The wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation

LGBTQ rights have been the target of Republican politicians in recent months. Florida’s Parental Rights Education Law, or what opponents have dubbed the “Don’t say gay” law, bans teachers from talking about gender identity or sexual orientation in K-3 grade classrooms. It also has a controversial parental notification requirement and opens districts up to lawsuits by parents. Supporters say it gives parents and guardians the power to decide how and when to talk about sexuality and gender with their kids, while opponents argue it harms and alienates LGBTQ students and family members.

Republican legislators are also taking aim at transgender rights. In the past year, there have been 240 anti-trans bills proposed in states across the U.S., including legislation around school curriculums, bathrooms, religious exemptions to discriminate, transgender youth sports participation and access to gender-affirming health care (Alabama’s ban went into effect this week). Today, we look at the wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation, the politics behind it, and its impact on LGBTQ people. We’ll also talk about how the leaked draft Supreme Court opinion that potentially overturns Roe v. Wade could also put same-sex marriage in jeopardy.

GUESTS

Tobias Barrington Wolff, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. @barringtonwolff

Zein Murib, political science professor at Fordham University.  @zeinmurib

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New York Times, If Roe Falls, Is Same-Sex Marriage Next? – It said a right to abortion cannot be found in the Constitution or inferred from its provisions. The same could be said, using the draft opinion’s general reasoning, for contraception, gay intimacy and same-sex marriage, rights established by three Supreme Court decisions that were discussed at some length in the argument in December.

NPR, Rachel Levine calls state anti-LGBTQ bills disturbing and dangerous to trans youth – “Trans youth in particular are being hounded in public and driven to deaths of despair at an alarming rate. Fifty-two percent of all transgender and nonbinary young people in the U.S. seriously contemplated killing themselves in 2020. Think about how many of them thought it was better to die than to put up with any more harassment, scapegoating and intentional abuse.”

NBC News, Nearly 240 anti-LGBTQ bills filed in 2022 so far, most of them targeting trans people – The annual number of anti-LGBTQ bills to have been filed has skyrocketed over the past several years, from 41 in 2018 to 238 in less than three months of this year.