Legislative efforts to erase transgender people from public life have gained momentum. We've documented a surge of bills seeking to deny access to basic healthcare, legal recognition, education, facilities, and the right to publicly exist.
How have anti-trans bills changed in recent years? What types of bills do we see each year, and what themes are emerging?
In 2021, the number of introduced bills more than doubled from the previous year. The U.S. appeared to be reaching an inflection point, as 144 bills were introduced in 37 states. Eighteen of those passed, including Arkansas' "Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act", a ban on gender-affirming care. The SAFE Act became law despite a veto by Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson, who called the bill a "a vast government overreach".
In 2022, a new wave of increasingly draconian bills arrived. 174 bills, were introduced and 26 passed. The new laws banned gender-affirming care and created harsh penalties for providers. They enshrined definitions of "men" and "women" while blocking trans students from participating in sports. They delivered "Don't Say Gay or Trans" bills that stigmatize LGBTQ+ teachers and students in schools under the banner of parental rights. They also carved out exemptions for discrimination on religious grounds and declared emergency changes to state law to deny non-binary birth certificates.
2023 marked the fourth consecutive record-breaking year for total number of anti-trans bills considered in the U.S. The sheer volume of bills was part of an escalation against transgender people at both the state and national levels. Trends continued, including blocking trans kids and teachers from being visible in schools and denying state recognition through birth certificates.
Attacks on widely accepted gender-affirming healthcare soared. OK SB129 proposed extending gender-affirming care bans well into adulthood— up to 26 years old. For physicians, this would have made providing the care supported by every major medical association a felony charges and resulted in a loss of their medical license. Similarly, WY SF0111 sought to make providing gender-affirming care child abuse.
The United States saw more bills targeting gender-affirming healthcare in 2023 than the last 5 years combined.
Schools are frequently the site of anti-trans bills, often invoking “parental rights.” In 2022, "Don't Say Gay or Trans" bills like FL H1557 made headlines for limiting the expression of LGBTQ+ teachers and students. In 2023, this continued with bills like AZ SB1700, encouraging parents to report and ban books which "promote gender fluidity or gender pronouns" or AZ SB1001, which requires that both a guardian and teacher approve of a student's pronouns.
A wave of reactionary "drag bans", including AZ SB1698 sought to redefine venues that host gender non-conforming entertainment as "adult-oriented" businesses. The language of these bills was so broad that it included singing, lip-syncing, and even monologues delivered while wearing "clothing, makeup, or other accessories" differing from their sex assigned at birth.
2023 marked the introduction of national anti-trans legislation, with more than forty bills introduced. The "Women's Bill of Rights", which remains active in 2024, seeks to erase trans recognition by the federal government. It does this by defining sex assigned at birth as an "immutable" definition of man or woman, boy or girl. It would also dictate the ways that the government collects data. The "My Child, My Choice Act" seeks to extend the educational restrictions we have noted in individual states to apply federally. National healthcare bills have also been introduced, including the "Protecting Children from Experimentation Act of 2023".
2024 was the fifth consecutive record-breaking year for the total number of anti-trans bills considered in a calendar year. We tracked 674 bills across 43 states. 50 bills passed in 17 states. The continued rise of national bills in 2024 was an ominous and notable trend. We tracked 87 bills on the national level, compared with 53 the previous year. In 2022, there were none.
The vast majority of bills focused on education and healthcare. Education bills seek to deny students and teachers name and pronoun autonomy, forcibly out trans students to their parents, and ban basic gender identity education, among other goals. Bills like MO HB2885 sought to make it a felony for a teacher or counselor to provide support “regardless of whether the support is material, information, or other resources to a child regarding social transition.” The bill specified that the teacher would also be placed on the sexual offender registry.
Healthcare bills crept just above the staggering levels seen in 2023. Bills passed banning gender-affirming care for minors, prohibiting the use of public funds for gender-affirming care, including for those incarcerated within a given state. At the national level, US HB5009 passed, prohibiting gender-affirming care for minors under TRICARE, a health care program for US military service members, veterans, and their families.
This table provides a breakdown of the number of bills considered each year by category. Find more granular detail within the individual bill pages.
| Year | bathroom | sports | healthcare | education | other | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 14 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 21 |
| 2016 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 55 |
| 2017 | 27 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 6 | 37 |
| 2018 | 21 | 0 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 30 |
| 2019 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 3 | 6 | 32 |
| 2020 | 2 | 29 | 36 | 6 | 12 | 85 |
| 2021 | 4 | 73 | 50 | 12 | 16 | 155 |
| 2022 | 7 | 60 | 37 | 49 | 21 | 174 |
| 2023 | 29 | 73 | 188 | 172 | 153 | 615 |
| 2024 | 29 | 61 | 187 | 199 | 198 | 674 |
To best understand the nature of the state legislation, we recommend reading active bills to get a sense of their language and purpose. You can also read from the archive by clicking "previous years" in the navigation bar. Each year also provides a high-level summary.
You will see how bills seek to enshrine a dubious definition of "man" and "woman" into state law, remove the distinction of sex and gender, bar discussion of sexuality and gender, and classify trans-affirming care, overwhelmingly supported by the medical community, as child abuse.
Of course, not all anti-trans activity at the state level can be reflected in an overview or even the complete list of bills themselves. In 2022, Texas did not appear on our legislative map. This seemed strange to some, as Texas made headlines for its cruel anti-trans policies. In the previous year, Texas had even led the country for the most anti-trans bills, introducing 16 and passing HB25, a law barring trans school children from playing sports.
However, in 2022 Texas did not propose any anti-trans bills. Instead, Texas was a highly important state for trans rights that year because Gov. Greg Abbott issued an unprecedented directive targeting trans kids and their families. For this reason, we created "What about Texas?", a feature outlining anti-trans efforts in Texas during 2022.
The number and categories of bills each year provides some answers and raises new questions. It provides a timeline of the emergence of anti-trans bills in the U.S. and reflects increasing engagement of state representatives with anti-trans efforts.