Republicans seek more state laws on transgender people, putting Democrats on the spot

ATLANTA – Bathrooms. Medical care. Sports. The definition of “male” and “female.” In state legislatures this spring, Republicans have kept a focus on transgender people. They have filed hundreds of restrictive bills, often using them to put Democrats in tough political positions.

The majority don’t pass, like the majority of all bills, but dozens have. And, even when they don’t, they can force votes and drive debate.

Iowa lawmakers removed gender identity from the state’s civil rights protections. Wyoming prohibited state agencies from requiring employees to use other employees’ preferred pronouns. Alabama passed a law defining words like “father,” “boy” and “girl.”

This week Maine lawmakers discussed proposals to ban trans athletes from girls school sports, a move demanded by the Trump administration.

Supporters of such proposals call them common-sense measures to safeguard tax dollars, promote fairness and respond to public opinion. Opponents argue the laws sanction discrimination and the exclusion of a vulnerable minority group and that rhetoric produced in these debates can stigmatize the transgender community.

Republicans have continued to raise the issue, prompting some Democrats to reevaluate their response.

Each year, more bills and new themes

Bills focused on transgender people rose to prominence in 2016 with a North Carolina law requiring people to use bathrooms based on their sex assigned at birth (later rolled back). By 2021, the number of bills climbed with a new emphasis on transgender athletes’ participation in school sports and, later, on restricting gender-affirming treatments, especially for minors.

By 2024, some advocates on the other side thought the effort had peaked. A group that opposes restrictions on transgender people, the Human Rights Campaign, issued a report last year declaring it, “increasingly clear that the tide is turning and momentum has begun to shift” against these bills.

But later that year, Republicans saturated campaigns with ads about gender, including attacks on Biden administration policies. The Trump campaign highlighted the issue in ads in swing states. Down-ballot candidates picked up the message, too.

The American Civil Liberties Union tracks “anti-LGBTQ bills.” The group says the bulk of them contain restrictions on transgender people and that a record 575 bills had been filed in states through April. Last year, there were 533 and there were 510 in 2023, according to the ACLU, which opposes such laws.

A research group, Trans Legislation Tracker, counts  more than 800 bills that “negatively impact trans and gender non-conforming people” as of this week. That’s up from 701 last year and 615 in 2023.

The figures are questioned by Joseph Kohm III, policy director at the Family Policy Alliance, a network that has promoted bills in state legislatures for laws like preventing transgender girls from playing on girls sports teams. He says these tracking groups use overly broad definitions that pull in bills with no chance at passage, inflating the total.

But Kohm agrees that there is an uptick in political interest from state lawmakers. “Those waves across the country have turned this into a slow burn that’s finally coming to a boil,” he says.

About half the states now ban transgender girls from girls’ school sports teams, and Kohm says advocates are now turning to new efforts, like codifying definitions of man and woman in state law.

“This is not one of those revolutions that’s going to go on forever,” Kohm says. “There is an end point where I think we right the collective ship on this issue, but we’re not there yet.”

‘I’ve struggled over this legislation’

Georgia illustrates how Republicans have forced Democrats to wrestle with the way forward.

This year, Republicans filed bills to ban transgender girls from girls’ school sports, restrict puberty blockers for minors and prevent the state health plan from covering gender-affirming care.

It was a bill banning those treatments for state prison inmates that prompted a handful of Democrats who usually oppose bills restricting the transgender community to vote in favor. Democratic Sen. Elena Parent told her colleagues she had to acknowledge public sentiment after the 2024 election.

“I feel like we’ve done more bills this session picking on transgender folks than we’ve done anything else,” Parent lamented. “But we also need to consider the public’s priorities.”

But when the bill advanced to the state House, Democrats tried a different approach, skipping the vote and walking out in protest. Republicans called them cowardly, an accusation Democrats pushed back on.

“People sent us here to do great work,” Democratic House Minority Leader Carolyn Hugley said. “They did not send us here to bully people, to discriminate against people. Many of us are descendants of people who have felt the same thing.”

Republicans see the issue as still politically potent 

Debates like that translate easily into language for effective campaign ads and mailers, says Georgia Republican strategist Brian Robinson.

“Democrats ‘refused,’ that’s the word you use, ‘refused,’ to stand up for taxpayers when given the choice to ban transition surgeries for prisoners,” Robinson says. “Because they don’t share your values, because they are out of touch. That’s the message.”

According to the Pew Research Center, survey data suggests Americans have generally become more supportive of restrictions on transgender rights.

But Chase Strangio, who runs the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Project, says any shift is because conservative politicians and groups have flooded voters with messaging that says transgender people are a threat.

“I think it’s incredibly misguided to look at an election aftermath and turn against trans people, and I think in some ways that’s what we’re seeing,” Strangio says.

Strangio, the first openly trans attorney to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court, says courts can block some of the laws, but it’s also important to stop the proposals before they pass. “The whole purpose of constitutional rights is to protect against erosion of the rights of politically unpopular minorities.”

Transgender advocates and their Democratic supporters consider new strategies

Brandon Wolf, with the Human Rights Campaign, points to Montana Democrat Zooey Zephyr, a transgender lawmaker prevented by her GOP colleagues from speaking on the floor. Two years later, she convinced many of them to help her defeat two restrictive bills.

Wolf calls for a strategy that humanizes transgender individuals.

“This web of right-wing organizations sets a million tiny fires across the country, so that we get stuck running around with an extinguisher trying to put them out one by one,” Wolf says.

In Georgia, Sen. Parent says Democrats need to show they are in touch with the challenges faced by the broader public, like the high cost of housing.

“We are very clear that transgender Georgians should be able to live their lives with dignity and respect and free of undue discrimination,” Parent said in an interview. “But we have to recognize that this is an evolving conversation in the public. And seeming as though we are really wrapped up in worry about transgender prisoners does a disservice if you can’t talk to voters in areas we must win.”

Republicans have pledged to continue the push next year, as the midterms get underway.

Sam Gringlas covers politics for WABE.