2024 already outpacing 2023 in anti-LGBTQ legislation
On Wednesday, the Missouri General Assembly was slated to discuss eight anti-trans bills, from regulations barring “discrimination” against health providers who refuse to perform gender affirming care to an exclusionary “bathroom bill.” Legislative researcher Erin Reed told the Washington Blade on Tuesday that she expects these items will leave no room for other business: “This happened last year on a number of occasions” with hearings that began at 9 a.m.
and stretched past midnight. Missouri “had one day last year where they heard several sports bans and several health care bans and then several drag bans in the same day,” she said. “The idea, I think, is to truly wear people down.” The Show-Me State’s legislative calendar this week is almost rote: 17 days into the new year, lawmakers in Congress and in statehouses across the country are considering more than 275 anti-trans bills according to the Trans Legislative Tracker and ACLU.
With 150+ pieces of legislation that were carried over from last year and some 100+ new bills, 2024 could break records that have been set for each of the past three consecutive years. “Our count right now is 230 have been introduced this year,” Reed said, referring to new bills. “The number has been going up really quickly.” “Across the country, state and local politicians have declared war on freedoms, including the freedom to get necessary medical care, a good education, and to simply exist without fear of violence or state-sanctioned discrimination,” Human Rights Campaign National Press Secretary Brandon Wolf told the Washington Blade. “The result has been a crisis for millions of LGBTQ+ people, many of whom have been forced to flee their states to access basic civil liberties,” he said, adding, “The 2024 attacks on freedom are already accelerating.
MAGA politicians are already doubling down on the agenda to strip transgender people of lifesaving care, ban more books, censor more curriculum, and wield state statutes as a
