Friend,

I'm Isabel Otero, and I am the Georgia policy director at the SPLC. The 2024 Georgia legislative session was my sixth under the gold dome of the state Capitol, and it was one of the most difficult to work and witness as a civil rights advocate and lobbyist – with one big exception.

During a session that saw almost 20 vicious anti-LGBTQ+ bills, we defeated each hateful piece of legislation. I cannot stress how incredibly hard our community and partners worked to ensure this result. I am so proud of the work we all did, and I am grateful to belong to a community that will never give up this fight.

For weeks, our team showed up, testified and lobbied with partner organizations leading this fight including Georgia Equality, TransParent and Human Rights Campaign. We guided parents, students, teachers and advocates from across the state who came together day after day to fight against anti-inclusion policies including censorship, the erasure of transgender and intersex youth, bathroom restrictions, bills forcing educators to out LGBTQ+ students, and others. They used their voices and collective power to oppose legislation allowing discrimination based on a person’s immutable characteristics or beliefs.

House Bill 1170, restricting medical care for transgender youth, and HB 1104, prohibiting trans students from participating in school sports, were the two bills that had advanced the furthest during the session. The changes to HB 1104 were incredibly harmful because the original bill was a great bipartisan effort to help prevent suicide among young athletes. By the time the Senate was done with its amendments, it was full of hateful prohibitions and restrictions to gender-affirming care and attacks on public libraries with programs seen as supportive of LGBTQ+ students.

It was a disappointing development.

However, for decades such groups as Alliance Defending Freedom, American College of Pediatricians, Family Research Council and, most recently, smaller organizations affiliated with this network including Frontline Policy Council have used pseudoscience to justify harmful anti-LGBTQ+ policies. Bills like HB 1170 and HB 1104 are a result of their advocacy at the state and national level. We’ve seen copycat bills across the country with very similar language that comes from model legislation by these organizations.

Despite their past victories, the end of the session provided a powerful reason for celebration for LGBTQ+ Georgians and their allies.

On the last day of the session, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project published an article raising ethics questions about the most prominent anti-LGBTQ+ hate group working in our state: Frontline Policy Council. Their reporting helped provide additional cover for House leadership who were not ready to vote on the anti-LGBTQ+ bills. The article was shared widely. We spent the day talking to legislators with other advocates, parents and students. Those legislators who were on the fence stayed there.

Dozens of advocates remained at the Capitol with us until midnight – the deadline for legislation to get to the governor’s desk for a signature or veto. We held our breath as we saw the deadline approaching for the House of Representatives to agree to the changes made to HB 1170 and HB 1104 by the Senate.

We were relieved that the Georgia House of Representatives never called these two hateful bills up for a vote, which meant those bills cannot become law in 2024. These measures are effectively dead until the next legislative session in 2025 – if someone else decides to file the legislation again.

The relief and joy that everyone felt was contagious. Racial and social justice does not always win in the Deep South – a part of our country marred by gerrymandering and the legacy of Jim Crow. We often feel like we are climbing the toughest uphill battles. Frequently, we only have the opportunity to mitigate the potential harm and hope for the best. Other times, we must rely on legal organizations, like the SPLC’s legal team, to fight for justice in the courts.

But we show up every day, and we do our best. We know we’re at our strongest when we join with allies and the people directly affected by such legislation.

And in 2024, we won.

Now, we — along with our partners and supporters — must prepare for the next legislative session.

We will be ready. We must never give up this fight.

In solidarity,

Isabel Otero, Georgia Policy Director

P.S. LGBTQ+ communities are under attack like never before, and we need your support to continue this work in courtrooms and legislatures across the South.