State lawmakers have introduced twice as many bills targeting transgender rights since the start of the 2016 legislative session as in all of 2015, according to a new report from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).

HRC has identified 44 anti-transgender bills, in 16 states, out of more than 175 pieces of legislation that attempt to curtail lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. Of those 44 bills, 23 are aimed at transgender children, with most proposing to bar transgender students from using girls’ or boys’ locker rooms and bathrooms or from participating in men’s and women’s sports teams if not assigned that gender at birth.

Other proposals would allow individuals and organizations to discriminate against transgender people for religious reasons.

“This deeply disturbing trend is a stark reminder of just how vicious and deplorable opponents of equality are in their relentless attacks against our community,” Chad Griffin, president of HRC, said in a statement.

The proposals are not limited to conservative regions of the country. Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee are each weighing four different measures that would restrict transgender rights. But Virginia, a moderate state, is considering seven. At least one restriction has been introduced in Minnesota, Illinois and Massachusetts; lawmakers in Washington state are considering six.

One bill to emerge in several states is new: the “First Amendment Defense Act” would prevent states from punishing government employees, contractors or people licensed by the state if they discriminated against transgender individuals for reasons of religious or moral belief. It is a variation on similar proposals to allow discrimination for religious reasons against gay and lesbian people.

Other laws single out transgender people applying for a marriage license. One bill would require the applicant to be a “natural-born male” or female “as defined by the person’s original certificate of birth”. Another would force the state to ask whether an applicant had undergone “a sex reassignment”. The answer would appear on the marriage license.

The fight for transgender rights has attracted unprecedented visibility. A growing number of courts and federal agencies have recognized that laws passed to protect women from gender bias also protect the rights of transgender people.

In schools, transgender students are demanding access to facilities consistent with their gender identities. They have received powerful backing from the Department of Justice and the Department of Education, which have ruled that transgender students’ ability to access bathrooms and locker rooms is protected under the federal anti-bias statute Title IX.



Those victories have been coupled with an increased understanding among counselors, parents and medical professionals of how damaging it can be for trans people – especially children – when schools and other institutions refuse to fully accept their gender identity.

Gavin Grimm, a transgender student fighting the Gloucester County school board in Virginia over access to the boys’ bathroom, has said his exclusion has been “humiliating” and interferes with his ability to “embrace my new freedom to be myself”.

In a January phone call with reporters, Grimm emphasized that he not only identifies as a boy, he also looks like a boy – which causes awkwardness and distress when he is forced to use the women’s bathroom.

In its letter of opposition to a South Dakota proposal to restrict transgender students from certain bathrooms, the American School Counselor Association said the bill would “[create] an unnecessarily hostile environment, further marginalizing students who already face stigma and scrutiny”.

Many defenders of such measures say they are necessary as privacy protections. The author of the South Dakota proposal, Republican Fred Deutsch, said it was necessary to protect the “bodily privacy rights” of “biologic boys and girls”.

The HRC report argues that anti-trans bills actually accomplish the opposite.

“Most people would consider it to be outrageous and unacceptable to be asked to describe their genitals to a stranger – be that stranger a clerk issuing marriage licenses, a proprietor engaged in gender-policing their customers, or a middle-school classmate,” the report reads.

“And yet these offensive bills all require this kind of disclosure of transgender people in various ways.”

Many of the bills have good chances of passage, the report warns. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, which tracks many anti-transgender rights bills, some of the four measures introduced in South Dakota are moving quickly. The bathroom bill passed the House and Senate by wide margins, and it landed on the desk of Governor Dennis Daugaard late last week.

But in a positive sign for advocates, Daugaard, a Republican who said previously he “didn’t see any problem” with the bill is hesitating. On Thursday, as he weighed the measure, Daugaard met a group of transgender students who have forcefully opposed the bill. Similar bills have died this year in Wisconsin, Washington and Virginia.

And as Daugaard considered whether to sign the bill into law, the South Dakota house tabled another measure that would have dramatically impacted transgender individuals: a measure to create significant obstacles for anyone seeking to change their name without first changing their birth certificate.

“It’s an encouraging sign,” said Heather Smith, the head of South Dakota’s ACLU chapter, “and we hope that this is an indication from lawmakers that they’re starting to recognize that transgender South Dakotans deserve respect – just like everybody else.”