Jan 12
Anti-LGBTQ Bills Introduced Hit Record Last Year in U.S.
Emell Adolphus READ TIME: 1 MIN.
Last year there was a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in state legislatures across the company, CNN reported from data provided by the American Civil Liberties Union.
According to the data, around 510 anti-LGBTQ bills were offered up, a nearly three-times increase since 2022.
Particularly, CNN reports that the bills targeted education and health care, including access to gender-affirming health care for transgender youth and regulating school curriculum around gender identity and sexuality education.
"A bill that got introduced yesterday is almost old news," said Kat Carrick, a professor at the George Washington University LGBT Health Policy and Practice Program. Carrick added that the landscape and discussion around such bills also changed quickly.
By the end of last year, reportedly around 84 bills were signed into law in 23 states, with the most number of such anti-LGBTQ bills signed in Tennessee and North Dakota. Additionally, a dozen of such bills are also still being challenged in court, per the ACLU.
"We have seen the scope and scale of these attacks increase over the last few years, starting around 2020-2021," said Gillian Branstetter, communications strategist for the ACLU, CNN reports. "It's not just the total number that has gotten worse, but the extremity of the bills."
