USA: Republicans table record number of anti-LGBTQIA+ bills in 2025

Independent news outlet the 19th has been tracking the record number of anti-LGBTQIA+ bills put forward by Republicans in the United States in 2025, with a total of 575 such bills already tabled in state legislatures this year. According to the outlet, this has been the trend for the past five years with every year since 2020 bringing a new record of state bills aimed at rolling back LGBTQIA+ rights and especially transgender rights.

Most of these attempts have failed to pass but the bills being presented are becoming broader and more extreme. To date, only 54 of the bills have passed into law and include restrictions on trans students’ ability to use school restrooms or play school sports, pride flag bans on government property, gender-affirming care restrictions, and bans on updating personal identity documents like driver’s licenses and birth certificates. Many of these laws also define sex in ways that exclude trans and intersex people.

Nineteen states now ban transgender people from using bathrooms that match their gender identity in various government-owned buildings, including K-12 schools. This year, Iowa became the first US state to completely rescind nondiscrimination protections for trans people. Iowa’s new law also bans updates to gender markers on birth certificates and bans schools from teaching students about LGBTQ+ identities from kindergarten through sixth grade.

In Texas, Republicans have gone so far as to introduce a bill that would charge transgender people with a felony if they inform their employer or the government about their gender identity. The bill, which has not yet been passed by the state legislature, would subject trans people to up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine for the crime of “gender identity fraud.”

Read the full article from the 19th here.