(sources: CNN, Trevor Project , Freedom for all Americans)

At the beginning of the legislative session , state lawmakers across the country have proposed  bills intended to boost local economies, constrain or expand spending or make much-needed infrastructure fixes.

But mixed in among the standard bureaucratic business are bills that take aim at LGBTQ+ residents of states — bills that attempt to limit or dismantle their protections.

Just weeks into 2021, lawmakers in at least 14 states have proposed a slew of bills that would restrict the freedoms of LGBTQ residents. Most of the bills would affect transgender young people, according to Freedom For All Americans, the LGBTQ advocacy group that tracks the proposals.

In Alabama, lawmakers proposed a bill that would ban physicians from prescribing medication to trans children that would affirm their gender. In Oklahoma, a proposed bill would lift a ban on conversion therapy and other practices that aim to suppress a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity. And in Montana, lawmakers in the state House have already passed bills that restrict trans minors’ access to health care and even school sports.

“Most of the bills won’t ever pass. But even introducing the legislation is damaging to LGBTQ people, especially youths”, said Christy Mallory, legal director of UCLA Law’s Williams Institute, a research center that centers on gender identity and sexual orientation law.

“Even just the campaigns around the bills can be really stigmatizing and hurt kids, even if the bills don’t ultimately pass,” she said. “Just the fact that knowing that lawmakers are introducing these bills, people are seeing it and reading it, can signal to kids that maybe they’re not supported by their states, that their government is not behind them.”

Transgender young people in particular are already at a higher risk of physical and sexual violence and suicidal thoughts than their cisgender peers, according to the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention resource for LGBTQ youth. In this way, limiting trans young people’s rights by law and erasing their gender identities can be incredibly harmful, Mallory said.

Despite the regression these laws or bills add to the world, the LGBTQ community continues to fight to be heard.

“This is reinstating a position that the previous commanders and, as well as the secretaries, have supported.What I’m doing is enabling all qualified Americans to serve their country in uniform.”

  President Joe Biden stated as he signed the executive order repealing the 2019 Trump-era ban on transgender Americans joining the military on January 25, 2021.

States where anti-LGBTQ bills have been proposed, 2021

Alabama,Indiana,Iowa,Kentucky,Mississippi,Missouri,Montana,New Hampshire,North Dakota ,South Carolina Tennessee,Texas,Virginia, and Utah.