That is more than the legislative session of 2016, which produced the largest volume of anti-trans bills in statehouses, according to civil rights groups. There are more than 45 pieces of anti-transgender legislation making their way through statehouses this year, according to a legislation tracker from Freedom for All Americans. Mike Thompson, also a Republican, has introduced a bill that would criminalize doctors providing gender-affirming health care to teenagers. Ben Koppelman, both Republicans, have introduced bills that would restrict trans women from participating in high school sports, mirroring HB 500, and Kansas state Sen. The coalition, which launched Tuesday, already has 24 state representatives as signatories to the group’s pledge, three of whom have introduced legislation targeting transgender individuals. A similar bill in Montana was drafted directly from HB 500, Laura Sankey Keip, a staff attorney in the Montana Legislature, confirmed. One such example is Idaho's HB 500, a bill that bars trans women from participating in high school sports that was passed in 2020, which was written with the help of the Alliance Defending Freedom, according to Barbara Ehardt, the legislator who drafted it. While the Promise to America’s Children coalition is new, groups within the coalition have already had success in assisting lawmakers with legislation intended to curtail transgender rights. “Their sort of arsenal of acceptable arguments have shrunk, and one of them is doubling down on child vulnerability,” Moreton said. At least one of those conservative groups, the Alliance Defending Freedom, is part of this newly formed coalition. Prior to the coalition's official launch this week, LGBTQ advocates said anti-transgender bills were introduced in 20 states in a coordinated assault by conservative groups. Kao declined to disclose what model legislation the coalition is offering on its website. “The Equality Act will turn disagreements over marriage and sexuality into discrimination by misusing civil rights law as a sword to coerce conformity rather than as a shield to prevent unjust discrimination.” “Regardless of whether one agrees with the idea that people can have gender identities at odds with their biological sex, bills that treat Americans as criminals if they don't agree with a government-imposed ideology about the treatment of gender dysphoria is a gross violation of our most basic freedoms of speech and conscience,” Kao told NBC News. “The only thing these bills do is harm kids who are simply trying to navigate their adolescence.”Įmilie Kao, an attorney and the director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation, said the coalition’s efforts were accelerated by the reintroduction of the Equality Act. “While extremist groups push copycat bills down to states, these state legislators should understand that their constituents - including a large majority of Republicans - believe transgender people should be allowed to live freely and openly,” Oakley added.
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