A new report released today shows a sweeping and alarmingly growing number of states are using an abusive overreach of their power to gut or block local LGBTQ+ civil rights protections. Over the past two years, more than 200 bills targeting local LGBTQ+ rights have been introduced across 48 states, according to the report from A Better Balance (ABB), the Local Solutions Support Center (LSSC), and Equality Federation.
The report, Preempting LGBTQ+ Freedom, exposes a disturbing and rapidly escalating trend: as cities and counties step up to fill the gap left by a hostile federal government, state lawmakers are taking action to shut them down, using aggressive preemption legislation to block local governments from adopting or enforcing protections for their own residents.
- Attacks are sweeping. Healthcare, education, family rights, and individuals’ basic dignity are all being stripped away.
- Children and youth are prime targets. 69% of bills specifically target youth – cutting off school support, mandating forced outing of students, and threatening educators who respect a student’s name and pronouns.
- Transgender and nonbinary people are being deliberately singled out. More than 90% of the bills tracked take direct aim at transgender and nonbinary people, attempting to isolate and exclude them from public life.
- Iowa set a dangerous new precedent, becoming the first state to strike gender identity from its civil rights law entirely and then banning cities from adding it back on their own, stripping protections from thousands of residents overnight – nearly a third (28%) of Iowans who were previously protected against discrimination based on gender identity in employment, housing, and more lost these critical local protections.
- States are racing to erase LGBTQ+ visibility altogether, banning Pride flags from local government buildings, targeting drag performances, and restricting libraries from selecting inclusive materials.
“We’re watching a coordinated effort that encourages and enables state lawmakers to abuse their power and attack the most basic, fundamental rights,” said Inimai Chettiar, President of A Better Balance. “In recent years, we have seen state legislatures escalating their attacks on the civil rights of students, workers, parents, and families – effectively amounting to government-sanctioned discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community. But the reality is, states cannot erase an entire community and cannot legislate local democracy out of existence. Cities and counties will continue to stand up – in court and in public – to defend their legislative power and autonomy against aggressive, unprecedented state attempts to trample their laws.”
“Growing federal authoritarianism is influencing the types of abusive preemption we’re seeing in state legislatures – and one of the biggest trends continues to be harmful bills targeting LGBTQ+ people, particularly transgender youth,” said Katie Belanger, Lead Consultant at Local Solutions Support Center. “The bills we’re tracking this year cut across all areas of life – from schools to sports to nondiscrimination ordinances – but they’re all similar in that they seek to impose an anti-LGBTQ+ ideology on communities, while attacking the humanity and dignity of queer people. In the face of these attacks, we’re seeing local communities come together to fight back and demonstrate extraordinary resilience.”
“This white paper highlights the continued threat to the ability of local and state governments to protect LGBTQ+ communities,” said Fran (Hutch) Hutchins, Executive Director, Equality Federation. “Preemption laws pose a threat beyond any single policy fight; by attacking local governance, they undermine a bedrock principle of our democracy. Anti-LGBTQ+ preemption laws are undoing lawfully enacted LGBTQ+ protections and denigrating and erasing transgender people, all while undermining democratic self-governance. Against the hostility of the federal government and the Supreme Court’s recent anti-transgender decisions, the antidote to these attacks lies in state-based organizing, work we are proud to support alongside A Better Balance and the Local Solutions Support Center.”
The report updates and expands on the organizations’ 2024 findings, revealing that nationwide, strategies to undermine and dismantle local authority are becoming more refined and intentional. Noting the trend, the report’s authors call on advocates, local officials, and all communities to organize and resist continued efforts and to protect the autonomy of local communities to determine their own laws.