In US state capitals, Republicans propose new limits on transgender identity

After a campaign year in which Republicans portrayed Democrats as deeply out of step with the mainstream on transgender issues, Republican lawmakers in statehouses across the country have filed dozens of proposals aimed at limiting the extent to which trans people can be recognized according to their gender identity.

The flood of proposed bills go beyond the limits states have enacted in recent years on sports participation and medical treatments for transgender minors. This year's proposals cover a broader set of restrictions, or augment existing ones, across a wider range of states.

Several bills aim to extend regulations on trans youth to apply to adults as well. Others would insert definitions into state codes restricting legal recognition of a person's gender to their sex on their original birth certificate. Others would prohibit public schools from including the concept of gender identity in class discussions.

Many social conservatives said they viewed the results of the election, after Republicans portrayed Democrats as too permissive on questions of gender-transition treatments and trans athletes, as a mandate to limit recognition of transgender identity at the state level.

Republicans were able to make transgender issues "central to this victory," said May Mailman, director of the Independent Women's Law Center, a conservative legal group, because "most Americans know that some sex differences are meaningful." Given Republican gains in November, Mailman said she hoped that Democrats would see that "bills like this are not controversial."

Transgender advocates said they have seen no firm evidence linking Republican victories in last fall's election to campaign messaging on trans issues. They said they view Republican state lawmakers as promoting the agenda of national conservative groups on gender at the expense of more pressing local concerns, such as the high costs of housing and health care.

"Republicans continue to manufacture outrage and dehumanizing rhetoric directed towards the transgender community because they think there is political benefit to them," said Nadine Smith, the executive director of Equality Florida, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group.

There are about 3 million transgender adults in this country, according to an estimate from the Williams Institute at UCLA, which researches the LGBTQ+ population. A recent government survey of high school students found that about 3% identify as transgender.

In statehouses around the country, legislative sessions are getting underway at a moment when some signs suggest a cultural shift toward less acceptance of trans people, advocates on both sides of the issue say.

In recent weeks, Pixar, a division of Walt Disney Studios, removed a transgender storyline from an animated series that was set to start streaming in February. Republicans in Congress put in place a new rule so that Rep. Sarah McBride, the first openly trans person elected to Congress, cannot use the women's bathroom in the Capitol. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, announced that the company would no longer bar users on Facebook, Instagram and Threads from posting assertions that transgender people are mentally ill, because those restrictions were "out of touch with mainstream discourse."

While many Democrats in statehouses say they continue to support transgender rights, some Democrats have newly spoken out in favor of limits.

"Males should not be participating in women's sports," Paul Sarlo, a Democratic state senator in New Jersey, said in an interview on PBS. "I think if we just talked a little bit more straight up, have a little more practical common sense, we could have done better at the polls."

More than 250 bills proposing restrictions on LGBTQ+ people have been filed in chambers around the country, according to a list compiled by Erin Reed, an advocate for transgender rights and a journalist who tracks legislation. On Substack, Reed described the flurry of legislation as "another historic wave of legal attacks on the ability of transgender people to move, live and exist freely as themselves in public."

Republican lawmakers say they want to preserve privacy in bathrooms and locker rooms, and fairness for women in sports. More generally, they say they want to counter what they call "gender ideology" -- a growing deference to gender nonconformity in education, medicine and state documents -- that they see as undermining the idea that there are important and immutable differences between males and females.

The proposals under consideration in Republican-controlled state legislatures would touch many areas of everyday life: medical treatments, clothing and makeup, public restrooms, sports participation, classroom discussions and school curriculum.

In Texas, a bill would prohibit public funds from covering gender-transition treatments for state employees and Medicaid recipients of any age. In South Carolina, a proposal would prevent people who transition from updating their birth certificates. In Montana, a bill would require people in publicly owned facilities to use the bathroom of their sex identified at birth.

If passed, some measures are likely to face legal challenges. A Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of a Tennessee ban on gender transition treatments for minors, expected in June, will have implications for similar bans in 23 other states. But the court is also considering whether to hear appeals from West Virginia and Idaho after federal appeals courts sided with trans athletes challenging sports bans in those states.

Several states will be closely watched. Kansas lawmakers have failed twice to override a veto by Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, of a ban on gender-transition care for minors but say they plan to try again. Proposals for trans athlete bans have been filed Georgia and Nebraska, the only two states with full Republican control over statehouses that have yet to enact such legislation.

Separately, Republican leaders in Washington, D.C., plan to take up some of the same issues on a national level, but conservative advocates say states may be the simplest path for such measures.

"We have seen these concerns about privacy and safety and parental rights really resonate with people," said Matt Sharp, senior counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative religious legal group that worked with Idaho lawmakers on what became the nation's first trans athlete ban in 2020. "This ought to be an issue that every state looks at and says, 'What can we do?'"

Some states are answering that question by expanding existing restrictions. One Wyoming bill proposes adding elementary school students to a law from 2023 that prohibits trans girls in middle and high school from participating in athletic activities designated for girls. And Indiana legislators are considering extending restrictions on younger trans athletes through college.

About 40 of several hundred bills targeted at the LGBTQ+ population last year were passed into law, according to the Human Rights Campaign, which advocates for LGBTQ+ rights. Still, even when measures fail, the ongoing debates over the legitimacy of trans identities take a toll, LGBTQ+ advocates say.

"I want to live my life, not fight for my rights," said Allison Montgomery, a software engineer and member of the Alabama Transgender Rights Action Coalition, which is opposing a proposal in Alabama to ban drag performances in libraries with minors present.

During a three-hour Montana House judiciary committee hearing last week on the bill that would regulate bathroom use in government buildings, Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe said she sponsored the bill to protect women. Under the proposal, someone who encounters an individual of the opposite sex in a bathroom or changing room in a public building can sue for damages.

Asked by a member of the committee if enforcing the measure would require cameras or birth certificate checks of everyone who uses a public bathroom, Seekins-Crowe said the aim of the bill was "not to invade privacy."

"This is not targeting a certain population," she said.

The bill passed the committee this past week.