Advocates Decry Rash of State-Level Anti-LGTBQ Legislative Attacks
Equality advocates are raising the alarm about state legislatures across the country proposing hundreds of anti-LGTBQ bills, a record-setting number of which are actually being signed into law, NBC News reports.
Calling the wave of legislation targeting sexual minorities "unprecedented," Alphonso David, the head of the Human Rights Campaign, told reporters during an April 22 news conference that 2021 is on track to "become the worst year for state legislative attacks against LGBTQ people in history," surpassing the record of 15 anti-LGTBQ bills that became law during 2015.
"So far this year, eight bills targeting LGBTQ people have been signed into law, and another 10 are sitting on governors' desks awaiting signatures, according to the Human Rights Campaign," NBC News related.
David cast the situation in numerical terms, saying, "If these bills are enacted, it would mean that states will have enacted more anti-LGBTQ bills this year alone than in the last three years combined."
In comments posted at the HRC website, David contended that the measures "attempt to erase transgender people [and] make LGBTQ people second class citizens." He went on to call on "those in positions of power at the largest businesses in the country to rise up against injustice and discrimination", noting that "businesses... have increasingly, over the years, embraced the inherent benefits of being socially responsible."
The New York Times podcast The Daily examined the question of whom the majority of the bills target, with journalist Dan Levin pointing out that it's young people who bear the brunt.
Levin noted that the proposals "fall into two main baskets," with "trans youth in sports" being one, while "the other big basket of bills is around transgender medical care."
But bills with broader scope have also been signed into law, with South Dakota's Gov. Kristi Noem and Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, both Republicans, approving measures that allow medical personnel to refuse to treat patients "due to their religious or moral beliefs," NBC News reported.
Meantime, a new law in North Dakota "will allow student groups that receive state funding through their universities to turn away LGBTQ students 'under the guise of free speech,' " the NBC News story went on to say, while proposed legislation in Arkansas and Tennessee "would require parents to sign off on any mention of gender identity or sexual orientation in school curriculums."
Along with the new-signed laws, NBC News noted, several governors have also vetoed some of the bills lawmakers have sent them. In one case, Gov. Hutchinson vetoed a bill banning treatments for trans minors, only for state lawmakers to override his veto and pass the measure into law.
"Once they understand the facts from the medical community, from the business community, from families, they understand that these bills are not supported by the facts, they're not supported by science and there's no basis to advance these bills," David said.
"Yet they are still under pressure from their 'base,' which is why we're seeing some of these bills signed, because they're providing red meat to their base, but at the same time they recognize that some of these bills are just simply unconscionable."
The wave of anti-LGTBQ bills is taking place against a backdrop of widespread opposition to legislative limitations on trans rights. As reported previously at EDGE, a recent poll "conducted by PBS NewsHour, NPR, and Marist found that 'two-thirds of Americans are against laws that would limit transgender rights,' " according to PBS.