Faced with unprecedented numbers of anti-LGBTQ bills, queer people are taking to the state houses, courts, and communities to prove that love wins.
By Sara Youngblood Gregory
Culture Writer, Editor, Poet
Introduction
We’re living in a historic moment of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and political mobilization. In the urgency of the times—and the seemingly endless spiral of headlines—it can be easy to lose sight of exactly how far-reaching and well-coordinated the attack on queer and especially trans people truly is.
So here are the numbers: The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is currently tracking more than 500 anti-LGBTQ bills in the 2024 legislative session alone. In 2023, more than 70 laws were enacted—making it the worst year on record for anti-LGBTQ legislation. The tangle of discriminatory laws included bans on gender-affirming care for trans youth, policies that require the misgendering of trans students, and the legal censorship of books and educational curriculum. Many of these laws target already vulnerable trans youth and their access to basic needs like health care, as well as common childhood activities like school and athletics. The surge in anti-LGBTQ legislation was so significant that, for the first time in its history, the Human Rights Campaign issued a national state of emergency for LGBTQ Americans in 2023.
“The rise in anti-LGBTQ legislation can be tracked back to 2016 with the introduction of H.B. 2, the North Carolina ‘bathroom bill,’” says Mariah Moore, co-director of policy and programs for the Transgender Law Center. House Bill 2—which prevented trans people from using bathrooms that aligned with their gender identity in public buildings—quickly thrust trans people, and their rights, to the center of a national controversy and inspired a horde of copycat “bathroom bills.”
But the spread of this legislation is not coincidental—it’s coordinated.
Trans journalist Imara Jones has reported widely on what she calls the anti-trans hate machine—a shadowy, well-funded, and well-organized network of conservative politicians, extremist groups, and Christian Nationalist organizations. Jones’ comprehensive reporting documents how this machine works to promote white nationalist ideals, limit bodily autonomy, and infuse political discourse with anti-trans rhetoric. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, Moore says “These pieces of legislation are often fueled by far-right Christian extremist politicians who spread mis- [and] disinformation.”
Now in 2024—and rapidly approaching the 10-year anniversary of that first North Carolina “bathroom bill”—the LGBTQ community and our allies must not only navigate the hundreds of harmful bills at the local and state level, but also a national moral and cultural panic around our very existence.
Begin in Your Backyard
Since the vast majority of anti-queer and trans bills are introduced at the state level, effective intervention often requires engaging directly with local and state government—sometimes with surprising success.
Samira Burnside, a 17-year-old community organizing fellow for Equality Florida, said she and her team just came out of one of the most successful legislative sessions they’ve had in terms of LGBTQ rights. “Last year, as you know, we had a lot of anti-trans bills,” says Burnside. “This year, out of the 22 proposed anti-LGBTQ bills, we defeated 21. We even passed a bill that allows over-the-counter access for pre-exposure prophylaxis [PrEP] which helps prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.”
Burnside says Equality Florida is focused on finding common ground with their opposition—either to “pin them down” into doing better, expose the hypocrisy of their stance, or find the overlap between their different positions.
“And in doing so,” Burnside continues, “we actually saw this year a couple of Republicans vote with us on things like abortion and the [PrEP] bill.”
While cynics may dismiss this bipartisan approach, there’s no denying its effectiveness. The GOP-dominated Kansas State Legislature, for example, failed to ban gender-affirming care when a Republican representative flipped her vote. She said her conversations with hospital staff, therapists, medical providers, and the parents of transgender kids changed her mind.
Bigotry’s Testing Ground
Despite its prevalence, this type of legislation fails to pass more often than not. According to the Human Rights Campaign, out of the nearly 2,000 pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation introduced between 2015 and 2023, only 194 were passed by state legislators. In other words, 90% of bills introduced were defeated. Some of these defeats are undoubtedly the efforts of grassroots activists and organizations like Equality Florida, but many bills also lack the internal support needed to pass within a legislative session.
But the experimental nature of this legislation, and the sheer volume, is part of its efficacy. “Extremist politicians use the South as a testing ground for some of the worst legislation,” says Ivy Hill, the director of gender justice for Southern Equality. “They test things [in the South], like throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks, then replicate it across the country from there.”
So even when defeated, every piece of anti-LGBTQ legislation retains its teeth. Through their mere existence, these bills arm extremists with the information they need to become more effective, all while normalizing the violence against queer and trans people—to say nothing of the harm caused by legislation that does pass.
But quashing the anti-LGBTQ movement isn’t just about playing defense, or managing a frantic whack-a-mole game against hundreds of bills.
Out in Office
Moving beyond defense requires LGBTQ people and our allies in office to introduce and pass proactive, protective laws—and that requires more seats at the table for LGBTQ politicians and candidates.
Annise Parker, president and CEO of the nonpartisan action committee LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, believes one of the most direct avenues for change is to put LGBTQ leaders into office, both elected and appointed. Parker herself was the first openly gay mayor of a major city, having served three terms from 2010 to 2016 as the mayor of Houston. “Democracy only functions when everyone is present and our community has long been underrepresented,” Parker says.
In practice, this often looks like training LGBTQ candidates on the nuts and bolts of campaigning and teaching them to weave their identities into their platform. A strong LGBTQ candidate, Parker explains, is able to link their life experiences to the experiences of their constituents. This can be especially important for trans candidates, who must transform themselves from “other” to “advocate” in the eyes of voters—many of whom may not actually know an out trans person in real life.
Once elected, LGBTQ politicians can not only kill harmful bills in committee through voting, building allies, and caucuses—they can also defeat them through what Parker calls “quiet conversations in hallways.”
It doesn’t take a huge number of officials to make an impact, either. With only a small (but record-breaking) number of out representatives in the Texas State Legislature, Parker says a queer cohort was able to stop all but three of the nearly 200 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in Texas. And every so often, the combined efforts of grassroots organizers, advocacy groups, politicians, and judges are able to usher in big wins for the LGBTQ community, like state prison reforms for trans inmates in Colorado, a courtroom settlement to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, and gender-affirming ID laws in states like Illinois.
Yet even with these successes, the truth is that getting into office doesn’t guarantee equal power, nor safety, for marginalized communities or their representatives. Across the country, Republican-held state legislatures, for example, are targeting Black and trans elected officials for censure—often for the simple act of acknowledging their own existence and the impact of the harmful bills their colleagues are promoting.
But it’s also worth noting that the vast majority of voters simply aren’t that interested in the anti-LGBTQ culture wars. According to a 2024 poll conducted by GLAAD, the vast majority of LGBTQ voters, registered voters, and swing voters agree that “Republicans should stop focusing on restricting women’s rights and banning medical care for transgender youth” and instead focus on economic issues. Even the stronghold in Florida—ground zero for Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ self-proclaimed culture war against “woke” ideology—seems to be crumbling as anti-queer bills languish. “Don’t Say Gay” was defanged, and DeSantis himself ended his 2024 presidential candidacy.
Clearly, representation in government makes a difference. But the American political process is slow. Not only do bills and laws live long lives and enjoy slow deaths, but it would take generations to elect enough officials who truly represent the beliefs and diversity of the American people—even before accounting for how powerfully voter-suppression tactics impact Black and Brown communities, incarcerated people, immigrant, and working-class communities.
Queer and trans people can’t wait decades until an election finally swings our way; our people are suffering now. After all, the Stonewall riots of 1969, an urgent, spontaneous response against police raids, were led not by politicians but by a group of Black and Brown trans women, sex workers, butch lesbians, and drag queens who refused to accept brutality against their community. In other words, the modern gay rights movement was started by an uprising, not a “get out the vote” mixer.
We Keep Us Safe
Community care—ranging from grassroots initiatives and organized spaces for resource-sharing to informal networks of love and resiliency—is often what truly protects people and helps them cultivate the strength to keep fighting.
In 2019, Jasmine McKenzie, a Black trans woman living openly with HIV, saw a need in her own Miami community. “South Florida has historically lacked brave spaces for Black people of trans, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary (TGNCNB+) experience, especially those that are run by our own community,” McKenzie says. In response, she founded The McKenzie Project—the only Black, trans-led organization in Miami-Dade County—to create affirming spaces for the community to heal, build self-determination, and develop solutions around structural racism and transphobia.
The project’s services range from providing drop-in resources like a food pantry, clothing, laundry, and needle exchanges, to direct services like case management, access to hormone replacement therapy, HIV testing, and mental health support. Together, these services work to address the immediate needs of Miami’s queer and trans community. At the same time, the McKenzie Project challenges Florida’s legislative environment with youth-focused programs like The Black Unicorn Party, which not only creates spaces for support and collaboration for Black trans youth, but also develops their advocacy skills with public speaking, organizing, and lobbying training.
Taken together, McKenzie says the organization has been able to not only mitigate the challenges posed by the legislative environment, but also to build a stronger, more resilient community.
“To counter anti-LGBT legislation and policies, it is imperative to engage with a diverse range of queer and trans individuals working at the local, state, and national levels,” McKenzie explains.
The McKenzie Project may be unique in Miami-Dade County, but similar efforts pepper the country. These programs, gathering spaces, education and political trainings, and mutual aid efforts all work together to provide more opportunities for LGBTQ people to not just weather the storm—but to experience enough safety and dignity to finally enjoy our place in the sun.
Originally published by Yes! Magazine, 06.24.2024, under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.
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