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John,
Young people today identify themselves as LGBTQ+ at a much higher rate than in previous generations. According to a recent Gallup survey, 21% of today’s Generation Z self-identifies as queer, whereas only 10% of Millennials identify themselves this way, and less than 5% of older generations.
Unfortunately, with the increasing celebration of diverse gender expression and sexual orientation among young people, there has been a corresponding backlash of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation across the country.
Transgender youth find themselves at the center of this battle. New oppressive laws target gender-affirming health care, the right to autonomy in choosing one’s own name and pronouns, and the right to decide when, how, and to whom to come out. These rights go to the heart of self determination and personal empowerment.
In the absence of federal civil rights legislation for LGBTQ+ people, a crazy quilt of intolerant laws leave transgender youth extremely vulnerable to discrimination. We need comprehensive and consistent nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people across all states.
Sign the petition: Congress must pass legislation to support transgender youth now!
As the intolerant right feels more threatened by cultural change, the number of anti-trans bills introduced in both the US Congress and state legislatures have broken records the last 4 years in a row.
In 2023, Trans Legislation Tracker reports, 3 times as many anti-trans bills were introduced nationwide (503) as the previous record (148), and in just the first month and a half of 2024, already 455 bills have been introduced. Bills banning gender-affirming care specifically increased five-fold, from 35 in 2022 to 185 in 2023.
These laws are deeply disrespectful of the right to privacy of kids who even suspect they might be trans. A new Alabama law requires counselors, teachers, principals and other administrators, in public and private schools, to tell parents if a child discloses they even think they may be transgender. It also prohibits school staff from encouraging students to withhold the information from their parents.
A similar new law in Missouri goes even further, to require that a child be outed to their parents within forty-eight hours if they express any kind of “discomfort or confusion about [their] biological sex.”
Among the many new laws prohibiting gender-affirming healthcare, Alabama’s ironically-named Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act makes it a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison for a doctor to prescribe puberty blockers or hormones to affirm the gender identity of a person under 19, regardless of whether parents approve.
In Florida, where “Don’t Say Gay” laws now apply all the way through high school, a new law states, “It is the policy of the state that a person's sex is an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person's sex.” Similarly, new laws in New Hampshire and Missouri prohibit school staff from calling a student by a name other than the one the parent designates, nor can they use a pronoun that does not correspond to the gender on the child’s birth certificate.
We will not put up with these laws that trample on trans youth’s civil rights any longer! Sign the petition today and demand Congress adopt nationwide legislation to protect trans youth.
Thank you for protecting young people’s full and authentic self-knowledge and self-expression.
- Amanda
Amanda Ford, Director
Democracy for America
Advocacy Fund
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