State lawmakers across the country proposed a record number of bills targeting LGBTQ rights last year, but fewer than 1 in 10 have signed into law, according to a report released Thursday by the Human Rights Campaign.
The LGBTQ advocacy group State Equality Index 2022, An annual review of state legislation and policies affecting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people found that state legislators introduced 315 bills that HRC described as «anti-equality.» Of those, only 29 became law.
Most of the new laws are directed at transgender minors. In the past three years, 18 states have banned trans youth from playing school sports on teams that align with their gender identities, and four states (Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, and Tennessee) have restricted or barred their access to health care. gender affirmation.
Supporters of these measures claim that trans girls have an unfair advantage in sports and that minors are too young to receive gender-affirming health care. medical associations such as American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatricsamong others, they oppose efforts to restrict gender-affirming care for minors.
JoDee Winterhof, senior vice president for policy and political affairs at the Human Rights Campaign, said the 315 bills are part of a coordinated conservative response to LGBTQ rights won in recent years.
“We view this as part of the backlash from advances around marriage equality, from advances in general equality through the courts or from cities and other states,” Winterhof said.
Some lawmakers, she added, believe these bills will encourage conservatives to go to the polls, though she said the track record of anti-LGBTQ bills last year, along with midterm election polls, have made her led to believe otherwise.
she pointed an HRC survey of 1,000 voters, who were surveyed online and by phone during the week of the midterm elections, asking what issues motivated them to go to the polls. The top two were inflation, at 52%, and abortion, at 29% (an NBC News exit poll found that the same two issues were also top of mind for voters). Gender-affirming care for trans youth or trans participation in sports ranked last on the list, with less than 5% identifying them as issues that motivated them to vote, HRC found.
“For many people, the trick is in place,” Winterhof said, adding that targeting LGBTQ people will hurt conservative lawmakers in future elections. «I know you don’t see that, but these are not winning tracks.»
This year’s State Equality Index also found that state legislators introduced 156 «pro-equality» bills, of which 23, or just under 15%, became law.
Twenty states and Washington, DC, rank in the highest of the four categories in the index, «Working Toward Innovative Equality,» while 23 states rank in the lowest ranked category, «High Priority to Achieve basic equality».
States are scored based on whether they have «pro-equality» laws, including those that would prohibit discrimination in public accommodations, housing, or adoption, among other areas of life; anti-bullying laws or laws that protect youth from conversion therapy; and measures that prohibit insurance companies from refusing to cover care for transgender people. “Anti-equality” laws, such as those that target transgender youth, ban discussion of LGBTQ issues in schools, or allow business owners to refuse to serve LGBTQ people, hurt a state’s rating.
An increasing number of states are passing «pro-equality» legislation, according to HRC. For example, 21 states restrict conversion therapy, which is the discredited practice of trying to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity; 25 ban insurance exclusions for transgender healthcare; and 38 allow trans people to update their names and gender markers on their driver’s licenses, while 27 allow them to do the same on their birth certificates.
However, many states still have “anti-equality” laws on the books. Nearly half of the states (22) do not protect people from discrimination in public places based on sexual orientation, and 23 do not provide protections based on gender identity. Seventeen states prohibit Medicaid from covering certain transgender health care.
The HRC report warns that although 2022 was a record year for legislation targeting LGBTQ people, 2023 is already expected to surpass it. In the first few weeks of the year alone, state legislators introduced nearly 150 such bills, and most continue to target LGBTQ youth, according to an NBC News analysis.