Anti-LGBTQ+ bills keep failing. Could the tide be turning?

As trans people continue to be targeted in state legislatures, they are finding mundane acts like using public bathrooms and finding new doctors risky, according to a recent poll.

In Florida, for example, some trans folks say they are peeing in in bottles to avoid the harassment they face in public bathrooms after Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a law requiring people to use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to the sex they were assigned at birth.

Related:

But a political shift may be coming. Several advocacy groups, including the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), believe that the movement around anti-LGBTQ+ policies is losing steam. 

Insights for the LGBTQ+ community

Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.

In Georgia, the battle over anti-LGBTQ+ legislation lasted until the final hours of this past legislative session. In the end, no such bills passed or even made it to a vote in the Georgia House, in spite of the Republican majorities in both chambers.

Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality, waited in the state house past midnight on March 29 with around 30 other people — most of whom were trans or the parents of trans children. Graham told The 19th that many had been there all day, working intensely to meet with lawmakers. 

When it was all over, Graham said the exhaustion in the group was palpable. They had just fought the greatest number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills ever introduced in one session.

“MAGA politicians in Georgia tried it all in service to their anti-LGBTQ+ agenda,” said HRC’s Georgia State Director Bentley Hudgins in a statement, “including silencing debate and gutting unrelated, popular bills that had bipartisan support to ram through policies that would have put young LGBTQ+ Georgians in harm’s way. They failed.”

Florida was also unable to avoid the momentum of the political shift. This session, 21 out of 22 anti-LGBTQ+ bills failed. This is a marked improvement from last year, when Florida enacted six anti-LGBTQ+ bills into law. That is more than the seven previous years combined, according to HRC.

Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, believes the blockade can be partially credited to LGBTQ+ constituents coming to the state house week after week to explain the damage these bills can cause. 

She told The 19th that those conversations were pivotal in persuading lawmakers not to prioritize these bills.

All of Kentucky’s anti-LGBTQ+ bills also failed this session. Chris Hartman, executive director of the Kentucky LGBTQ+ advocacy group Fairness Campaign, says the success has made him “cautiously optimistic.” 

“This could be a return to where we were before the anti-trans rhetoric reached a fever pitch nationwide,” he added.

He explained that prior to 2022, Kentucky had not passed an anti-LGBTQ+ bill for nearly a decade. However, as Texas and Florida flooded the news with transphobic attacks, the rhetoric spread to other Southern states — Kentucky included.

In 2023, Kentucky passed one of the most transphobic laws in the country. In one bill, the state banned students of all ages from being taught about sexual orientation or gender identity; banned students from using washrooms that aligned with their gender identity; banned gender-affirming care for minors; and banned students up to the fifth grade from learning about sexuality and sexual development.

But this year, the state couldn’t pass anything targeting the LGBTQ+ community.

Hartman reported that it was an incredibly challenging legislative session and that it felt like the anti-LGBTQ+ bills were par the course with those pushing to expand the state’s religious freedom laws, ban public drag performances, and allow doctors to refuse treatment based on moral or religious beliefs.

“It’s clear that the anti-LGBTQ agenda is starting to fail, both in Kentucky and across the country—rightfully so,” said Trey Grayson, former two-term Republican Secretary of State of Kentucky and lobbyist for Kentucky Competes, a coalition of LGBTQ-supportive businesses. 

Hartman feels similarly optimistic. “Kentucky now joins other states across the South—including Florida, Georgia, and West Virginia—where nearly every single anti-LGBTQ measure introduced in these statehouses was defeated this year.”