A weekly advocacy update from PFLAG National

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Fighting for Our Pride

It has been a rough first month for LGBTQ+ rights in state legislatures, with nearly 400 anti-LGBTQ+ bills ([link removed]) filed in legislatures across the country. You can learn all about our newest campaign to push back against legislative attacks at all levels of government and commit to contacting your lawmakers on our Fighting For Our Pride webpage ([link removed]). If you’ve already reached out to your lawmakers, share how it went with us ([link removed]).

Take Action

Californians

Register for Equality California’s LGBTQ+ Advocacy Day ([link removed])! Join our friends at Equality California for their advocacy day at the State Capitol in Sacramento on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, beginning at 9:00 a.m. and concluding with an optional reception at 5:00 p.m. Registration closes on March 1st, but organizers expect the event to fill up quickly, so register today ([link removed])!

Floridians 

Help our friends at Equality Florida fight back against anti-LGBTQ+ bills ([link removed]). State legislators are advancing a number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills, and we need your help to defeat them. Join our friends at Equality Florida and tell your representatives to OPPOSE these harmful and discriminatory bills ([link removed])! 

Kansans 

Tell Gov. Kelly to VETO SB 244 ([link removed]) and tell your legislators to sustain her veto ([link removed])! The legislation would require people to use the bathroom in government buildings that matches their biological sex at birth, rather than their gender, and requires governments to enforce the rule. Both the governmental body and individuals could face steep fines for violating the law. 

The bill also requires that the sex listed on a driver’s license and birth certificate match the person’s biological sex at birth. Reach out now and tell the governor to VETO ([link removed]) this harmful bill and tell the legislature to sustain that veto ([link removed])!

New Hampshireites 
Tell Gov. Ayotte to VETO SB 268 ([link removed]). The state legislature passed SB 268 – an anti-trans facilities ban – through both chambers and now it's on Governor Ayotte’s desk awaiting her signature. SB 268 would allow both public and private entities to force transgender people to use the bathroom and other sex-separated facilities based on their sex assigned at birth, rather than their gender. We cannot allow this discriminatory and harmful bill to become law. Reach out now and tell Governor Ayotte to VETO SB 268 ([link removed])! 

South Carolinians
Tell your Senator to vote NO on the proposed bathroom ban ([link removed]). The state lawmakers voted to approve H. 4756, which would ban transgender students from using bathrooms and facilities at school. This bill invites discrimination, harassment, and harm to trans South Carolinians, from kindergarten through college. We need to stop this bill from going to the Governor. Tell your Senator to vote NO today ([link removed])!

State News

Here is a sample of what’s going on around the country. You can share news from your state with [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) for possible inclusion in a future newsletter.

Williams Institute study shows more than half of transgender youth in the U.S. live in a state with at least one law restricting their rights ([link removed]). The study, released in January ([link removed]), showed that 53% of trans youth live in one of the 29 states that has enacted one or more laws banning access to gender-affirming care, participation in sports, use of bathrooms and other sex-separated facilities, or gender affirmation through pronoun use. 36% of trans youth live in one of the 16 states that has enacted all four such restrictions. 

Idaho - House committee advances bill to ban local anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ community ([link removed]). HB 557 would prevent local governments in the state from enacting or enforcing anti-discrimination policies with more protections than exist in state law; state law in Idaho does not explicitly protect people from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. More than a third of Idahoans live in a locality with LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination ordinances. 

Maine - Group submits signatures to put anti-trans measure on the ballot ([link removed]). Organizers submitted 82,000 signatures to the Secretary of State’s office on February February 2nd in an effort to get an anti-trans athletics and facilities ban onto the ballot in November. The Secretary of State’s office must verify that organizers collected about 68,000 valid signatures before the proposal can qualify for the ballot. 

Nebraska - Lawmakers hear testimony regarding anti-trans facilities, healthcare bans ([link removed]). Senators heard almost seven hours of testimony on January 28th regarding LB 730, which would ban transgender people from using restrooms and locker rooms aligned with their gender identity in schools and government buildings. On January 29th, Senators also heard testimony on LB 731 and LB 732, both of which reduce or ban trans youth access to medically-necessary care. 

New York - Advocates rally in Albany for protections for transgender New Yorkers ([link removed]-). LGBTQ+ advocates rallied at the State Capitol on February 3rd asking lawmakers to increase funding for the Lorena Borjas Transgender Wellness & Equity Fund as well as funding for an LGBTQ+ youth crisis hotline. 

Tennessee - Bill introduced to make challenging books at public libraries easier ([link removed]). SB2319 (HB 2449 in the House) would allow any resident of a given county to challenge a book in that county’s public libraries and request that the book be removed from the shelves. 

Utah - Lawmakers consider bill allowing landlords to deny transgender people from renting in single-sex housing complexes ([link removed]). HB 404 would create an exemption in the Utah Fair Housing Act allowing landlords to designate housing as single-sex based on sex assigned at birth. Last year, a bill was signed into law requiring public universities to segregate on campus housing by sex assigned at birth. 

University of Utah Hospital announces it will no longer provide medically- necessary care for trans and nonbinary youth ([link removed]). Providers in Utah have been banned from providing gender-affirming care to new patients under 18 since 2023, but the University of Utah will cease providing care to existing patients by April 15th, citing state and federal challenges to continuing to provide such care.

Federal News

House passes funding package, ending partial government shutdown ([link removed]). The funding package passed on February 3rd on a bipartisan 217-214 vote. The deal funds the Defense, Education, Labor, State, and Treasury departments through the end of the fiscal year, while also providing short-term funding to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which includes ICE and Border Patrol, until February 13th. If a separate deal is not reached on longer-term DHS funding, the Department would shut down on February 13th, while the rest of the government would remain open. 

Federal Court rules that Montgomery County, Maryland school policy requiring staff to respect transgender students’ pronouns do not violate First Amendment ([link removed]). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled 2-1 on January 28th that a Christian substitute teacher did not not demonstrate that the policy instructing educators to use transgender students’ correct pronouns violated her free speech or religious practice rights, as the policy merely governs how a teacher address a student, which is “merely a part of that teacher’s job description.” 

Department of Education finds that San Jose State University in California violated federal law by allowing transgender athlete to participate on women’s volleyball team ([link removed]). The Education Department launched an investigation into the university in 2025. On January 28th, the Department announced that it found that the university violated the Trump Administration’s interpretation of Title IX by allowing a trans woman to participate on the women’s volleyball team from 2022 to 2024. 

Trump Administration to remove language from Medgar & Myrlie Evers Home National Monument brochures calling Medgar Evers’s murderer a racist ([link removed]). The National Park Service has removed visitor brochures from the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Home National Monument to make edits to those brochures. One of the edits is to remove language calling Byron De La Beckwith—a Ku Klux Klan member who murdered US Army veteran and civil rights activist Medgar Evers, the NAACP’s first field secretary in Mississippi, in 1963—a racist. Other edits include eliminating the reference to Medgar Evers lying in a pool of blood after being assassinated.

Global News

Forty-four openly LGBTQ+ athletes to compete in Winter Olympics ([link removed]). The 2026 Winter Olympics, which open on February 6th in Milan and Cortina, Italy, will feature 44 openly LGBTQ+ athletes, including Ellis Lundholm of Sweden, who will be the first openly transgender athlete to compete in any Winter Olympic Games.

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