The year 2023 is now making history in a niche legal area as new legislation from several states targeting numerous rights of the LGBTQ community continues to be passed in record numbers. These new laws, passed since January 2023, will become effective in May and June.

The year’s crop of new LGBTQ laws were all signed in Republican-led states, or in a few cases, vetoed by the majority Republican legislatures in Democrat-led states. The proliferation of these new restrictive LGBTQ laws is being fueled in part by national religious conservative organizations and lobbyists who are working in D.C. and numerous states to overturn the legal rights of LGBTQ residents.

In total, over 28 laws have been passed and set to activate in fourteen states, as of today. Last year was also a record year for many states passing laws targeting the LGBTQ community, as reported by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which reported it tracked “a record-breaking 278 bills targeting LGBTQ people, largely focused on transgender youth. Twenty became law, including 17 aimed at restricting the rights of transgender student-athletes.”

The data from the ACLU show that in 2023, as of April, over 400 laws targeting LGBTQ communities have already been created and introduced in 45 states.

Many of the new laws restricting the rights of people who are part of the LGBTQ community focus on transgender athletes, while others prohibit discussion of transgender issues, ban books with mentions of sex or gay couples or transgender people, and more. The new laws also impact the health laws for trans youth.

In Iowa, under the leadership of Republican conservative governor Kim Reynolds, transgender female athletes are now banned from taking part in any high school or university female sports. The law allows biologically born females to sue schools and school districts that do not adhere to this law.

Utah followed suit with its own ban, and also now prevents transgender youth from changing their gender markers on their birth certificates or identification cards.

In Arkansas, the state allows anyone to sue doctors for malpractice if they offer “gender-affirming” care to minors.

The ACLU has created a digital space for tracking the surge in laws targeting the rights of LGBTQ Americans. Chase Strangio, the deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, said their staff is reporting all new laws that target the rights of Americans who are part of the LGBTQ community.

“These bills represented a coordinated effort to deny transgender people our freedom, our safety, and our dignity,” said Strangio. “Across the country, trans people and our families are gearing up to fight back and prevent every one of these bills from becoming law. The history of LGBTQ people in the U.S. shows we are hardly strangers to having our health care politicized or our safety threatened by misinformed and misguided politicians. Even in the face of such an unprecedented effort to deny our existence, we are only more determined to build the future we all deserve.”

Some of the major laws singled out as prejudicial by the ACLU against trans youth include health care access laws; with over 35 bills targeting health care access for transgender people; education laws restricting trans students from participating in sports and other activities, and censorship in schools among students and educators, where “58 bills target LGBTQ rights in schools and educational settings.”

Across the US, the comprehensive ACLU data reveal that “19 bills target freedom of speech and expression for LGBTQ people…four bills target the right to accurate identity documents for transgender people…seven bills seek to weaken existing civil rights laws…and five bills target LGBTQ people and rights, including South Carolina’s proposed amendments to define transgender people out of existence.”

In South Carolina, legislators believe they can erase the existence of transgender Americans, with a bill “PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO ARTICLE XVII OF THE CONSTITUTION OF SOUTH CAROLINA, BY ADDING SECTION 16 TO PROVIDE THAT A PERSON'S BIOLOGICAL SEX AT BIRTH CONSTITUTES THAT PERSON'S GENDER FOR THE PURPOSES OF THE STATE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS.”

In this bill, the General Assembly of South Carolina proposes to amend Article XVII of the state’s Constitution by adding verbiage saying, “The biological indication of male or female in the context of reproductive potential or capacity, such as sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, gonads, and non-ambiguous internal and external genitalia present at birth, without regard to an individual's psychological, chosen, or subjective experience of gender shall constitute a person's gender for the purposes of this constitution and the laws of this State.”

Despite the recent spate of legislation, negating the existence of transgender Americans in the statute books is not likely to negate their voices and voting power at the polls.