Since 2021, at least 177 anti-transgender bills have become law in states across the country, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker. The bills largely aim to keep trans girls out of school sports, support misgendering in schools or prevent doctors from treating gender dysphoria in youth through gender-affirming care.
Then came 2020.
Just before COVID shuttered statehouses, Idaho squeaked through two anti-trans bills. One barred trans girls from playing on sports teams. The other blocked trans people from updating their birth certificates. The Idaho laws were among more than 75 anti-trans bills to hit statehouses that year, an unprecedented number.
Anti-transgender bills flooded state legislatures. This time, these bills strategically did not reference transgender people, even while proposing ways to restrict their lives. Instead, lawmakers framed these measures as a means of protecting cisgender women from trans women — as if trans people were a threat or, worse, as if they did not exist at all.
Project 2025, a policy blueprint created by the conservative Heritage Foundation, serves at once as foundation and guidepost for this effort, while the virulent language used to describe trans people during the Republican National Convention sets the tone for what may come.