It’s not just Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. Republicans across the country are flooding state legislatures with hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills, most are targeting the nation’s most vulnerable: children and transgender people.
So-called “bathroom bills” over the past few years were popular among the fear-mongering religious right and their partners, the Republican Party, but today the focus has become the often false claims that children, from kindergarten on up, and being taught about sex, sexual orientation, homosexuality and bisexuality, gender identity, and other concepts.
In response to these often false allegations this week alone an Ohio Republican introduced a “Don’t Say Gay” bill (and then ran away from reporters.) Republicans in Tennessee tried to bypass the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell ruling by filing an all-ages “one man one woman” bill, only to have to amend it so only people 18 and older could marry. And Alabama just sent a dual “Don’t Say Gay” and anti-trans bathroom bill to the governor, along with a ban on medically-necessary gender-affirming care for transgender youth and teens.
Freedom for All Americans and the Equality Federation list 25 anti-LGBTQ bills, but their state-by-state tracker, which includes all LGBTQ legislation, shows states like Tennessee have a whopping 30 LGBTQ bills. Iowa 19 bills. Arizona and Missouri 18 bills each. Mississippi 13. Florida and South Carolina 12 each. West Virginia 10 bills, just to highlight some of the top states.
Meanwhile, just weeks ago NBC News reported nationwide there are 238 anti-LGBTQ bills in the states, half targeting transgender people.
And calling it “a historic attack on queer Americans before the midterm elections,” HuffPost on Friday reports “dozens of states are considering more than 200 anti-LGBTQ bills this year.”
“The bills,” HuffPost’s Nick Visser writes, “are part of a broader GOP effort to inflame culture wars that score political points at the expense of queer kids.”