Archived version

In the U.S., Republicans are using bills that benefit the majority to push an anti-trans agenda

Lawmakers in the U.S. have repeatedly made last-ditch efforts to pass anti-trans laws during the eleventh hour of their legislative session in recent years, notably in Alabama and Kentucky, where the bills were eventually signed into law. This year, Republican lawmakers across several states tried their hand at it again, derailing governance as usual on the waning days of legislative sessions by attempting to replace routine legislation with anti-LGBTQ+ bills or stonewalling the process of passing other bills to push anti-LGBTQ+ efforts, advocates say.

This year, though, the ground has begun to shift. In March, during the last three weeks of Georgia’s legislative session, Republicans made a contortionistic effort to ram policies targeting transgender students into bills originally written to support all students in the state. Their target: a bill creating mental health screenings and other resources for student-athletes.

That bill was reengineered into legislation to ban sex education below 6th grade, bar trans students from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity, prohibit trans students from using restrooms that match their gender identity, and allow parents to be alerted about every library book that their child checks out.