Members of the LGBTQ+ community face discrimination everyday, usually  relating to things that others don’t even think twice about. Playing a sport, getting married, adopting a child, or simply existing freely are all normal aspects of life that people in the community have to fight for in order to gain access to. Although more and more people have started becoming accepting towards these lives, a growing number of homophobic and anti-LGBT bills are introduced each year. According to the Human Rights Campaign, “2021 is on the cusp of surpassing 2015 as the worst year of anti-LGBTQ legislation in recent history”. A record number of bills have been proposed this year in the first four months alone, including a high number specifically directed towards the transgender community. More than thirty states have introduced bills attempting to decrease trans rights across the country, including exclusion from gender-affirming opportunities. The HRC calculates that there are over 200 bills proposed in state legislatures that targets LGBT people as of now; of these bills, at least 100 of them directly attacks transgender individuals.

So what are some of these bills about? One common subject matter of these bills is the ban on gender-affirming medical care. Transgender individuals may seek therapy to help with the mental toll gender dysphoria takes, and have surgeries to change aspects of themselves to better align with their gender and feel more like who they truly are. Proposing bills to take these opportunities away is very dangerous to their safety, especially youth who have limited access to helpful resources as it is. In addition, another proposed bill is the requirement that transgender people can only use bathrooms that align with their gender assigned at birth. There are even bills trying to ban transgender athletes from competing in sports of their gender, or even competing at all. This is simply due to the inaccurate idea that a transgender woman may have an unfair advantage due to higher levels of testosterone; however, there are cisgender women who naturally have higher levels of hormones, so there isn’t just one number or level of hormones to be called a woman. These ideas once again just reinforces that transgender individuals are trying to be made inferior by hateful lawmakers, when all they want to do is fit in and have their identity be respected, just like everyone else. The anti-transgender legislation being proposed this year is extremely harmful. Especially during this crazy time we’re living in with covid, racial injustice, and hate spreading like wildfire, there needs to be some more love and acceptance spread to make this world a better place; transgender individuals deserve their rights.