Anti-LGBTQ Laws

In 2023, all 12 Southern states introduced anti-LGBTQ bills, and 9 passed them into law.

Anti-LGBTQ bills passed into law

2023 Legislative Session

Source: ACLU. Notes: Data represents outcomes from the 2023 Legislative Session as of July 18, 2023. The ACLU tracks anti-LGBTQ legislation on a yearly basis. Historical data can be found here. Data was updated with news on 7/18/23 when the Louisiana legislature passed Anti-LGBTQ legislation.

Nearly 500 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in state legislatures since the start of 2023. 78 bills have passed into law during the 2023 Legislative Session, including 32 in the South. TN and AR have enacted the most anti-LGBTQ bills in the nation since 2018 (18 and 12, respectively), passing the majority of those laws this year alone (TN: 10; AR: 8).¹ While bills in VA were defeated, bills introduced in SC will carry over to the 2024 Legislative Session.² The NC legislature is likely to override the Governor’s veto of anti-LGBTQ legislation.³

The anti-LGBTQ legislation sweeping the nation often targets transgender people and includes bills prohibiting access to gender-affirming care for youth regardless of parental consent, bills that allow teachers to refuse to use a student’s preferred pronoun even against parents’ wishes, and bills that require educators to “out” a student by alerting parents if a student begins going by a different name or pronoun. Meanwhile, 1 in 3 LGBTQ youth reported they have been physically attacked or threatened due to their gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation.⁴ Fully half of LGBQ high school students have seriously considered attempting suicide and 1 in 4 have actually attempted suicide, a crisis that experts expect will be exacerbated by the wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation (Youth mental health).⁵

1. “Over 100 Anti-LGBTQ+ Laws Passed In The Last Five Years – Half Of Them This Year”. Rogers, Radcliffe, and Lodhi. FiveThirtyEight. May, 2023. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/anti-lgbtq-laws-red-states/

2. “SC Legislation”. LegiScan. https://legiscan.com/SC/legislation/2023?status=introduced

3. “North Carolina governor vetoes 3 LGBTQ+ restrictions in ongoing fight with GOP”. Schoenbaum. PBS. July, 2023. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/north-carolina-governor-vetoes-3-lgbtq-restrictions-in-ongoing-fight-with-gop-supermajority 

4. “Anti-Transgender Legislation”. The Trevor Project. https://www.thetrevorproject.org/survey-2022/#anti-transgender-legislation

5. “Survey: Anti-LGBTQ legislation takes alarming mental-health toll on queer youth”. Gaffney. Stat News. May, 2023. https://www.statnews.com/2023/05/01/mental-health-lgbtq-youth/