Only 5 Days Into The Year, 125 Anti-Trans Bills Have Been Filed

Ove 125 bills targeting the transgender community have been released in 2024, more than double the pace of 2023.

Heat map of anti-trans bills in the United States combining bill severity, volume, and likelihood of passage.

Note: You can find the 2024 anti-trans legislation tracker at this link.

Only three days into 2024, legislators have already submitted 125 bills targeting the transgender community this year, surpassing the 50 bills filed at this time in 2023. The previous year marked one of the worst in U.S. history for anti-trans legislation. Statehouses are rapidly advancing bills through committees, covering issues from bathroom access to gender-affirming care. Despite significant election losses in school board races across the U.S. on transgender issues, Republicans show no signs of halting their campaign against transgender individuals. In some states, such as New Hampshire, which resisted anti-trans measures in 2023, a few Democrats have even supported anti-trans sports, bathroom, and surgery bans, allowing these bills to move forward this year. With the 2024 election cycle looming, the pace is unlikely to slow down.

This year's anti-trans legislative surge resembles the second wave of a tsunami, leaving little time for recovery from the initial impact. States are now revisiting anti-trans bills that failed in their own borders but succeeded elsewhere, effectively borrowing legislation from one another to enact the full gambit of discriminatory laws. Among these are book bans, drag bans, bathroom bans, and forced outing bills. Missouri, for example, failed to pass a drag ban in 2023 - it has already proposed three such bills for 2024.

This year, we have seen new legislation that goes above and beyond anything seen in 2023, giving indications of what the next cruel evolution of bills would look like. In South Carolina, one bill would ban Medicaid coverage for gender affirming care up to the age of 26, expanding restrictions on care far into the adult age range. In Missouri, a bathroom ban has been proposed that states that transgender people using the bathroom violates the rights of cisgender people, and would enforce adult trans bathroom bans in the state through the Missouri Human Rights Commission. In Ohio, legislators are attempting to rush through a trans adult bathroom ban in colleges in a special session called to override Governor DeWine’s veto of the state’s gender affirming care ban.

Among the most concerning bills in this legislative cycle are those introduced in Florida, which appear aimed at the complete eradication of transgender existence by ending all legal recognition and significantly limiting medical care. For example, one bill in Florida aims to extend the "Don't Say Gay or Trans" policy to the workplace. This would effectively enact a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy for transgender employees at companies contracted with the government. Likewise, the bill would ban nonprofits in Florida from mandating employee training on LGBTQ+ issues, a move that could make it nearly impossible to run an LGBTQ+ nonprofit in the state. Another bill could revoke the driver's licenses of transgender individuals by mandating biological sex affidavits statewide, which would also allow for the tracking of transgender people. It would also require insurance to cover trans conversion therapy and end all legal recognition of transgender people.

The states in which bills appear to be moving the quickest are New Hampshire and Ohio. Ohio, which has already passed a gender affirming care ban this cycle, is preparing for a contentious veto override session and has already tacked on a trans adult bathroom ban for final passage. In an attempt to stave off the veto override, DeWine has announced draconian restrictions on transgender adults. In New Hampshire, a surgery ban as well as a bill allowing for bathroom, sports, and prison bans passed with at least 20 Democrats voting yes, present, or absent - the most Democratic votes any anti-trans bill has received in any state. It is important to note that New Hampshire’s legislature is much larger than other states, however.

The frantic pace of anti-trans bills have happened with only 15 legislatures currently in session, and most bills reported so far come from “pre-filing,” a way that legislators can submit bills earlier than the session opening date. The number of bills will likely balloon as more legislatures open for the 2024 session. You can find all bills on our legislative tracker, seen here.

The breakdown of bills that have been introduced or renewed for the 2023-2024 cycle are as follows:

• 17 Don’t say Gay or trans/Forced outing bills

• 16 Gender affirming care bans

• 11 Book bans

• 10 Online obscenity laws that could suppress or ban LGBTQ+ content

• 9 Sports bans

• 8 Trans bathroom bans

• 8 National appropriations bills with a variety of anti-trans “riders”

• 6 Pronoun usage bans or restrictions

• 6 Drag bans

• 6 DEI bans

• 4 Anti-boycott acts

• 4 Liability laws/backdoor gender affirming care bans

• 4 Bills ending all trans legal recognition

• 3 Forced misgendering bills

• 3 Prison bans

• 2 Pride flag bans

• 2 KOSA-type laws that could suppress LGBTQ+ topics in social media

• 2 Trans child abuse/custody bills

• 1 Ban on public investments

• 1 trans surveillance bill

• 1 bill legalizing discrimination in healthcare

• 1 bill defining “grooming” in a way that could target LGBTQ+ content