[Details for bills in each category will be updated under ‘Support.’]

Following a historic wave of legislation attacking transgender people in the US with 34 states introducing 147 anti-trans bills last year, 2022 is expected to break its predecessor’s record according to a report by Human Rights Campaign.

“Legislators are emboldened: they’ve declared a return to bills that didn’t make it across the finish line last year, and they’ve begun prefiling more of the same harmful legislation,” the report states.

As of January 25th, there are at least 86 active or pre-filed anti-trans bills, a majority aimed at attacking trans youth’s access to healthcare, safety and sports. These include bills that’ve carried over from the last legislative session, or been introduced in the new one.

In the 147 bills from last year, 43 aimed to prevent trans youth from accessing lifesaving gender-affirming healthcare; 81 aimed at preventing them from playing sports; 6 aimed to restrict their access to bathrooms.

By the end of the year, 13 of these bills became law, with Arkansas becoming the first state to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth.

More than half of trans children were at risk of suicide this past year, and access to gender-affirming care is linked to being at lower risk of attempting suicide by nearly 40 percent in transgender and nonbinary youth, Trevor Project finds.

Most lawmakers and sponsors behind the anti-trans sports bans, didn’t know of any trans athletes in their states. Their baseless claims are a perpetuation of white supremicist-patriarchal ideas that mold non-trans women into a category that needs ‘protection.’

These attacks often follow a common theme: in 102 anti-trans bills, the word ‘transgender’ appeared only eight times – a tactic erase trans youth’s existence within and outside courts, 19th reports.

While some mainstream news outlets have been reporting on these bills, the coverage doesn’t always analyze how each bill is a system of erasure by politicians making trans youth’s lives a political gambit, attacking them year after year.

This space hopes to be an ongoing thread that critically analyzes these bills beyond the numbers and sensationalization.