeking to ban youth from accessing "obscene content" online are not yet available, there is a history of similar legislation being used to target LGBTQ+ individuals. For example, in Montana, a bill of this nature was almost amended to include "acts of transgenderism." On a national level, the Kids Online Safety Act, intended to regulate social media content accessible to minors, has encountered obstacles. A key stumbling block has been lead sponsor Republican Senator Blackburn's statement that the bill would target transgender people. In Missouri, these proposed measures include HB1426, which seeks to prohibit "material harmful to minors" without age verification, and SB1084, an obscenity bill applicable to online websites.
Here is a full listing of likely bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community released on the first day of legislative prefiling in Missouri:
Potential Anti-LGBTQ+ bills:
HB1519 - This bill would make it so that hospital systems “could not discriminate” against doctors that refuse to provide or assist in gender affirming care, including office workers and pharmacists.
HB1520 - This bill would remove the exception allowing those youth who have already started gender affirming care care to continue getting care.
HB1574 - This bill would defund libraries that don’t ban books or that host drag queen story hours (referred to as “inappropriate events”).
HB1405 - This bill would force teachers to misgender their trans students unless they have parental permission.
HB1426 - This bill would ban online “material harmful to minors” without an age verification process.
HB1543 - A bill that would charge school employees with a crime for providing books that are judged to be “explicitly sexual,” potentially affecting LGBTQ+ books.
HB1674 - This bill has no text yet, but entitled the “employee restroom and locker room access act” and the Republican sponsor of the bill recently tweeted about trans bathroom and locker room access.
SB726 - This bill is titled “Relating to gender transition,” proposed by Republican Senator Hoskins.
SB728 - This bill would force the outing of trans students to their parents
SB770 - This bill would ban trans participation in sports and critical race theory in schools, among other things.
SB776 - This bill removes the expiration date on the gender affirming care ban and likely also removes the grandfather clause that allowed people who already started getting care to continue to obtain that care.
SB868 - This bill is titled “prohibiting discussion of certain topics by school personnel,” likely will include LGBQT+ topics.
SB949 - This bill has no text, but its title suggests it is likely a public drag ban given other drag bans sharing similar titles.
SB950 - This bill is an obscenity law likely targeting LGBTQ+ books.
SB951 - This bill is titled “Relating to sexual offenses,” and the author is notorious for anti-LGBTQ+ bills. It will likely will be a bill targeting LGBTQ+ topics, likely public drag.
SB961 - This is a “Material harmful to minors” law that will likely target LGBTQ+ materials.
SB1024 - This is a “Don’t Say Gay Or Trans” bill.
SB1061 - This is a company boycott ban for companies boycotting a state due to anti-LGBTQ+ laws.
SB1084 - This is an obscenity bill that applies to online websites. It could target LGBTQ+ content.
SB1185 - This bill removes the expiration date on the gender affirming care ban and likely also removes the grandfather clause that allowed people who already started getting care to continue to obtain that care.
SB1187 - This bill has no text, likely is drag ban, and is titled “Relating to sexually oriented businesses”
Potential LGBTQ+ protective bills:
SB787 - Prohibits discrimination based on someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
SB1289- No text, but titled “relating to conversion therapy for minors” and likely a conversion therapy ban.
Its that time again :-/
Fuck these fucking fucks! Fuck! I’m so tired of this...