Gay Politics: A Barrage of Legislative Bills Targeting LGBTQ Rights Already Here

Gay Politics: A Barrage of Legislative Bills Targeting LGBTQ Rights Already Here

In not-so-great news...the ACLU (the American Civil Liberties Union) has reported a not-so-great start for LGBTQ legislative rights, barely two weeks into 2024.

There are already 276 bills that have state legislatures that are on the attack on LGBTQ rights, mostly centered on censoring our speech, restricting school policies (especially where trans students are concerned), and regulations on medical care for the transgender community.

Looking at last year, there were over 500 bills introduced that could blatantly be labeled anti-LGBTQ. 80 of those bills were passed...almost three times that amount in 2022. 20 of those 80 laws went after medical care for trans youth. What is happening??? What is the conservative's obsession with our trans community?

 

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The Staff Attorney for the ACLU's LGBTQ and HIV Project stated:

“Transgender people across the country are enduring a historic and dangerous effort to control our bodies and our lives, fueled by extremist politics with the goal of erasing us from public life. Taken together, these proposals are a blatant effort to deny transgender people the freedom to be ourselves at school, at work, and the support of the medical care many of us need to live. We at the ACLU and our nationwide affiliate network stand ready to defend our freedoms and our families from this baseless assault.”

Here are some of the areas of attack as defined by the ACLU:

Health Care Access: Lawmakers continue to be obsessed with restricting medical care for the trans community. A large number of these bills are regarding gender-affirming care for trans youth. Some of these bills even provide for criminal consequences for providing such care.

Free Speech & Expression: Finding loopholes and workarounds in the First Amendment's right to free expression, there is a push to restrict how and when we can be vocal. Book bans and prohibiting drag shows and drag queen-led storytelling in libraries fall under this category.

Accurate IDs: Can you imagine the embarrassment of being held at the airport or being pulled over when your own ID doesn't reflect who you are? There are bills in the works that would disallow a trans person from updating their legal records and IDs.

Civil Rights Laws: There is legislature in the works that would take our community's equal rights backward. Nondiscrimination laws can be displaced or weakened to allow for jobs, businesses, and medical care to refuse service or treatment because a person is LGBTQ.

Public Accommodations: This area has been a point of discussion for a few years now, with no signs of it being quelled. Trans people can be restricted from using locker rooms or public restrooms for the gender they identify with and live as.

Misc Anti-LGBTQ Bills: This bucket has a bunch of miscellaneous issues that come for our community. This includes any restriction on same-sex marriage and bills that would supersede any nondiscrimination protection in place.

And, truth be told, this shouldn't even be considered gay politics, it should just be called human politics. Why is asking for equal rights so upsetting to some?

Not to end on a bad note, here are some of the political successes the ACLU has had in 2023:

 

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For more information, check out the ACLU.