The War Against LGBTQ+ People

The Movement Advancement Project (MAP), which tracks LGBTQ+ policy, describes the current political landscape as a “war against LGBTQ people in America and their very right and ability to openly exist.”

The group has published a new report, Under Fire: The War on LGBTQ People in America, which you can find at www.mapresearch.org/under-fire-report.

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has tracked 340 anti-LGBTQ+ bills, including the most anti-transgender bills ever filed. Last year saw a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills (315 bills) introduced in state legislatures, and 2023 has already exceeded that number. The number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in just the first two months of 2023 is more than the anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in all of 2012, 2013, and 2014 combined.

LGBTQ people are under siege from a targeted and coordinated campaign to undermine equality and ultimately erase them from public life. “Individual policy issues like school censorship bills and bans on transgender youth playing sports have captured national attention, but seeing these as individual flash points misses the larger context of the fast, furious, and coordinated attacks on LGBTQ people,” said Naomi Goldberg, Deputy Director and LGBTQ Policy Director at MAP.

Under Fire provides a comprehensive look at hundreds of political attacks, such as mass censorship efforts to erase LGBTQ youth and content from schools; criminalizing medical care and transition for transgender people; and government tactics that silence, financially penalize and even criminalize those who support equality for LGBTQ people. Combined with false public narratives that demonize LGBTQ people as “groomers,” these attacks are resulting in hostility, harassment, and violence targeting both LGBTQ people and supporters as they move through their daily lives.

According to the Trevor Project (www.thetrevorproject.org), one in four (25%) Black transgender and nonbinary young people reported a suicide attempt in the past year. Nearly 3 in 5 (57%) Black LGBTQ young people identified as transgender or nonbinary, 11% of whom were transgender. Black transgender and nonbinary young people reported higher rates of all indicators of poor mental health compared to their Black cisgender LGBQ peers. This includes reporting more than double the rate of suicide attempts in the past year (25%) compared to Black cisgender LGBQ young people (12%).

Among Black transgender and nonbinary young people, those who were assigned female at birth reported higher rates of both seriously considering suicide in the past year (60%) and attempting suicide in the past year (26%) compared to Black transgender and nonbinary young people assigned male at birth (43% and 18%, respectively), similar to overall patterns among transgender and nonbinary young people. There were no significant differences between Black young people who were transgender and Black young people who were nonbinary in any assessed mental health indicators.

“An overwhelming majority of Americans consistently support LGBTQ equality but aren’t yet aware of the scope and scale of how that equality is being swiftly eroded. Despite the recent signing of the Respect for Marriage Act, it’s not just the ability to marry who you love that is at stake, it’s the ability of LGBTQ people to simply exist that is under fire,” said Ineke Mushovic, Executive Director of the Movement Advancement Project.

Even when the legislation doesn’t become law, it still causes harm. Olivia Hunt, policy director at the National Center for Transgender Equality, pointed to a recent poll that found 86 percent of surveyed trans and nonbinary youth said that debates around state laws restricting LGBTQ+ rights for young people negatively impacted their mental health.

The HRC has offered the Biden administration a roadmap toward equality, including recommendations to pass the Equality Act so that LGBTQ+ people nationwide have full nondiscrimination protection, implement national protections for abortion rights and voting rights, and provide a comprehensive federal effort to defend LGBTQ+ people across the nation whose rights are being stripped away by state lawmakers.

Whoever you are, whatever you look like, wherever you live, however you wish to live your life, you should be protected from discrimination.