At a time when
new anti-LGBTQ bills are popping up more frequently than ever before, a new
report outlines the trajectory of legislation and demonstrates the severity of
the nationwide backlash against transgender youth and the queer community at
large.
The report by
Movement Advancement Project, entitled “Under Fire: The War on LGBTQ People in America,” evaluates
the different kinds of anti-LGBTQ laws that have been introduced and passed in
recent years as well as the consequences of such laws for LGBTQ individuals who
live in the states where folks have faced the greatest adversity under the law.
One of the
starkest figures in the report the number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced since
2020. From 2019 to 2020, the number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced increased
from 102 to 185. From 2020 to 2021, that number climbed to 268. In 2022, there
were a whopping 315 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced — and 29 of them passed. Over the
last two years, more than 50 anti-LGBTQ bills have passed. Between 2016 and
2019, the number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in statehouses climbed from 85
in 2014 to 250 in 2016, but then dipped every year until shooting back up in
2021.
“The sheer
number of fronts on which LGBTQ people are experiencing attacks, alongside the
breadth, speed, and cruelty of those attacks, make this current moment
incredibly challenging for LGBTQ people and their families,” Ineke Mushovic,
executive director of the Movement Advancement Project, said in a written
statement.
The report
also takes a look at the return of some anti-LGBTQ legislative initiatives —
such as Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” bill — that roared back in
some states after fading away in previous years. The “Don’t Say Gay or Trans”
laws started emerging across three states in the late 1980s before peaking in
2001 when there were “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” laws in place across nine states.
But from 2017 to 2021, those laws started to fall. By 2021, just four states
had “Don’t say Gay or Trans” laws. Since then, though, Florida Governor Ron
DeSantis supercharged the issue and it expanded to other states.
The report
also points to how the anti-LGBTQ bills have targeted people across many
different areas of life, from sports to healthcare to basic identification
documents. GOP-led statehouses have especially set their sights on sports
bans: At the end of 2019, there were no bans targeting the ability of trans
youth to participate in sports in accordance with their gender identity,
according to the report. But after Idaho passed a restrictive law in 2020, nine
additional states jumped in with similar bills in 2021. By the end of 2022,
there were 18 states with laws targeting trans youth in sports, according to the
report.
Furthermore,
there are currently nine states with explicit bans on coverage of
gender-affirming care in health insurance plans — and one in eight LGBTQ people
reside in states where doctors can refuse to care for them due to religious
beliefs.
All in all,
the organized resistance to LGBTQ rights in the last three years has led to a
series of firsts: The first trans youth sports ban, the first ban on medical
care for trans youth, and the first state ban on using X as a gender marker on
ID documents, according to the report.
The authors of
the report emphasized that the legislative attacks on LGBTQ people in America
are part of a broader pattern.
“Individual
policy issues like school censorship bills and bans on transgender youth
playing sports have captured national attention, but seeing these as individual
flash points misses the larger context of the fast, furious, and coordinated
attacks on LGBTQ people,” Naomi Goldberg, deputy director and LGBTQ policy
director at MAP, said in a written statement.
The fallout
from the anti-LGBTQ laws has been evident, as well. The report points to the
ways in which these laws have an effect on the mental health of LGBTQ
individuals. The Movement Advancement Project cites statistics from the Trevor
Project indicating that 86% of transgender and non-binary youth said the
political debates on trans rights have had a negative impact on their mental
health and 75% said the threats of violence against LGBTQ community spaces give
them stress and anxiety.
The report
further invoked the economic impact of the laws — including how exemptions in
healthcare can leave people without the means to afford necessary
gender-affirming care or PrEP, which prevents HIV. People who live in states
with anti-LGBTQ laws are sometimes forced to grapple with the costs of fleeing
the state and moving elsewhere to escape the harmful effects of the policies.
SOURCE: GAY CITY NEWS
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