In another poll released by the group in January, 66% of LGBTQ+ youth said recent debates about state laws that would restrict the rights of transgender people had either a very negative or somewhat negative impact on their mental health.
That figure was 20% when looking at high school students generally in the first half of 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. Many opponents of such laws point to a 2021 national survey from The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ youth, which found 42% of teen and young adults ages 13-24 seriously contemplated suicide in the past year, with slightly higher numbers for the transgender and nonbinary population. Lawsuits have been filed in an attempt to block both laws.
The measure bars public school teachers from talking about sexual orientation and gender identity in class “in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards." It also prohibits transgender students from using facilities that match their gender identity. They include Alabama’s SB 184, which makes it a felony for medical professionals to provide gender-affirming care to transgender children under the age of 19.Īnd, Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education” bill, which its opponents call the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which was signed late into law March 28. That’s a significant increase since 2018 when 41 bills of this kind were proposed, according to the news site. “Even if we live in a county and a state where a majority of voters may vote to protect or preserve (LGBTQ+) rights here when possible, there’s still a concern that a vocal minority will enact violence, or will engage in hate speech,” said Chelsea Kurnick, the chair of Positive Images, a Santa Rosa-based organization that advocates for LGBTQ+ individuals in Sonoma County.Īs of late March, lawmakers across the country had proposed 238 anti-LGBTQ+ bills, with nearly half targeting the rights of transgender people specifically, an NBC News analysis of data from the American Civil Liberties Union and the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Freedom for All Americans found. There also is a concern that these efforts might embolden those prone to acts of violence against members of this community, which includes people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or members of other gender and sexual minorities. Though none of the recent wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation has come out of Sacramento, both groups say they worry hateful rhetoric born out of such laws may encourage similar speech, either online or in person, in the West Coast. Members of Sonoma County’s LGBTQ+ community and their allies say a surge in legislation being considered in other parts of the country that aims to limit the rights of people from gender and sexual minorities has them concerned.