Politics
ACLU counts more than 120 new anti-LGBTQ bills in the first few weeks of 2023
‘Trans people and our families are gearing up to fight back’

Lawmakers across the country have introduced more than 120 anti-LGBTQ bills so far this year, according to a press release issued Thursday by the ACLU.
In a press release announcing the findings, the ACLU introduced a digital dashboard, which summarizes the proposed anti-LGBTQ policies, organizes the bills by category, and tracks their progress through state legislatures.
“These bills represented a coordinated effort to deny transgender people our freedom, our safety, and our dignity,” said Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project.
“Across the country, trans people and our families are gearing up to fight back and prevent every one of these bills from becoming law,” he said in the press release.
Last year, the ACLU reports there were a record-breaking 278 bills targeting LGBTQ people, of which 20 have become law. The group’s litigation team has fought against “bills across the country restricting access to gender-affirming health care, barring trans people from updating identity documents, and denying transgender students equal access to school facilities and activities, as well as defending inclusive policies from political and legal attacks.”
Additionally, the ACLU has brought lawsuits challenging book bans that target materials with LGBTQ characters or themes and represented parties in litigation over a Texas law that criminalizes parents who facilitate their trans children’s access to guideline directed, medically necessary healthcare treatments and procedures.
The number of new anti-LGBTQ legislative proposals seen in the first few weeks of 2023 is especially remarkable considering that some state legislatures have not yet begun filing new bills.
In a Washington Blade article published Wednesday, activist and legislative researcher Erin Reed said that in addition to the fact that lawmakers are now on track to eclipse last year’s record number of anti-LGBTQ bills, the proposals introduced so far this year have tended to be more extreme and cruel than in years past.
The ACLU has categorized them in seven primary focus areas: healthcare access, schools and education, free speech and expression, access to accurate IDs, Weakening Civil Rights Laws, Public Accommodations, and Other Anti-LGBTQ Bills.
The ACLU’s press release describes each of these types of legislative proposals:
- Health Care Access
- Lawmakers are targeting access to medically-necessary health care for transgender people. Many of these bills ban affirming care for trans youth, and can even create criminal penalties for providing this care. 35 bills target health care access for transgender people.
- Schools & Education
- State lawmakers are trying to prevent trans students from participating in school activities like sports, force teachers to out students, and censor in-school discussions of LGBTQ people and issues. 58 bills target LGBTQ rights in schools and educational settings.
- Free Speech & Expression
- Despite the safeguards of the First Amendment’s right to free expression, politicians are fighting to restrict how and when LGBTQ people can be themselves, limiting access to books about them and trying to ban or censor performances like drag shows. 19 bills target freedom of speech and expression for LGBTQ people.
- Access to Accurate IDs
- These bills attempt to limit the ability to update gender information on IDs and records, such as birth certificates and driver’s licenses. Four bills target the right to accurate identity documents for transgender people.
- Weakening Civil Rights Laws
- These bills attempt to undermine and weaken nondiscrimination laws by allowing employers, businesses, and even hospitals to turn away LGBTQ people or refuse them equal treatment. Seven bills seek to weaken existing civil rights laws.
- Public Accommodations
- These bills prohibit transgender people from using facilities like public restrooms and locker rooms.
- Other Anti-LGBTQ Bills
- These bills don’t quite fit in any of the other categories, but nonetheless target the rights of LGBTQ people. Examples include restrictions on marriage and bills preempting local nondiscrimination protections. Five bills target LGBTQ people and rights, including proposed amendments to define transgender people out of existence.
Congress
51 lawmakers sign letter to Rubio about Andry Hernández Romero
U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) spoke about gay Venezuelan asylum seeker

Forty nine members of Congress and two U.S. senators, all Democrats, signed a letter Monday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding information about Andry Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan national who was deported to El Salvador and imprisoned in the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT
“We are deeply concerned about the health and wellbeing of Mr. Hernández Romero, who left
Venezuela after experiencing discriminatory treatment because of his sexual orientation and
opposition to Venezuela’s authoritarian government,” the lawmakers wrote. They urged the State Department to facilitate his access to legal counsel and take steps to return him.
After passing a credible fear interview and while awaiting a court hearing in March, agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reportedly transported Hernández out of the U.S. without due process or providing evidence that he had committed any crime.
In the months since, pressure has been mounting. This past WorldPride weekend in Washington was kicked off with a rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and a fundraiser, both supporting Hernández and attended by high profile figures including members of Congress, like U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.)
U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) was among the four members who wrote to Rubio about Hernández in April. On Friday, he spoke with the Washington Blade before he and his colleagues, many more of them this time, sent the second letter to Rubio.
“There’s a lot of obviously horrible things that are happening with the asylum process and visas and international students and just the whole of our value system as it relates to immigration,” he said, which “obviously, is under attack.”
“Andry’s case, I think, is very unique and different,” the congressman continued. “There is, right now, public support that is building. I think he has captured people’s attention. And it’s growing — this is a movement that is not slowing down. He’s going to be a focal point for Pride this year. I mean, I think people around the world are interested in the story.”
Garcia said he hopes the momentum will translate to progress on requests for proof of life, adding that he was optimistic after meeting with Hernández’s legal team earlier on Friday.
“I mean, the president, Kristi Noem, Marco Rubio — any of these folks could could ask to see if just he’s alive,” the congressman said, referring to the secretary of Homeland Security, whom he grilled during a hearing last month. ICE is housed under the DHS.
“People need to remember, the most important part of this that people need to remember, this isn’t just an immigration issue,” Garcia noted. “This is a due process issue. This is an asylum case. We gave him this appointment. The United States government told him to come to his appointment, and then we sent him to another country, not his own, and locked him up with no due process. That’s the issue.”
Garcia said that so far neither he nor his colleagues nor Hernández’s legal team were able to get “any answers from the administration, which is why we’re continuing to advocate, which is why we’re continuing to reach out to Secretary Rubio.”
“A lot more Democrats are now engaged on this issue,” he said. U.S. Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, both from California, joined Monday’s letter. “The more that we can get folks to understand how critical this is, the better. The momentum matters here. And I think Pride does provide an opportunity to share his story.”
Asked what the next steps might be, Garcia said “we’re letting his legal team really take the lead on strategy,” noting that Hernández’s attorneys have “already engaged with the ACLU” and adding, “It’s very possible that the Supreme Court could take this on.”
In the meantime, the congressman said “part of our job is to make sure that that people don’t forget Andry and that there is awareness about him, and I think there’s a responsibility, particularly during WorldPride, and during Pride, all throughout the month — like, this is a story that people should know. People should know his name and and people should be aware of what’s going on.”
Congress
Wasserman Schultz: Allies must do more to support LGBTQ Jews
A Wider Bridge honored Fla. congresswoman at Capital Jewish Museum on Thursday

Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Thursday said allies need to do more to support LGBTQ Jewish people in the wake of Oct. 7.
“Since Oct. 7, what has been appalling to me is that LGBTQ+ Jewish organizations and efforts to march in parades, to be allies, to give voice to other causes have faced rejection,” said the Florida Democrat at the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C. after A Wider Bridge honored her at its Pride event.
Wasserman Schultz, a Jewish Democrat who represents Florida’s 25th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, added the “silence of our allies … has been disappointing.”
“It makes your heart feel hollow and it makes me feel alone and isolated, which is why making sure that we have spaces that we can organize in every possible way in every sector of our society as Jews is so incredibly important,” she said.
The Israeli government says Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023, killed roughly 1,200 people, including upwards of 360 partygoers at the Nova Music Festival, when it launched a surprise attack on the country. The militants also kidnapped more than 200 people on that day.
The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says Israeli forces have killed nearly 55,000 people in the enclave since Oct. 7. Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, has said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who the Israel Defense Forces killed last October, are among those who have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and Israel.
A Wider Bridge is a group that “advocates for justice, counters LGBTQphobia, and fights antisemitism and other forms of hatred.”
Thursday’s event took place 15 days after a gunman killed two Israeli Embassy employees — Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim — as they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum.
Police say a man who injured more than a dozen people on June 1 in Boulder, Colo., when he threw Molotov cocktails into a group of demonstrators who were calling for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages was yelling “Free Palestine.” The Associated Press notes that authorities said the man who has been charged in connection with the attack spent more than a year planning it.
Congress
Sen. Schiff proposes resolution urging DOD not to rename U.S. Naval Ship Harvey Milk
Pentagon reportedly plans to change the name of ship named for gay rights icon

U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Thursday introduced a resolution urging the U.S. Department of Defense not to rename ships that bear the names of civil rights leaders like gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk.
The move comes just after reports on Tuesday that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered U.S. Navy Secretary John Phelan to rename the U.S. Naval Ship Harvey Milk, with an announcement deliberately planned for Pride month on June 14.
The vessel, a replenishment oiler, is part of the John Lewis class fleet. The Pentagon is also considering renaming other ships in the fleet including the USNS Thurgood Marshall, USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and USNS Harriet Tubman, according to CBS News.
“By naming these ships,” Schiff wrote in his resolution, “the United States Navy has appropriately celebrated notable civil rights leaders and their legacy in promoting a more equal and just United States.”
Milk was assassinated in 1978 while serving on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Prior to his election to the Senate last year, Schiff represented California districts in the U.S. House since 2001.
Part one of his resolution “strongly supports the naming of John Lewis-class fleet replacement oilers after the aforementioned civil rights leaders as a fitting tribute to honor their contributions to the advancement of civil rights,” while part two “strongly encourages the Department of Defense not to take any action to change the names.”
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