Restricting our rights
MELISSA WHITLER | NBCU FellowMelissa@DallasVoice.com The federal government is not the only one taking swings at the LGBTQ community.
The ACLU is tracking 35 bills in Texas, and, according to Equality Texas’ 2025 Legislative Bill Tracker, 58 anti-LGBTQ bills have already been introduced in the house and senate as of Jan.
29. Many of these were pre-filed before the session began and have yet to move to committee. The proposed bills overwhelmingly focus on defining biological sex, prohibiting diversity, equity and inclusion, restricting gender-affirming care, and forcing people to use bathrooms and other separated spaces according to their sex assigned at birth.
One of the main priorities for the Texas legislature this session seems to be strictly defining sex and gender. HB229 and SB84 propose specific legal definitions: “male” and “man” are defined as individuals with a biological reproductive system developed to fertilize ova, while “female” and “woman” are defined as individuals with a biological reproductive system developed to produce ova.
