US states seek to roll back LGBTQ+ rights like never before

•     Anti-LGBTQ+ bills set to hit new record in US states 
•     Proposed laws widen in scope, spread to more states
•     Trans people are top target in roster of bills    

BERLIN - U.S. states are on track to introduce a record number of bills restricting LGBTQ+ rights this year, with conservatives targeting hot topics from Pride flags to bathroom bans.

First in the firing line among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans are trans rights, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

"It seems like our new normal in the United States is simply having over 500 pieces of legislation really attempting to push transgender people specifically out of public life altogether," said the ACLU's Gillian Branstetter in a video call.

Texas leads the way among U.S. states in proposing anti-LGBTQ+ laws, with the ACLU tallying the total of hostile bills nationally at 575 as of April.

The targets of the hostile bills range from drag acts to trans athletes, child custody laws to ID cards and the scope of state health benefits offered to LGBTQ+ Americans.

Proponents of the new bills say these pieces of legislation will protect children as well as women and girls from the rise of what they call "gender ideology".

"The right in the U.S. is finding trans people to be politically useful," Diana Adams, executive director of the non-profit Chosen Family Law Center, told Context.

"They are scapegoating this group that's around 1% of the U.S. population and making them the focus of distraction and propaganda."

Texas is debating a first-of-its-kind bill that would make it a felony to claim a gender different to the sex assigned at birth in any dealings with government or an employer.

"Gender identity fraud" - which could be punished with two years in jail and a $10,000 fine - is the latest in a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ bills to emerge since 2020 as social conservatism gained increasing traction among voters.

"We've seen an increase in the variety of attacks on trans people living in Texas," said Jonathan Gooch, a spokesperson at the LGBTQ+ non-profit Equality Texas.

Movement Advancement Project (MAP), an LGBTQ+ think tank, said about 92% of state bills that target LGBTQ+ Americans do not pass. But even when bills are voted down, activists say their very existence can stir hatred and spur discrimination.

"When lawmakers and public officials use this anti-trans rhetoric, it does have real-world consequences whether or not the bills are passed," Gooch said.

Equality Texas reported an uptick in LGBTQ+ hate crimes between 2022 and 2023, the latest data available - be it the bullying of students, harassment of teachers or prohibition on householders flying Pride flags.

'New normal'

The bills come as President Donald Trump launches a battery of measures against LGBTQ+ Americans, from executive orders scrapping the recognition of gender-neutral passports to a ban on the use of federal funds to "promote gender ideology".

Texas tops the ACLU list of states proposing anti-LGBTQ+ bills, with 88 laws under consideration, followed by 39 in Missouri, 29 in West Virginia, and 26 in Oklahoma.

Bills are not just growing in number, said Logan Casey, director of policy research at MAP, but also widening in scope.

In 2017, North Carolina rolled back the country's first state law banning trans people using their chosen restroom. The volte face followed public opposition to the law, after which Texas conservatives gave up on their plans for a similar ban.

But now, Republican lawmakers across the country are passing the same sort of bathroom bills, citing the need to protect women in single-sex spaces.

And they are not stopping there.

In March, Utah scored a U.S. first by prohibiting the flying of Pride flags at schools and government buildings, while Iowa became the first U.S. state to remove gender identity protections from its civil rights code a month earlier.

In Georgia, a bill introduced in February would, if enacted, stop trans state workers from getting hormone therapy under their state health insurance.

A bill proposed in New Hampshire would let the state detain trans people in correctional or mental health facilities that match their sex at birth; Alabama is debating a bill protecting educators who refuse to use a student's preferred name.

Experts in the field say the legislative efforts underway to curtail LGBTQ+ rights may not translate into many new laws - but could well shape social attitudes among ordinary Americans.

"What they're trying to pass is an idea," said LGBTQ+ university researcher Diego Garcia Blum. "They're trying to dissuade people that this is natural diversity ... into thinking that this is some kind of foreign and malicious ideology."   

(Reporting by Enrique Anarte; Editing by Lyndsay Griffiths and Anastasia Moloney.)